The issue of moving freight around Europe in a resource-efficient way has preoccupied researchers for years. The challenge is to develop integrated systems that are both cost and time effective, and with a limited impact on the environment. It’s a challenge that the MIT project has partially overcome.

The Metrocargo loading technology is “reliable, competitive and comparable in delivery time to the road”, according to project coordinator Renzo Ferraris of Italian engineering company ILog. “Handling time is approximately three minutes for each unit load, while the unloading of a freight train takes less than 40 minutes. The commercial potential as a system capable of transporting single containers to any destination in an area using rail for the longer legs, at a cost lower than road transport, is enormous.”

A need to increase the share of rail transport of unitised freight (containers and swap bodies) to reduce the burden on motorways, has long been knon, says Ferraris “The share of rail transport varies from country to country but is always well below 10%.”

A big problem lies in the way that freight is loaded onto trains.

Moving forward

Currently, cargo transported by rail can only be taken point-to-point, meaning that the trains don’t make any intermediate unloading stops between the point of departure and their ultimate destination. As a result, cargo destined for a location en route to the train’s terminus point needs to be transported by road, duplicating parts of the original journey, which is both inefficient and costly.

The reason for this is the way shipment containers are loaded and unloaded. Because rail wagons are unloaded vertically by cranes, this limits where they can be emptied due to the presence of overhead electric cables, or catenaries. Trains have to be shunted to marshalling yards using diesel locos before being shunted back onto regular rail lines.  

But researchers have developed a way to get around this problem, opening the way for an improved system of rail freight transportation in Europe.

Known as Metrocargo Intermodal Transport, or MIT, freight can be loaded onto trains horizontally, circumventing the overhead lines. The system can be built alongside existing track.

The idea for MIT was first conceived in 2004 by ILog. A full-scale prototype of the system was designed and constructed in 2009 in collaboration with international universities and research institutes. Two years later, with EU support, the critical issues of precision fitting of containers, scanning train composition and detecting human presence for safety were solved. But the system still needed to be “put together” and partly re-engineered to make it market-ready.

The fully automated Metrocargo system, capable of loading and unloading containers and swap bodies of any size on standard wagons, without any modification either to load units or to rolling materials, is now ready for market.

“Typical customers are large shippers, especially in the retail market, and freight forwarders,” says Ferraris

The Port Authority of Savona in Italy and PM Terminals of the Maersk Group is the first to select Metrocargo to equip a multipurpose rail terminal in Vado Ligure. The system will handle 40% of all unit loads arriving and departing from the Maersk Terminal.

Metrocargo equipment installed in Vado Ligure (Savona, North Western Italy).