The third users advisory board meeting was held on Wednesday 9^th December. Due to Covid-19 restrictions this was held as a webinar. 19 people from a range of backgrounds, including the FMCG and automotive sectors, plus academics, researchers and representatives of other EU projects, joined a number of consortium partners to hear presentations on the current status of the LOGISTAR project.

The session started with an overview of the project as a refresher to those who had previously been to these meetings, and as an introduction for those new attendees. This was followed by a summary of the outcomes from a strategic analysis involving 15 companies who provided detailed movement data. The analysis identified some significant potential savings from several collaborative opportunities. A presentation about different business models followed with the aim being to find those most suitable for LOGISTAR. The third presentation described how the system was being set up in the cloud and the user interfaces being developed for the different living labs. A selection of planning and real time monitoring dashboards was shown. Finally, each of the stakeholder partners presented their contribution to the living labs. Although competitors, Nestle and Pladis have been collaborating parts of their transport operation since 2009, and are looking for the LOGISTAR system to provide additional backhauling and co-loading opportunities. Codognotto and Zailog, in their living lab, are looking to optimise the real time flow of full loads through synchromodality. There are two options for the third living lab. The first is CHEP who wishes to reduce waiting times at loading and unloading locations through live vehicle tracking and reliable predictions of estimated time of arrival. The second is Ahlers who is providing data to thoroughly test the system virtually.

This was a very full two-hour session and judging by the responses was really appreciated by the 19 users advisory board members.