27 February 2026

Plenary meeting
BRIDGE's initial milestones and current activities

On 27 February 2026, all partners of the BRIDGE project got together to discuss progress on the project's initial milestones and ongoing activities.

This was the first time that all partners had gathered to discuss the project in its entirety since its kick-off in October 2025. We began with an initial presentation on project management and administrative obligations, such as the Grant and Consortium Agreements, to ensure full alignment between all partners regarding the project's structure and obligations.

Communication & Dissemination

As communication lead, Codognotto then gave an overview of the communication progress, with the first deliverable D1.2. Communication & Dissemination plan, which establishes the foundations for all project-wide communication and dissemination activities:

• Objectives and strategic approach
  
• Key communication channels
• Governance structure
• Editorial calendar
• KPI framework

It was also an opportunity to present the BRIDGE website, which serves as the central hub for all project communication, and Newsletter #1, which was published in February. This inaugural edition of the BRIDGE newsletter signifies the official commencement of the editorial strategy, contributing to the achievement of the KPI of publishing a minimum of six newsletters over the project's 36-month duration.

Working Package 2

We then gave a presentation on the progress of the BRIDGE studies under Working Package 2. The objectives of this package are to review advancements, challenges and practices in data sharing and collaboration, as well as to conduct process and gap analyses and make initial recommendations.

The presentation began with insights into the initial results of our quantitative and qualitative data collection and interpretation through the various WP2.1 activities. Firstly, we launched a sector-wide survey to collect insights from stakeholders across the intermodal chain regarding their current practices, the challenges they face in sharing data, and their vision for future requirements to improve data sharing in door-to-door intermodal freight. To complement this, we have organised in-depth workshops with certain stakeholder groups to discuss more technical details.

We also addressed the ongoing process analysis, presenting the preliminary results of the as-is data exchange per partner and stakeholder category, and providing an initial overview of the interfaces between roles. These initial observations provided an opportunity to present open questions and encourage partners to share their views.

Working package 3

Finally, we introduced the initial discussions regarding the demonstartors of the projects: The data sharing demonstration clusters

T3.1 - Horizontal activities: E2E message exchange
T3.2 - Vertical activities: Terminal digitalisation, operational efficiency & capacity enablement
T3.3 - Data exchange format interoperability & reference files

To introduce this work, we discussed the organisation of each cluster, which will be coordinated by either UIRR, UIRR (Consilis) or Marlo. All partners take part in at least one cluster, which has been assigned based on discussions at the kick-off meeting and bilateral calls. The initial work conducted for WP3 involved designing a unique demonstrator template and pre-filling it with the information gathered so far. Participants are now expected to contribute to the development of the cluster demonstration profile and organise a cluster meeting in March 2026 to discuss the content of the demonstrator profile. of the coordinator.

This meeting provided a valuable opportunity to engage with all partners, discuss the project's initial direction and gather their views and recommendations from the first five months, as well as discuss upcoming actions and milestones.