EN.I.R.I.S.S.T Road Freight Transport Service: An Impact Oriented Policy Advice Tool

Road freight is the most dominant means for transporting goods in Greece. According to ELSTAT (2021) the total weight of goods carried by road freight vehicles covers 81.0% of the total market share, leaving shipping in the second position with 18.5%, and rail and air freight transport with 0.5%. This stems primarily from trucks’ ability to cover short distances between major cities, and other characteristics such as flexibility and the Greek geomorphology. In this direction, the aim of this study is to demonstrate the service of Road Freight Transport (RFT), as part of the EN.I.R.I.S.S.T (Intelligent Research Infrastructure for Shipping, Supply Chain, Transport and Logistics) Inland and Intermodal Freight Platform. The demonstration of the RFT service includes the (i) organization and processing of the database, (ii) descriptive data analysis per commodity type, NUTS 3 area, etc., (iii) development of a demand forecasting model based on time series and causal forecasting, (iv) indices’ generation and visualization of the results through interactive maps. The available dataset regards data from the period 2011–2019, however, a direct connection with ELSTAT database through an API is expected for integrating every year’s new data. Data analysis produced interesting results, which can be exploited by various stakeholders, i.e. Researchers, Start-ups, SMEs, Large companies and Public Authorities, facilitating innovation and knowledge sharing, while contributing in the creation of sustainable green supply chains.