The pallet has revolutionised the transport industry and changed the face of logistics. The Euro pallet was pioneered by UIC, which advocated for the pallet’s standardisation in the 1960s in order to simplify rail transport by mechanising loading onto freight wagons. The Euro pallet was a resounding success: today there is hardly a storage or transport system that is not adapted to the Euro pallet’s dimensions. To honour this service to the transport industry, UIC was inducted into the “Logistics Hall of fame” at the end of last year.
In the 1950s, railway companies began to transport more and more goods on pallets, which had a snowball effect. To regulate and facilitate the exchange of standardised pallets, in 1961, the International Union of Railways set up a working group to develop technical rules for standardised and interchangeable pallets, which were subsequently signed by the European railways as members of the UIC.
The European railways agreed on the dimensions and manufacturing of the Euro pallet and agreed to comply with the standard (UIC Leaflet 435-2) regarding Euro pallet repair and manufacture. They also agreed to monitor and ensure easy exchanges in a European Pallet Pool (EPP). Both steps marked the beginning of an incredible success story for all modes of international transport, including logistics activities, which continues to this day.
The decision to induct the “pallet pioneers” into the Logistics Hall of Fame was made in the summer of 2022 by a 70-member jury, which included representatives from business, science, politics, and the media, who came from 13 different nations. In addition to UIC and the European Pallet Association e. V. (EPAL), George Raymond Sr (Raymond Corp., USA) and Oliver Richter (CHEP, Australia) were posthumously inducted as new members into the Logistics Hall of Fame for their services to the development of the pallet at a gala reception in Berlin.
Jozef Fazik, UIC Pallet Technical Coordinator, and Thomas Metlich of ÖBB, in his role as Chair of the UIC Palletisation Issues Working Group, attended the event in Berlin on behalf of UIC. Mr Metlich received the “Pallet Pioneer” award personally from Dr. Volker Wissing, German Federal Minister for Digital Affairs and Transport, who underlined the fact that the pallet is the foundation of logistics and that logistics is the backbone of our economy.
The ceremony is a high honour for all of the UIC railway experts who, for almost 70 years, have been and still are active in the field of pallets, including in their quality control within UIC.
