Yesterday at UIC HQ in Paris, Jean-Pierre Loubinoux, UIC Director-General, and Klaus Ebeling, EIA Secretary-General and former UIC Deputy Secretary-General (1979-1993), signed a Memorandum of Understanding to contribute to a sustainable transport system by establishing and strengthening the relationship between the organisations and their members. The focus of their attention is directed towards improving the interoperability between transport modes among countries aiming to help create efficient, sustainable and intelligent logistic supply chains from origin to destination.
The exchange of knowledge and best practice will be undertaken through the promotion of intermodalism. Both parties agree to be involved in research exchange programmes, project development and intermodal implementation. It is also agreed to collectively develop joint innovative research and business support projects, particularly in the following fields:

• Integrated transport and logistics
• Congestion relief and infrastructural reinforcements
• Intelligent environmental, energy and time saving concepts

The partners agree to collaborate in organising or participating in bilateral meetings, events and workshops on subject matters linked to transport, particularly on intermodal approaches and multimodal corridors. Issues of legal, technical, organisational and infrastructural nature should equally be included.
The cooperation activities should be carried out with the aim of proposing well-balanced solutions to the members of the two partners.

For the above-mentioned purposes, the partners agree to establish a cross-membership between both their organisations, in order to foster and facilitate the achievement of the common objectives of the present MOU.
In the scope of the MOU, further appendixes may be written in order to set out the proper conditions of collaboration on identified topics and projects, specifying, among others, financial issues and copyrights.