Riding The Rails—“One Belt One Road – chances & challenges of the new silk road project in the Eurasian region” jumpstarts sessions at Logitrans Wednesday October 15.

     This week digitalization on rail got a once over, even though the big Logitrans Istanbul Expo is being conducted through today at Ataturk International Airport.
      Mirko Schneider is Sales Director of Arviem AG, which was founded in 2008 with headquarters in Baar, Switzerland.
      Arviem is a newbie cloud-based software company driving the conversation at Logitrans. A panel of rail executives from Turkey, Kazakhstan, Austria, and Georgia accompanied Mr. Schneider.

      Mr. Schneider stresses the need for enhanced, real-time communication across a shipping lane of unique common interest to rail, now known as “The New Silk Road to China.”
      Arviem just launched (October 3) a container monitoring and tracking service developed to pinpoint the location and condition of rail freight shipments along the New Silk Road.
      “Transporting high-value cargo across Central Asia by train exposes supply chains to many risks,” Mr. Schneider noted.
      “There are severe temperature variations along the route as the train passes through the warm climate of China to the super freezing environment of Russia.
      “Additionally, cargo is increasingly becoming a target of violence.
      “Implementing cargo tracking and monitoring solutions is crucial to mitigate the risk of cargo theft, extortion, hijacking, and smuggling—risks that are often faced by shippers of high-value cargo.”
      As shipping via the Silk Road train is faster than marine transport and significantly cheaper than air transport, this logistics option appeals especially to customers who are shipping time-sensitive goods or high-value cargo.
      “Even though the New Silk Road is still under development, many shippers are already taking advantage of the new global logistics options offered by the extensively developed rail infrastructure and the steadily growing number of China-Europe express trains,” Mr. Schneider said.