IT Support for TFA ImplementationeTIR – efficient IT-enabled Trade Facilitation

Freeport, 7 May 2015

Philippe Grosjean – Chief Information Officer

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Road Transport: Key actor in the global supply chain

Road transport has become a vital instrument for our economy to function

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Key obstacles to international road transport

Issues causing long waiting times

at borders are well known:

«Inadequate procedures and lack of

mutual recognition

of controls»

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Are there solutions?

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Implement key UN & WCO facilitation instruments to allow transport to drive trade!

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Facilitating transit and border crossing procedures

A global United Nations Customs transit and guarantee system that uses one simple, secure, mutually recognised procedure for door-to-door transport by road, sea and rail.

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Objective:

Fully computerize the TIR procedure

Today’s focus: the eTIR Project

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WCO Data model

WCO Data elements

UNTDED

Core components

XML

Code lists: UNECE, ISO,…

WSS, X.509, SOAP, HTTPS

…

eTIR – International standards

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eTIR – A centralized approach

Customs

Decentralized approach (bilateral)

Customs

Customs Customs

eTIR International system

Centralized approach (multilateral)

Customs Customs

Customs Customs

• Instructed by WP.30

• Facilitates the integration of newcomers

• Similar to the current TIR system, eTIR does not require direct communication between countries

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Joint UNECE-IRU Pilot project (Iran-Turkey)

• Goal: to conduct a paperless TIR procedure using existing systems

• First step towards a fully functional eTIR

• Involves all actors: customs, UNECE, IRU, national associations, TIR Holders

• Involves electronic guarantee management

Additional eTIR pilot projects (Georgia-Turkey / Italy-Turkey)

• Goal: to exchange electronically and securely TIR related data between customs administrations

• Also first steps towards a fully functional eTIR

• Focuses on Customs to Customs data exchange

eTIR – Pilot Projects

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Existing IRU central database acts as repository for the electronic exchange of TIR data between customs (C2C) and TIR guarantees data.

Data is exchanged using existing mechanisms (TIR-EPD and Real-Time SafeTIR)

Data is automatically forwarded to a UNECE managed database, a light-weight version of the eTIR international system.

UNECE-IRU eTIR pilot project – Main concepts

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eTIR Pilot high-level architecture

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TIR associationsTIR associationsTIR associationsTIR associationsTIR holdersTIR holdersTIR holdersTIR holders

IRU

TIR holdersTIR holders TIR associationsTIR associations

UNECE

Trusted DataExchangeTrusted DataExchange Web

Services

WebServices

CustomsCustomsCustomsCustomsCustomsCustoms

UNECEPortalUNECEPortalWebServices

WebServiceseITDB

WebServices

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The TIR System is hosted in the most secure hosting facilities in Switzerland

IRU systems are hosted in two highly secure Swisscom data centers

Located in Bern in the heart of Switzerland

24/7 monitoring and operations

Guaranteed business continuity

Green IT

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IRU Hybrid Cloud High-Level Architecture

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Ready to go live @IRU

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TIR Holder:

Order a eGuarantee online

Association:

Approve and issue the eGuarantee

TIR Holder:

Pre-declare the transport and GO!

Customs:

Receive electronic advance cargo information for better risk management

Operate paperless, more efficiently with increased security and reduced fraud

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Harmonized declaration data?

• Promote WCO data model & standardisations

Paper or not paper?

• Print@home as fallback

Declarant needs digital signature in each country?

• 2 step authentication of TIR Holder vis-à-vis IRU and

• Digital Signature @IRU vis-à-vis Customs as solution

Some of the challenges faced

Customs Country A

Customs Country B

Customs Country C

Customs Country D

Customs Country Z

TIR Holder 1

TIR Holder 2

TIR Holder 3

TIR Holder 4

TIR Holder N

…..

…..

IRU

TIR-EPD

Customs Country A

Customs Country B

Customs Country C

Customs Country D

Customs Country Z

TIR Holder 1

TIR Holder 2

TIR Holder 3

TIR Holder 4

TIR Holder N

…..

…..

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First transports

• Target:Summer 2015

Progressive evolution

• Full eTIR

Possible future enhancements

• CMR/eCMR

• Scanned images of accompanying documents

• GPS tracking

Next steps

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Expected results:Streamlined Customs Procedures at Borders

Customs formalities done at origin and destination rather than at borders

Advance cargo info and risk based Customs controls

Harmonisation and digitalisation of transport and Customs documents

Modern solutions for real-time Customs-to-Customs and Business-to-Customs data exchanges

BACKUP SLIDES

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eTIR – High-level target architecture

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CustomsCustomsCustomsCustomsCustomsCustoms

UNECE

TIR associationsTIR associationsTIR associationsTIR associationsTIR holdersTIR holdersTIR holdersTIR holders

IRU

TIR holdersTIR holders TIR associationsTIR associations

Trusted DataExchange Web

Services

UNECEPortalWebServicese

ITDBWeb

Services

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TIR Holder – IRU – Customs IT Connectivity Schema

Reliable internet connection

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Goals• Lean & collaborative

• Result oriented

• Matching business needs

• Bringing proven results

• Moving fast

• Bringing flexibility and agility

Software Factory & Agile Methodologies

Agile Methodologies: Scrum, Kanban, XP, TDDSoftware factory: Continuous Integration, Continuous Deployment

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High-Availability & Reliability

• Target: 99.9%, 24/7, 4h RTO, 0h RPO

=> Robust and redundantinfrastructure

=> Clustering techniques

Scalability

• Millions of messages exchanged yearly with Customs and Associations

• Increasing demand and complexity with new services & SaaS offerings

=> Load balancing & horizontal scalability application architectures

Architectural Challenges

Maintainability

• Constantly evolving applications to master complexity and changes

=> Agile methods and Test Driven Development

Security

• Sensitive Customs and commercial data exchanged

=> Web Service standards (HTTPS, SOAP, WS-Security)

=> Encrypted communication & signed payload of messages using keys and certificate

=> Firewalled network layers

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Architectural decisions

Best of breed component & technologies

• Open source or proprietary (if better)

• Freedom of choice: no vendor lock-in overall

• Interoperability & open standards are a must

Web-based wherever possible

• AngularJS (=> web components.js)

Cloud-based (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS) if suitable

Service Oriented Architecture

• Allows to integrate new applications with existing ones without major rewrite

• RESTful service when possible

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• Fully secure (inc. central DB check)

• Free of charge

• Data import

• Commercial data kept confidential

• EPD sent simultaneously to all countries

• Multilingual user interface

• Accessible via the internet from anywhere in the world

• 31 connected countries

TIR Holder Portal

TIR

-EP

D K

ey F

eatu

res

& B

enef

its

https://tirepd.iru.org

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Real-Time SafeTIR (RTS)

• Secure real-time guarantee check

• SafeTIR data transmission

• Data reconciliation

• 19 connected countries

Rea

l-Tim

e S

afeT

IR K

ey F

eatu

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& B

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its

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TIR Customs Portal

https://tircustomsportal.iru.org/

• Accessible by all customs officers via the internet from anywhere in the world

• Fallback solution to Real-Time SafeTIR

• Up-to-date guarantee status

• Consultation of TIR guarantee information

• Submission of SafeTIR data

TIR

Cus

tom

s P

orta

l Key

Fea

ture

s &

Ben

efits

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• TIR Holder admission process

• TIR Carnet issuance and return

• Risk management

• Available in national languages

• Web service interface and management of electronic guarantees under development

• 27 associations in operation

TIR Association Portal

Ask

TIR

web

Fea

ture

s &

Ben

efits

https://www.asktirweb.org/