The FIATA eFBL Standard Package was developed as part of the United Nations response to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic under the United Nations multiagency project “Transport and Trade Connectivity in the Age of Pandemics: UN solutions for contactless, seamless and collaborative transport and trade”.

Available via FIATA’s GitHub repository, the data standard is offered as open source for all software providers and industry stakeholders to implement. FIATA expects its standard to become the main global standard for all House Bill of Ladings, noting the compatibility with other BLs.

The Hybrid Airship transport alternative has the potential to be a game changing technology with significant development in recent years. The aim of this technical note is to help raise awareness on airships as an innovative mobile services technology. 

This pilot project was initiated in the context of implementing the recommendations of the 2019 and 2020 UNECE “Odessa seminars” to support the development of digital multimodal transport corridors, to increase the harmonization and standardization of data exchange in international transport, trade and logistics, to encourage electronic data exchange and thereby to reduce person-to-person contacts during the COVID-19 crisis and in the post-pandemic recovery, using relevant UN/CEFACT standards.

This included: an analysis of merchandise and information flows along the Black Sea – Baltic Sea corridor as background information for the further development of the project. A set of electronic messages (electronic document equivalents) based on the UN/CEFACT standards and Reference Data Models, using XML and JSON formats, has been developed in collaboration with relevant UN/CEFACT experts and using their guidance on how the UN/CEFACT standards should be applied to develop electronic document-equivalents for CIM/SMGS documents, in particular:

• Packing List;
• SMGS Consignment Note;
• CIM/SMGS Consignment Note (BY);
• CIM/SMGS Wagon List;
• Invoice for Customs (in cooperation with the Ukrainian consultant in the project).

A survey and analysis took place on what was necessary to accomplish for a complete conversion of data between maritime, road and railway transport. The focus was on new standards for generic document equivalents, in order to look into possibilities for their pilot implementation under the United Nations Development Account (UNDA) coronavirus (COVID-19) response project “Transport and Trade Connectivity in the  Age of Pandemics”. The consultant worked in the areas of:

• practical aspects of preparing electronic standards for data exchange and new message structure subsets contextualized to the specific transport modes, using UN/CEFACT standards that would best service digital multimodal corridors and support modern technologies, including XML and JSON;
• development and implementation of a data model for the Black Sea – Baltic Sea digital corridor, combining the data for key documents accompanying goods, as described above, as identified in the project, and based on the UN/CEFACT Multimodal Transport Reference Data Model.

The main objective was to foster the harmonization of electronic data sharing, using global (UN/CEFACT) standards for transport, trade, and logistics, and to prepare templates for electronic document equivalents based on the UN/CEFACT semantic standards and reference data models.

With a view to increase awareness of Government officials and transport operators in Asia and the Pacific region on the ways of addressing some of the key legal implications of COVID-19 for commercial contracts covering transport of goods and to assist shippers and consignees, particularly in developing countries in addressing some of the key commercial law implications of the COVID-19 crisis, the UNESCAP secretariat conducted research and preliminary analysis of the challenges arising from the COVID-19 crisis affecting international commercial contracts, including contracts on international  carriage of goods by various modes of transport, focusing particularly on land and multimodal transport.

Having faced the pandemic, most of ESCAP member States had to urgently issue ad-hoc policies and domestic regulations in attempts to prevent or limit the spread of COVID-19 disease through their borders, often without warning or consulting their counterparts and in breach of the rules of transport-related international legal instruments. This situation showcased that existing legal instruments covering international carriage of goods and passengers may lack provisions on cooperation while dealing with critical situations such as the current crisis or other potential extraordinary situations.

In this context, the UNESCAP secretariat took stock of the current bilateral and multilateral agreements on international road transport in Asia and the Pacific Region, analyzing, in particular, the availability of clauses related to crisis response and mutual assistance in emergency situations in those agreements. of information and may be subsequently updated.