The Ministry of Transport is experimenting with digital design of multimodal transportation

The Ministry of Transport proposes, as part of the creation of the National Digital Transport and Logistics Platform (NDTLP), to conduct an annual pilot project from May 1 on the transition to electronic document management for cargo transportation by all modes of transport. The main objective of the experiment is to test priority prototypes of subsystems and services of NCTLP, which should ensure seamless cargo logistics. In fact, its result should be multimodal transportation, completely processed electronically, which is also necessary in connection with the reorientation of foreign trade of the Russian Federation to the countries of the East.

The Ministry of Transport has prepared a draft government decree on conducting an experiment on the transition to electronic document management for cargo transportation by road, sea, river, rail, and air transport using a prototype of the NCTLP information system. The document is posted on the portal regulation.gov.ru. As noted in the explanatory note to it, the main objective of the experiment, which will take place from May 1, 2024 to May 1, 2025, is to test the first-priority prototypes of the first-stage NCTLP subsystems and services. It is expected that the participants in the pilot will be the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Eastern Development, the Ministry of Economy, the Federal Customs Service, the Federal Tax Service, the FSB, Rosselkhoznadzor and Rospotrebnadzor, as well as Russian Railways and the Russian Export Center. Participation of shippers, cargo carriers and electronic document management operators in the project will be voluntary.

As the Ministry of Transport previously indicated in the procurement documentation for conducting scientific research on the creation of NCTLP, the platform should provide new approaches to logistics services. The need for them is due to the severance of most transport and logistics supply chains with European countries, as well as a significant reorientation of foreign trade to the countries of Southeast and Central Asia. It is expected that the system (its creation is provided for by the transport strategy until 2030, approved by the government in November 2021) will solve, among other things, problems such as the lack of electronic exchange of transport documents and permits with the BRICS, SCO, ASEAN countries, and will also ensure the unification of transport documents (both list and content).

According to Polina Davydova, director of the Digital Transport and Logistics Association, the introduction of electronic document management on all types of transport is a necessary condition for creating a platform designed to unite digital logistics services and become a kind of “one-stop-shop” service for interaction between the state and carriers. “As part of the experiment, it is planned to test several routes for export, import, transit and domestic cargo transportation,” she says. The goal is to test several multimodal routes, see the bottlenecks where today there is no exchange of documents in electronic form both between business participants and with federal executive authorities, understand the reasons for breaking the chains and select mechanisms for solving this problem, notes Ms. Davydova. In fact, the result of the pilot should be the first fully electronic registration of multimodal transport, she summarizes. According to a Kommersant source in the transport market, NCTLP is being created, among other things, to integrate the Russian transport system with similar systems in China and India, which already have analogues of such systems.

The Ministry of Transport also noted that currently there is no single verified and up-to-date database of transport and logistics infrastructure facilities and their capabilities – at least Russian, at maximum EAEU. However, a further increase in cargo flow will require not only the construction of infrastructure, but also the removal of “soft” barriers – restrictions at customs and disagreements in country regulation of foreign trade flows (see Kommersant, June 13, 2023).

Venera Petrova