Driving Digital Transformation in Freight: The Catalyst Role of eFTI and VWT

This shift enhances real-time data sharing and automation, enabling stakeholders to anticipate and mitigate disruptions while optimising operations and minimising environmental impact.

The electronic Freight Transport Information (eFTI) European regulation, set to become effective on 9 July 2027, aims to transform the logistics and transport sector across the European Union (EU) by digitising freight documentation and facilitating the electronic exchange of information. eFTI can be seen as an enabler that obliges authorities to accept digital freight information. Companies can innovate and refine their processes to fully leverage this capability, aligning their operations with sustainability and efficiency objectives.

Alongside this legislative development, the global VWT (virtualwatchtower.org) is a collaborative ecosystem geared towards innovation for improved supply chain and freight management, focussing on primary data sharing across supply chain networks. VWT is powered by TWIN – a digital architecture developed to enable paperless trade. Both initiatives, VWT and TWIN build and support an ecosystem of actors who use the solutions.

VWT has the potential to obtain an eFTI certification, offering a data gateway between economic operators and authorities. Together, eFTI, VWT, TWIN, and other similar logistics information and communication technology (ICT) solutions can converge to a network of federated platforms, improving the interconnected yet still digitally fragmented freight transport industry.

This article outlines the complementary nature of the two initiatives and how the VWT/TWIN can contribute to the further development and implementation of eFTI.

The eFTI Regulation

As of July 2027, transport service providers will be able to use digital transport information across the 27 EU Member States (MS) in end-to-end supply chain processes and when showing compliance of transport to competent enforcement officers. By adopting digital waybills and electronic consignment notes (eCMR), businesses improve transparency, minimise errors, and meet sustainability requirements while enhancing operational efficiency. These solutions align with the CountEmissionsEU Act, helping logistics providers track and optimise carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions.

The EU 2020/1056 eFTI regulation is a milestone development that enables the digitalization of transport and shipment information. It aims to enhance transparency, efficiency, and compliance across the freight sector.

When coming into force, eFTI is not mandatory for economic operators, i.e., natural or legal persons involved in the movement of goods, including manufacturers, importers, exporters, freight forwarders, carriers, customs brokers, logistics providers, and terminal operators. However, this may change in the future. Still, discussions have shown that this may not even be necessary as market realities might push actors to use eFTI, even before the regulation comes into force. By regulation, eFTI platforms and eFTI service providers require an official certification.

An Innovation for Primary Data Gathering

The VWT consists of the VWT community and the digital data management solution VWTnet. VWTnet is built on advanced data gathering and management technologies, like distributed ledger technology (DTL) and artificial intelligence (AI), to improve maritime transport efficiencies and build more resilient and sustainable transport chains. At the beginning of 2025, the VWT network had 51 members, ranging from shippers to ports, shipping companies, and technology providers.

The VWT project was launched to develop a solution to enhance cargo visibility, tracking, and early warning mechanisms for potential disruptions in the end-to-end supply chain. VWT’s primary goal is to drive on-demand collaboration around specific shipments including data sharing ideally through a push mechanism, with complete data control staying with the VWT community members and data owners. The objective is to offer situational awareness of essential transport and logistics assets, initially containers. VWT aims to help facilitate collaborative decision-making among stakeholders based on improved data accuracy and enhanced insights.

Initiated in 2022, the shipper-driven, terminal-centric, and community-based VWT focuses on complementing existing datasets and enhancing the ability of systems like Transport Management Systems (TMSs), Terminal Operating Systems (TOSs), and Fleet Management Systems (FMSs) to derive accurate calculations of estimated arrival times (ETAs) and carbon dioxide (CO2) footprints. This enlarges real-time visibility and predictability for cargo moves across multimodal transportation networks. VWT can also be perceived as a collaborative ecosystem that co-creates digital solutions, like the digital infrastructure VWTnet. VWT is designer and orchestrator providing the space for others to develop solutions. The architecture currently used is TWIN, a DLT provided by IOTA Foundation developed for paperless trade, initially between Kenya and the United Kingdom (UK).

VWTnet helps with the dynamic updating of itineraries shared between those who are involved in specific shipments. This enables stakeholders to anticipate challenges, proactively implement corrective actions, and ensure proper operation across supply chain networks. In global supply chains, disruptions have become the new normal, putting pressure on actors to find new tools that help to deal with the shocks, live up to their promises and keep partners and customers informed. Both initiatives, eFTI and VWT, underscore the importance of interoperability. VWTnet, with its foundational technology TWIN, developed by IOTA, ensures secure and verifiable data exchanges. This aligns with eFTI’s requirements for standardized and accessible data formats.

