Nicholas Matsuzei, European Vice President of Sustainability, explores how the European supply chain sector is working together to address current constraints and crowds.
With European supply chains running hot for years, it’s no surprise that some people would consider glass half empty. Energy instability and climate change have been tested to the limits of all capabilities, with several names. Still, surprisingly, today’s true story is resilience and collaboration.
Throughout Europe, freight owners, logistics providers and port authorities continue to flow trade by sharing data and combining digital tools with ground improvements. While there is no doubt that the photos will vary from market to market, the typical thread we see is a more practical collaboration than panic or speed at any cost.
Visibility is a valuable currency
Let’s start with transparency. A few years ago, “Tracks and Traces” meant knowing the last handoff point of a container. Today, shippers expect to see where the goods are, what temperature or condition they are in, and how much delays are possible, whether it is on roads, rail, rivers or seas. Technology is constantly improving, but the more important changes are cultural. Competitors are willing to share selected data, and if possible, ports and carriers coordinate physical and digital assets, so everyone sees the same “single version of truth.”
Innovations in the Terminal Operating System (TOS) allow you to create digital replicas of yards and keys, allowing you to identify bottlenecks before they arise, allowing partners to work together in planning rather than working on silos. Initiatives that standardize data models across equipment and processes, such as the TIC 4.0 program aimed at driving digital transformation and standardization in the freight processing industry, accelerate that shift by creating a common “language.”
This transparency has useful side effects. Reduce waste. If the barge is behind the Rhine, a railway replacement can be triggered previously. If cold chain commission is idling, an alert will prompt you to change the gate or lane to protect the temperature. All of these tweaks increase, so even moderate efficiency increases can reduce carbon on a large scale.
Regulations are accelerating this travel direction. The EU’s Corporate Sustainability Report Directive (CSRD) brings more companies to the scope of audited sustainability disclosures, including value chain emissions. The first wave reports data for 2024 in 2025, followed by more waves. In parallel, EFTI regulations are gradually progressing to digitally freight information between modes. Member state authorities must accept electronic cargo data as part of their regulatory developments and are moving forward with paperless cargo adoption across the EU. Together, these measures raise the bar based on accurate and shareable information and reward people who invest in interoperable systems as well as standalone tools.
Collaboration that can be seen on the ground
Collaboration is also physical. One response to repeated crowding was to diversify transport modes and routes. It shifts more inland volumes to the railways and rivers where the network exists, and builds its functionality where it does not. In Northern and Western Europe, with dense waterways and rail corridors, operators operate regular services that expand Trimodal’s inland terminals and link Seaports to production areas. For example, the facilities at DP World in Stuttgart and Mannheim on the Rhine River are currently linked to roads, rails and barges, giving shippers more options in the case of a single corridor bottleneck.
You can see the same logic in Eastern Europe. Recent investments have reduced friction at multiple points in the supply chain. This allows you to see deep sea access to attract services, quick scans of compliance, and roll-on/roll-off (RO-RO) capacity to streamline vehicle flow. For example, in Romania, the new assets at the Port of Constanța include a Ro-Ro terminal and a dedicated project/general cargo facility, complemented by AIUD’s interland modal hub. The program is designed to create a reliable alternative to long road legs with upgrades such as high-throughput scanners and additional yard capacity, lifting overall flow and smooth handoffs between modes.
This will not work without disciplined operational alignment. The most effective collaborations are refreshingly concrete. The train is not idling as it uses synchronous gate times between the terminal and the railway operator. A general reservation system, therefore the carrier is not double booked. The rare river slots are used to share sharing rules for barge integration. They may not be flashy, but they have free capacity in places where it matters, making alternative shipping choices that are viable for more shippers.
It’s also worth being honest about what collaboration is. It’s not the perfect “control tower” to see everything in real time and pilot it, and it’s not a silver bullet for crowds. This is a set of target agreements, including windows, data fields, handoffs, and incentives, which helps the network to lessen drama and absorb shocks as sustainably as possible. As a result, the sector’s language is slowly changing from “faster” to “stable.” Reliability is what protects your production line from downtime, or stocks supermarket shelves when the weather closes the waterway.
What to expect next
The next phase includes scaling and proofing. As CSRD raises expectations about audited value-added data and EFTI accelerates digital documents, the sector needs to not only assert and demonstrate how products are transported and emitted, but also asserts and demonstrates. In anticipation of more co-pilots between ports, railroads, virge operators and high-tech companies, we measure corridor-level performance (not just site-level metrics) and expose service levels that make customer choices more clear.
You will also see more “network thinking”. Instead of adding capacity alone, the investments are sequenced and unlock options throughout the hallway. That’s the thread running the example above. When assets and data standards are designed to complement each other, the entire corridor behaves more like a system than a series of parts.
There are restrictions and always. Climate events can last and the energy market can become volatile. It is also unclear how certain protectionist policies will be developed. Therefore, there are days when some interference is stacked and the operator feels a fever.
However, recent European experiences provide clear lessons. When pressure rises, the winning move rarely does it on its own. It involves sharing enough data to build trust, creating enough transportation options to spread risk, reducing carbon emissions, and adjusting enough processes for partners to adjust their plans. It will not be a headline, but will arrive shipping.
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