Zailog scarl was created by the idea of Consorzio Zai (the infrastructure manager of Interporto Quadrante Europa of Verona) and Quadrante Servizi (service provider, shunting and terminal operator). The aim of Zailog is to carry out research and development activity to improve the existing freight village services and to find new business models in the logistics sector, in particular in the combined transport. It shares its knowledge with the Italian industry and especially with the companies placed inside the Interporto of Verona area.

The mission of Zailog is made up of three main functions that are integrated each other:

• Zailog is the “operating arm” of the Consorzio Zai so it supports the infrastructure manager on the scheduling activity concerning the construction of logistics buildings. It also helps Consorzio Zai to carry out the guidelines about coordination actions and spatial planning released by the Governing Council;
• it develops intermodal transport services which including the promotion of new opportunities, the intersection between supply and demand, the search of innovative technology solutions to ease the modal shift and to reduce the road traffic;
• it has logistics expertise that allows it to be a “development agent” in the surrounding area. Therefore, it utilizes the territorial marketing tool to promote the use of local infrastructures and to create a strong knowledge of the sector with the aim to disclose the features of the local distribution system.

Zailog develops its mission using three tools:

• the first one is the National and global networking, focusing on the European Union (TEN-T corridors) through the connections with the Corridor coordinators (in particular Scan-Med and Mediterranean corridors) and the active participation to the Corridor Forums. It has relationships with the operators and the infrastructure managers. Therefore, it permits to make institutional arrangements with public entities that are key players in the field of national and international transport, like seaports, intermodal platforms and trade associations. It establishes also closer trade agreements with private bodies that are the protagonists of the international logistics chain and they work together to realize business projects. The role of Zailog is to engage contacts with subjects that are interested to their business activity and to define the technical contents of deals with the supervising of its two partners (Consorzio Zai and Quadrante Servizi);

• the second one is the strategic marketing for Interporto area. Thanks to the Verona system that has also effects on the European Community, the strategic marketing will attract new railway connections and many logistics operators will decide to settle in the area managed by Consorzio Zai. This activity consists of the attendance in events and fairs in which there is the presence of international actors or that take place in countries with high economic growth. The aim is to make the inland terminal of Verona the main base for their future activities in Italy but also to provide the know-how that Zailog owns to sustain their infrastructure initiatives elsewhere in Europe;

• the last one is the research and development with particular reference to the development plan evaluated by the Masterplan of Quadrante Europa. This activity (that will be co-financed through the participation in national and European research projects) will be carried out in steady communication with the president, the Governing Council and the top managements of the two companies (Consorzio Zai and Quadrante Servizi).

The roles of Zailog in the LOGISTAR project are different. Firstly, it is the leader of the communication. Therefore, it has the duty to spread the results of the project both inside the partnership and externally. For this reason, it developed some dissemination tools to make more effective the disclosure of the project outputs. At the beginning of its activity, it has realized the project website where all the people interested can get information about LOGISTAR. Then, it created the leaflet and the roll-up in order to have a physical support for the dissemination of the project in public events like fairs. Currently, it is producing the newsletter that will be useful to give a steady update about the project progress. Moreover, Zailog is involved in one of the three living labs of LOGISTAR. In fact, it can provide the terminal facilities owned by its main shareholder (Consorzio ZAI) to test an ICT system able to track and trace the freight in real time and to make predictions in order to optimize the entire intermodal chain. The living lab foresees the creation of a smart system to make possible a better management of the freight during an intermodal trip (using both the road and the rail transport). Codognotto (that is another project partner) will provide the loading units (mainly trailers) on which put an OBU (On Board Unit) able to provide data about the goods in every moment. With this living lab, it will possible to get information about the freight even when the trailer is travelling on the train outside the national borders. In fact, currently these type of data are not available. Lastly, the information will be collected to make evaluations about the employment of the players’ assets involved in the Living Lab in order to reduce the waste of time and to improve the entire operative system.

The results expected from LOGISTAR will be the creation of an ICT platform able to make predictions in real time in order to manage better the daily logistics activities. It means not only to reduce the costs but also to make important savings in term of CO2 emissions with clear benefits for the environment and for the community.