Road control tower
Centralised information platform for the management of road transport flows
What is a road control tower ?
A road control tower is a centralised platform providing a live view of the road transport flows.
It works on the same principle as a control tower used at an airport to manage the airspace and allocate take-off and landing corridors to planes. With the difference being that its intervention is limited to the road and motorway network.
The geographic scope of a road control tower can vary in size depending on the needs of the principals: limited to national territory, or extended to an economic area such as the European Union, even internationally.
There are various types of road control towers within the distribution chain. Therefore, a road control tower may be:
- specifically dedicated to the transport of goods, for road transport only or for the management of all multimodal transport operations ;
- used to coordinate customs operations at the borders for international transit ;
- or more broadly to ensure the end-to-end management of flows.
These different solutions may be interconnected to provide manufacturers and distribution professionals with complete visibility of all supply chain operations.
The characteristics of a road control tower
A road control tower centralises data on transport operations carried out via road or motorway from all operators in the upstream or downstream supply chain.
It is based on the pooling of information held by each link in the distribution chain, which requires the consolidation of data which may be of different types and in different formats.
The centralised information may concern transport operations carried out by road, at national, European or international level.
The management of flows facilitated by a road control tower takes place at 3 levels: operational, tactical and strategic.
Examples and application
By providing a 360-degree view of all transport operations, a road control tower can:
- manage flows of goods optimally (management of transport orders, establishment of planning, shipment tracking) ;
- pool multi-shipper transport plans to achieve productivity gains ;
- inform different operators in the logistics chain of any issues to offer end customers a quality user experience ;
- facilitate decision-making through accurate and real-time information ;
- measure the performance of logistics partners involved in the operational chain ;
- produce monitoring dashboards and operational reports.
The use of a road control tower is particularly strategic for:
- operations related to the transport of dangerous goods which must be tracked accurately ;
- the transport of fresh and pharmaceutical products for which handling conditions at an appropriate temperature must be guaranteed.
It also allows companies committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to:
- accurately track the modes of transport used ;
- measure the CO2 volumes emitted ;
- share modes of transport to reduce their emissions ;
- create operational dashboards and develop new less-polluting measures.
The road control tower in figures
Regulatory framework
- Regulation (EU) 2018/644 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 April 2018 on cross-border package delivery services.
- Guide to sanitary precautions to be met for the delivery of packages.
- Consumer code, articles L-216-1 to L-216-6.
Civil code, article 1610.