electronic Freight Transport Information (eFTI)

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Description

The platform consists of two (2) sub-platforms: 1) the information/awareness platform (https://www.efti.gr) and 2) the educational platform (https://learning.efti.gr). Both have been designed based on the project specifications in order to enable effective information and education of stakeholders and will be modified based on the needs identified after a sample collection of feedback, as indicated by the most common Agile Methodologies.

Figure 1: Platform Home Page

Figure 2: Introduction page to the eFTI Regulation

Figure 3: The training platform

Solution category

Software

Description

The information and education platform is an important tool for gathering material that aims to accompany the new regulation on eFTI in the stages of its adoption by public, governmental and private actors. The aim is to provide full information and training on the new regulation at legislative, administrative and technical level. It has therefore been divided into several sections to make this easy, and the content has been posted in the relevant section.

The information platform is accessible to everyone that uses a modern internet browser and is available in 2 languages: English and Greek.

On the other hand, the training platform aims to provide easy and interactive access to content related to the administrative and technical training of organisations and institutions with a focus on the new electronic Consignment Record (eCMR) as defined in the eFTI Regulation. Therefore, text, images and/or videos are used to understand the content. At the end (or even before) of each teaching module, assessments are given in the form of an interactive quiz of multiple choice questions to check the user's knowledge and understanding.

The platform is accessed via the internet, using a simple browser and the user can easily and quickly navigate through all the content. The visual design of the platform has been carried out with usability and accessibility in mind, having received sample feedback from end users of the platform. In order to ensure that people with disabilities have access to all the services offered and the content of the platform, the construction of the platform is in full compliance with international accessibility standards and in particular the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2. 0 at level AA (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines - WCAG 2.0 level AA). In addition, the material presented through mobile devices follows the W3C Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0 standard (www.w3.org/TR/mobile-bp) in order to be accessible to people with disabilities. The platform supports access with all types of devices (Mobile, Tablet, Desktop PC), making use of responsive web design techniques. In this way, the platform is fully accessible and functional from the largest percentage of available devices. Through this, multi-channel capability is achieved.

Economic sectors

Transportation

Architecture - Hosting - Solutions adopted

The architecture of the platform has been designed based on modern practices of implementing information portals as well as learning platforms.

The platform consists of the following distinct points:

Content display system (Front-End)
Content Management System – CMS
Learning Management System – LMS
User Management System
Database
Hosting
System of protection against attacks (Distributed Denial of Service - DDoS) and response optimization through Caching.

By separating the platform into the above distinct points, easier adaptation to the final requirements of the project is achieved.

Platform Deployment Tools

The tools and software that have been used for the implementation of the platform are presented in the table below.

System	Tool/software
Operating System	Ubuntu Linux
CMS	WordPress CMS
LMS	Moodle
Server	Nginx HTTP Web Server

Database system	MySQL 8.0
Interoperability	Web Services - REST API
Caching and DDoS	CloudFlare

The WordPress Content Management System (CMS) provides the ability to easily manage the information. It is possible to add, delete, verbally and visually modify the content in a way that is simple to understand for users with non-technical knowledge and skills, using a compatible Web Browser. The implementation has been carried out with WordPress version 6.

The NGINX application server is used as the web server. NGINX has been installed on the open source Linux operating system (specifically, the Ubuntu Server 22.04 Linux Distribution).

Platform data is stored in the relational database MySQL, which is the most widely used (worldwide) open source database.

CMS

WordPress CMS is a free and open source software for easy development of web applications and platforms. It incorporates elements such as a user-friendly “What You See is What You Get” (WYSIWYG) editor that allows easy and quick updating of website content. It supports easy posting of announcements and static pages and replaces the need to use HTML, CSS and JavaScript code.

Visual Content Design

Elementor is an add-on that has been used as a visual creation tool. Elementor is one of the most widespread visual management add-ons for websites of all sizes where, in a quick and simple way, it allows the page administrator to manage the visual structure and consistency of static pages.

Web Application Server

The NGINX web application server is one of the most used web servers. Through the available additional modules, it can be adapted to the needs of each application.

The PHP code (that is used for both WordPress and Moodle) is executed through the PHP FPM Module, which is a separate process (Daemon) that runs in the background. The code is forwarded for execution to the Daemon, and after that the Server Side Rendered HTML code is returned. PHP FPM supports parallel users’ service by assigning the request to a separate "Worker Thread", per request.

The platforms are available through a configuration file known as a Virtual Host (VHost). After identifying the address of the request, the code is forwarded to the PHP FPM Module, as mentioned above, where it is executed. If no PHP processing is required (in the case of JavaScript, CSS, plain HTML files, images), the file is served directly.

