FENIX is a four-year EU co-funded project launched in 2019 that involved as many as 45 beneficiaries including large logistics companies, ministries, research institutes and universities. The project continues the path of AEOLIX, concluded in 2019, a study that set the foundations for building a European technological system for the intercommunication of digital logistics.
Crosstec, the technology company and subsidiary of CIM SpA, participated on behalf of the Hupac Group, with the support of Hupac's IT department. Massimo Arnese, CEO of Crosstec, answers a few questions.
What is the aim of FENIX?
FENIX will develop Europe's first federated data sharing architecture for the intermodal logistics community in order to offer interoperability between existing and future individual platforms and provide immediately usable services to all players.
What was the role of Crosstec?
Crosstec entered the project in 2020 at the request of the Italian Ministry of Transport conveyed through the Piedmont Region to take charge of the project segment concerning intermodal transport on the Italian part of the TEN-T Rhine-Alpes corridor up to the Port of Genoa. We were thus included together with Circle, Tarros, Gruppo Messina, Port Authority and LSSRailway in Pilot IT2 GENOVA, in the activity 4.3 Synchromodality. In addition to the Italian pilot, FENIX envisages 10 other pilot sites where the technologies developed by the project can be field-tested.
What exactly did you do?
In 2021, we developed the first connector, a technological tool linking Hupac's WOLF platform with the Port of Genoa's MILOS platform. The connector made it possible to expose services usable by other platforms (ETA, Train Arrival, ITU Delivery, etc.). The same technology was also used to connect other platforms, such as DIH, a platform developed by T-System. Through the collaboration with TX Logistic and PTV, Crosstec became an active participant in one of the Cross Pilots required by the European Commission for interoperability tests between the EU-countries. During 2022, the connectors went into production and were tested at the Novara terminal and other European hubs where they still operate today.
What is a connector?
Connectors are applications that meet European interoperability and data sharing standards. They were designed and developed by FENIX to support the principles of the DTLF (Digital Transport Logistic Forum) and to provide a recognisable tool at European level by which to connect one's own platform with others. The connector consists of three elements: IDM to recognise those requesting access to the services, CATALOG where the services made available by the individual platforms are contained, and DATA EXCHANGE, where the data is encapsulated in the FENIX standard and sent to the requestors. In short, we think of FENIX as a postman, or in today's terms as a telematic rider.
Briefly, FENIX allows different IT platforms to interact in the field of logistics, correct?
Of course, FENIX is as close as it gets to the so-called SYSTEM. In this word there is a world, a single word that in concrete terms FENIX translates as INTEROPERABILITY. Today we can make two platforms interact, but this takes a long time and companies often have to change their programmes and interfaces. FENIX encapsulates this information, turns it into services and makes it available to all those who join the federation. Today, there are 25 federated platforms. Not bad!
What are the next steps?
First of all we will close the project, whose official end date will be 31.03.2023. And I would like to thank Aldo Croci for his support and Davide Vanoni for the development activities masterfully conducted with the Circle and T-System teams. Subsequently, the companies involved in the project intend to join forces, creating a consortium called FENIX 2.0. The consortium, of which Crosstec will be a member, will be made up of the most renowned companies in the logistics and technology sectors. The purpose of the association will be to continue to implement the technologies and the federated network of FENIX, and at the same time to take on board the new requirements of the EU which is drawing up the new regulations for the management of data flows in logistics under the acronym EFTi.
Contact
Massimo Arnese
Amministratore Delegato
Mob. +39 3293298746
massimo.arnese@crosstec.it | 
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