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Over the past five years, electronic commerce between railway companies and their
customers (B to C) has seen substantial growth, on a par with its economic significance for
the development of corporate image and marketing strategies.
It is a fact that most railways now have their own websites offering a wide range of services
to customers, including on-line reservations and secure payments. Some companies are also
looking to use this new distribution channel to boost their market share by extending their
range of services, with the creation of "travel portals", veritable one-stop shops offering a
combination of services associated with train travel (car hire, hotel accommodation, tourism,
etc.).
In the freight sector, the services available range from information on consignment
forwarding times to real-time tracking and tracing of wagons or containers on the network.
However, at a time when all the experts agree that there will, in the longer term, be greater
value to be secured through electronic commerce between businesses (B to B), rail transport
operators, industry and infrastructure managers have tended to hold back to a much greater
degree in this sector until now, whether rightly or wrongly.
Having said that, there are already several examples of companies that have initiated
electronic exchanges with their main suppliers.
For some two or three years now, most of the other major branches of industry (automobile,
air, distribution, finance, manufacturing, travel, etc.) have been conducting trials on and, in
some cases, implemented new types of relationship between buyers and sellers. This has
become possible thanks to new Internet applications, including portal sites (sales),
procurement software, reversed auctions and virtual marketplaces.
Of the host of marketplaces already in place or in the throes of development across the
world (there were over 4000 of them in December 2000), only a very small number (most of
them based in the US) have rail sector involvement.
By drawing on the experience of these "pioneers", the time has now come to decide what is
the best strategy for the railway community as a whole and to begin the search for the
partnerships and synergies that offer the best chances of success.
The International Union of Railways (UIC), today boasting 152 members from the five
continents, recognised the new challenge implicit in the implementation of these new
technologies for the rail transport market and in October 1997 created an "Internet Club" to
encourage cooperation in this field amongst railways throughout the world.
Currently chaired by Pierre Monneret (SNCF – France) and Mohamed Bhanji (VIA Rail – Canada), the Club is designed as a forum for UIC member railways to exchange experience around the use of Internet and all associated I-NET technologies (Internet, Intranet, e-mail, groupware, workflow, electronic commerce, etc.).
This year, as a new departure, the Forum will be organised in partnership with UNIFE (the European Union of Railway Industries) whose members represent 60% of the world production of railway equipment. This alliance between operators and industry is a good illustration of the new emphasis on collaborative approaches to the Internet.
The Club's four previous meetings, staged annually since 1997, proved resounding successes among member railways. The 2000 conference was attended by over 160 participants representing 58 different companies (including 44 railways) from 27 countries in 5 continents. For the very first time, this forum was sponsored by a number of the railways' partner firms (Sabre, TLC, Innovata, Sysrail) who recognised the unique opportunity offered by the event to showcase their know-how, products and services at international level to a host of leading figures from the international railway community.
On 11 and 12 October 2001, the UIC is staging the fifth Internet Club Annual Forum to provide a further opportunity for discussion of the issues connected with the use of these new technologies.
This year's session will be organised in four main parts:
• Day one will see papers given in plenary session by speakers from outside UIC reporting on the state of the art in Europe and around the world on subjects such as:
- e-Procurement tools and marketplaces
- state of the art, general experience
- key architecture components: EAI, XML
- presentation of examples of different types of marketplace: vertical (automobile, etc.) or generalist (for purchase of non-strategic goods and services)
- presentation of one or two railway marketplaces from the US
- strategy to be adopted for Europe's railways (summary of research already conducted, considerations of the UNIFE "Electronic Commerce" group) etc.
• Day two is set aside for exchanges of experience, with presentations from:
- representatives from the Passenger, Freight or Procurement divisions of railway operating companies or from infrastructure managers on topics such as:
• railway portals, distribution solutions at international level,
• lessons to be learnt from pilot projects in the field of e-Procurement,
• the Internet/Intranet applications needed to manage flows between railway undertakings and infrastructure managers, etc.
- UIC representatives will outline the progress made on international IT projects involving the use of the Internet (Electronic Commerce project, secure data interchange, strategy for the use of XML, report on the activities of the Internet Club working groups, etc.)
• A show room will be in place throughout the two-day conference for UIC member railways to present a selection of their Internet/Intranet applications,
• An exhibition area for the firms sponsoring the event to present their activities.
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