For the third stop in our eFTI Journey series, we speak with Pionira about platform development, interoperability and the challenge of finally moving freight transport beyond paper.
Pionira, a Belgian technology company specialised in the digitalisation of transport documents and logistics administration. Within the eFTI4ALL consortium, the company is positioned as a European e-document provider preparing to operate as a certified eFTI platform. Its platform will enable secure, standardised digital exchange of transport and logistics information, fully compliant with EU eFTI regulations.
What is your organisation currently working on in relation to eFTI?
At Pionira, we are currently working on two complementary aspects of eFTI.
First, we are extending our existing digital document infrastructure towards a fully operational eFTI platform. Based on the information and specifications currently available, we have already established a first integration with the French eFTI Gate operated by IN Groupe. This gives us valuable practical experience with the connection between an eFTI platform and a national eFTI Gate and allows us to further validate our approach in a real European context.
Second, and equally important, we want to make our eFTI platform available as a service to other technology providers, companies and organisations.
Many organisations already have their own TMS, ERP or logistics application. Others have developed their own document solution or use an open-source solution. We do not believe that every organisation should have to develop and maintain its own eFTI platform, together with all the associated regulatory and technical capabilities.
Our ambition is to offer eFTI Platform as a Service. Organisations can continue using their own systems to create and manage electronic documents, while connecting to our eFTI platform through standard interfaces. This allows them to become part of the eFTI ecosystem without having to develop the complete eFTI infrastructure themselves. In this way, we see our role not only as an eFTI platform provider for our own customers, but also as an infrastructure partner for other providers and organisations that want to become eFTI-ready.
Where are you currently in your eFTI journey? What have you achieved or progressed on so far?
We are beyond the proof-of-concept stage. Pionira has been working on the digitalisation of logistics documents for approximately 16 years. During this period, we have gained extensive practical experience with electronic transport and regulatory documents, interoperability, APIs, digital identification, electronic signatures, data security and the adoption of digital processes within the logistics sector.
For several years, we have also been working with the European Commission, sharing our practical experience and contributing our knowledge to the further development of European digital freight initiatives. We are involved in eFTI programmes and projects, which gives us the opportunity to contribute not only from a technology perspective, but also from the perspective of an organisation that has been operating digital document processes in real logistics environments for many years. On the technical side, we have already established a first integration with the French eFTI Gate operated by IN Groupe. At the same time, we are further developing our eFTI platform capabilities and preparing the platform for use by our own customers as well as by third-party providers and organisations.
Our position is therefore quite different from that of an organisation only beginning to explore eFTI. We have spent the last 16 years building and operating the underlying digital infrastructure and are now bringing that experience into the formal European eFTI ecosystem.
What are the main challenges you are facing?
The biggest challenge is, perhaps surprisingly, not the technology. It is getting paper out of the logistics chain. The logistics sector has been working with paper-based processes for decades. Even when digital alternatives are available, paper often remains part of the operational reality because different parties, processes, countries and authorities are at different levels of digital maturity. This creates a fundamental challenge for eFTI: providing a digital alternative is one thing; achieving widespread adoption and actually eliminating the parallel paper process is another.
A second challenge is fragmentation. Logistics involves many different actors, systems and countries. Shippers, carriers, subcontractors, consignees, authorities, TMS and ERP providers all need to be able to participate in the same digital ecosystem. Interoperability is therefore essential. We need to avoid creating new digital islands that simply replace paper islands.
A third challenge is regulatory complexity. eFTI needs to translate different European and national regulatory requirements into structured, trusted and interoperable information.
Finally, there is a commercial and competitive challenge. The market includes many technology providers, and organisations may be tempted to develop their own solutions. We believe that the industry will benefit more from reusable infrastructure and interoperability than from every provider building its own eFTI platform. This is one of the reasons why we are developing our eFTI Platform as a Service approach: the objective should be to make eFTI infrastructure available to as many organisations as possible, rather than requiring every organisation to build the same capabilities independently.
Ultimately, the real challenge is not competing between eFTI platforms. The real competition is with the status quo: paper.
What have you learned so far that could be useful for others?
Our most important lesson is that digitalisation is not simply about replacing paper with a digital document.
The real value comes from making data structured, trusted, reusable and exchangeable throughout the transport chain. We have also learned that adoption is often more difficult than technology. A technically excellent platform does not create value if the surrounding ecosystem is not connected.
Another important lesson is that eFTI should not be developed as a separate silo. It should be embedded into the existing logistics infrastructure and workflows.
Finally, regulatory data needs governance from the beginning. Questions around ownership, access rights, data integrity, auditability and responsibilities are just as important as APIs and technical standards.
What would you recommend to organisations that are at an earlier stage of their eFTI journey?
Our recommendation would be: do not wait until 2027.
Start by mapping your regulatory information flows. Identify which regulatory data you already have, where it originates, who owns it, how it is exchanged today and which authorities or business partners need access to it. Then start with concrete use cases rather than trying to digitalise everything at once. Choose one or two transport processes, make them work end-to-end, and use the experience to scale. We would also strongly recommend designing for interoperability from the beginning. eFTI is an ecosystem initiative, so organisations should avoid creating solutions that only work within their own organisational boundaries. Most importantly, design for the entire transport chain, not only for the organisation implementing the technology.
What are you most looking forward to in the next phase of your eFTI work?
We are looking forward to the moment when eFTI moves from being an EU digitalisation initiative to becoming normal infrastructure for European freight transport. We expect the real benefits to become visible when cross-border electronic regulatory information can be exchanged reliably between businesses, platforms and competent authorities. For Pionira, the ambition is to make eFTI almost invisible to the end user: not another system that companies or drivers have to learn, but a trusted digital layer embedded in the transport processes they already use.
Ultimately, we believe the success of eFTI will not be measured by how sophisticated the technology is, but by how effectively it reduces administrative burden, improves data quality and, most importantly, helps remove paper from European freight transport.
From paper removal to everyday digital infrastructure
Pionira’s eFTI journey highlights one of the key challenges of digital freight transport: making digital exchange not only technically possible, but practical, reusable and widely adopted. By building on years of experience in digital transport documents and by developing an eFTI Platform as a Service approach, Pionira is contributing to an ecosystem where companies, technology providers and authorities can connect through shared, trusted and interoperable infrastructure. As the 2027 milestone approaches, this kind of practical experience will be essential to help eFTI move from regulatory preparation to everyday use across European freight transport.
