Overview

HubHarmony is a European research project (July 2016 – June 2018) pursued by Austrian, Belgian and Polish partners aiming to develop a better understanding of sustainable transportation systems, through development of harmonization benchmark for multimodal hubs. It seeks to analyse hub processes and get synergies from the global hub network. These goals are achieved by the development of a harmonization benchmark for inland multimodal hubs. Moreover, the analysis of the impact of future value added services on the local economy and on the development of inland multimodal hubs will be provided. The project work encompasses dry ports, inland terminals and fright centres. The HubHarmony project develops a harmonization benchmark - a scoring system, which enables an evaluation of the harmonization level of operational procedures and the service offer at inland multimodal hubs. Operational procedures include hub technologies, business processes as well as administrative aspects and services include both, current services and potential future services. The project does not address the performance of single hubs, but an evaluation of their level of harmonization. Making the harmonisation benchmark available will allow to indicate how sustainable each hub type performs and to investigate the synergies for the overall hub network. The harmonization benchmark will enable hub operators to plan the development of hubs and strengthen its corporate identity. Moreover, it will enable logistics network operators to monitor the progress of harmonization and to collect valuable data for future policy actions. HubHarmony will give insights into future dynamics and will indicate upcoming needs of transport systems with a focus on interoperability and harmonization of inland multimodal hubs.