Database Management System

MySQL is the most widely used open source relational database management system, which can handle small and large workloads with multiple connected users. MySQL offers an easy and secure user interface that is designed to execute queries faster, and is characterized by its efficient management to avoid memory leaks. MySQL is supported on all known operating systems such as Windows, macOS and Linux.

Interoperability

The system may support connection with third party systems in the future, since, the platform uses Web Services, based on Representation State Transfer (REST API) architecture. Through the above web services, data exchange in JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) format is supported./p>

Caching and DDoS

In order to protect the platforms from malicious Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, CloudFlare (https://cloudflare.org/) is used as a Domain Name System Server (DNS Server). Cloudflare, through a specially designed Proxy Server, uses machine learning, request recognition and other technologies to identify malicious attacks and prevent them.

In this way, the actual IP address of the server is never exposed and therefore all requests (HTTP Requests) must pass through CloudFlare's Proxy Server, where the request is checked and, if necessary, the attack prevention pipeline is activated.

Moreover, static platform elements (HTML, CSS, JS files) are cached and served through CloudFlare's Content Distribution Network (CDN) in order to speed up and reduce unnecessary load on the server.

Innovation

Freight transport in the European Union (EU) involves a large amount of information being exchanged between stakeholders in both the private and public sectors. Today, in multimodal and cross-border transport in the EU, 99% of this information is printed on standardised documents. Digital information exchange has the potential to significantly improve the efficiency of transportation, while at the same time it is expected to deliver significant environmental benefits. However, there is a low level of adoption of digital solutions. This is largely due to the fragmented Information Technology (IT) environment characterised by numerous non-interoperable systems and solutions for the electronic exchange of transport information and documents. To promote electronic transactions, the European Commission has proposed a regulation on Electronic Freight Transport Information. The central objective is to make the platforms (that will serve the flow and share of Electronic Freight Transport Information) comply with specific functional requirements, leading to increased confidence of public and economic operators regarding their use.

The implementation of work package D.B1.2 comes to fill a gap, that of retrieving information regarding eFTI. On the website developed, interested parties (freight forwarders and logistics service providers, carriers, customs and border protection services, shippers, state agencies, IT providers) can find basic information on the eFTI systems model, published work on the subject, legislative texts, technical reports, data related to the architecture of eFTI systems, etc. In other words, the website is expected to be a focal point for information on issues related to eFTI systems.

At the same time, the training subsystem is expected to provide knowledge and skills to the stakeholders who will attend the modules offered.

Information provision

The aim of the digital portal is to interconnect, communicate, inform and provide information to competent authorities and interested economic operators on the regulatory framework related to the development of eFTI and the interconnection and interoperability specifications that will be adopted by the European Commission. It will define detailed rules and procedures for the exchange, access and processing of information by stakeholders. These elements will be approved by the European Commission and detailed rules and procedures for the exchange, access and processing of information by the parties involved will be defined. Thus, the European and international standards for the exchange of data and the operational requirements that will apply to the eFTI platforms will be clarified.

The relevant modules include:

General information on the digitisation of freight transport
White Paper on eFTI systems (an information document explaining the changes that the eFTI regulation will bring to the freight market and what it aims to achieve)
Key elements of the eFTI system architecture
Legislative elements (legislative acts adopted or to be adopted concerning eFTI and eCMR)
Related projects
Technical reports and scientific articles on eFTI systems.

E-learning

The e-learning platform is developed using Moodle (https://moodle.org/), the most widely used Learning Management System (LMS) worldwide. Moodle is a free and open source software that aims to make it easy for users to learn about all kinds of technologies and topics through the use of interactive learning. It provides a multitude of features such as posting courses and viewing them by learners, viewing the progress of course completion and recording new skills acquired by completing each course.

In this particular use case, eFTI, Moodle will be used to help stakeholders gain knowledge of the legislative, managerial and technological framework required for eFTI implementation and compliance.

The following courses are already available (in Greek):

Electronic Business Document Exchange - Technologies, Standards and Practices
IT project implementation - Key success factors and management
Digitisation of accompanying documents in international road freight transport.

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Fill out the interest form to gain access to the application. You can also send us your comments or any request for more information.

(After confirming the accuracy of your details, access codes will be sent to the email you have provided us.)

Are you already a registered user?

Fill out the interest form to gain access to the application. You can also send us your comments or any request for more information.

(After confirming the accuracy of your details, access codes will be sent to the email you have provided us.)

Are you already a registered user?

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electronic Freight Transport Information (eFTI)

To be able to use the preventive maintenance model, please complete the interest form.

To be able to use the preventive maintenance model, please complete the interest form.

To be able to use the preventive maintenance model, please complete the interest form.