VWT: A Channel for Future eFTI Gates

The VWT community aims to build global transport’s most widely used and reliable primary data-sharing solution. Designed as a public good, VWT enjoys high trust and support, allowing the initiative to gather more primary data than commercial actors. Focused on primary data sharing, eFTI provides a data model, B2A (Business to Administration) APIs, and a reliable data feed for VWTnet that will bring VWT closer to realising its vision.

VWT provides a digital architecture and solution, labelled VWTnet, designed to capture shipment itineraries through primary data collection from actors along the transport chains. Combining eFTI’s regulatory framework with VWTnet’s primary data-gathering capabilities, these initiatives complement and reinforce each other to deliver a cohesive combined solution for the freight industry.

The scope of the eFTI regulation includes several EU and national MS regulations that focus on sharing waybills, dangerous goods, and waste movement information relating to road, inland navigation, and rail transport with competent authorities.

VWTnet is well positioned and has the choice to become an eFTI platform and channel for private actors to connect their enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and TMSs with national eFTI gates. By serving as the secure and harmonised digital interface for economic operators, VWTnet, powered by the TWIN architecture, could enable the submission, management, and exchange of electronic freight information in compliance with eFTI standards. This functionality ensures data flows efficiently from private stakeholders to public regulatory authorities, bridging operational needs with legal compliance. By acting as a trusted intermediary, VWTnet facilitates real-time data and thanks to TWIN could add electronic document exchanges to ensure that all transactions are auditable and immutable, representing a robust framework for collaboration between companies and authorities.

In addition to B2A data exchange, the future eFTI platform candidates, including VWTnet, should offer a solid solution to B2B (Business to Business) data exchange (Figure 1). These solutions provide a profound and agile way to report and manage carbon dioxide (CO2) emission reporting that meets the requirements of the new CountEmissionsEU initiative by utilising standard eFTI data models and APIs enriched with strong identifiers and data on energy consumption.

Figure 1. eFTI regulation framework and potential B2B extension

The European Digital Transport and Logistics Forum (DTLF) has been working on the concept of a federated network of platforms for the last six years. DTLF has played a pivotal role in shaping frameworks that support eFTI and initiatives like VWT, aligning with global trends towards increased digitalisation and collaboration in logistics. VWTnet reflects interoperability and standardisation across freight networks.

Enhanced Collaboration and Sustainability

The combined efforts of eFTI, VWT, and TWIN create opportunities for enhanced collaboration between private stakeholders and the public sector regarding document exchange. These initiatives reduce administrative burdens and streamline regulatory processes by providing a unified digital framework. Transparent and dynamic data sharing supports emission calculations and logistics optimisation, contributing to environmental goals and resilience in the supply chain.

The sustainability benefits of these initiatives extend beyond operational efficiencies. Stakeholders can identify and implement greener logistics practices by enabling real-time tracking and emission monitoring. Furthermore, the digitalisation of freight information reduces the need for paper-based documentation, further contributing to environmental conservation. Implementing eFTI and VWTnet at scale requires strong engagement from different actors. Everyone including shippers, transport and terminal operators, transport and trade authorities, and technology providers need to be incentivised to contribute to the collaborative ecosystem. Addressing challenges such as adopting standardised data formats by interfaces that translate data elements between existing standards, ensuring accessibility for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and balancing data sharing with privacy concerns is crucial to reduce the barriers to entering such collaborative efforts. By leveraging their complementary strengths, eFTI, VWT, and TWIN can:

• Build trust among stakeholders through secure and transparent data governance
• Leverage VWTnet/TWIN as a scalable digital infrastructure that is easy to connect to and use
• Encourage providers of TMSs, TOSs, and FMSs to engage in VWTnet for the sharing of timestamp data and the underlying TWIN technology to channel eFTI information between economic operators and authorities
• Drive capacity-building initiatives to support diverse actors’ adoption of digital tools.

Capacity-building initiatives are particularly critical in ensuring inclusivity within the freight ecosystem. By equipping a broad range of supply chain, logistics, and transport actors, including SMEs, with the necessary tools and knowledge to participate in digital freight networks, these initiatives democratise access to advanced technologies and logistics capabilities. This inclusivity ensures that the benefits of digital transformation are equitably distributed.

Conclusion

The eFTI regulation and the VWT/TWIN initiative represent a paradigm shift in the logistics sector, merging regulatory compliance with operational innovation. They harmonise regulatory compliance with dynamic freight management, creating a resilient and effective supply chain and logistics ecosystem. As the industry progresses towards 2027, their combined potential lies in fostering a digitally empowered supply chain network that is efficient, sustainable, and responsive to future challenges, including fewer delays and substantial cost savings.

As Europe embraces this digital revolution, the convergence or integration of the global VWTnet/TWIN solutions and the European eFTI regulation unlocks a future where the transport of goods is seamless, sustainable, and resilient.

Acknowledgement

This article supports the eFTI4EU and eFTI4ALL projects in their efforts to enhance digital freight transport information exchange for a more efficient and sustainable logistics sector.