Global Railway Review’s Track Insight: Unlocking the Future of Freight

Rail freight is under growing pressure to prove its place at the centre of tomorrow’s supply chains. Across Europe and worldwide, the sector is already evolving to meet the demands of modern logistics. Decarbonisation goals, digital technologies, and new operational models are accelerating change, and freight must respond with agility and ambition.

Unlocking the Future of Freight brings together leading industry voices to examine how the sector is being transformed and where the greatest opportunities now lie.

This is not a distant vision of the future. Freight operators, infrastructure managers, and technology suppliers are already deploying solutions that deliver reliability, efficiency, and competitiveness today.

This Track Insight features contributions from professionals across the sector, including experts from UNIFE, DB InfraGO, Rail Logistics Europe, and Plasser & Theurer. Together, they explore:

• Securing freight’s role in Europe’s decarbonisation journey, and the policies needed to sustain momentum.
• Harnessing AI and operational data to deliver measurable efficiency gains across freight operations.
• Replacing outdated manual processes with digital monitoring, as shown through the MONITOR project, to enhance reliability and speed.
• Meeting rising commercial pressures on track maintenance, and how next-generation machinery and smarter data use can provide the answer.

Rail freight’s transformation is visible in stronger networks, reduced emissions, and greater value for supply chains. While regional strategies differ, the shared goals of competitiveness, capacity, and sustainability unite the global freight sector.

Supported by: Plasser & Theurer

Access this Track Insight today and discover how rail is positioning itself as the backbone of sustainable, competitive global supply chains.