On 10 and 11 June 2008, an International Conference on the Organization for Railways Cooperation OSJD "Competitive environment in railway transport", took place in Odessa, Ukraine. The conference was attended by over 100 specialists from the field of railway transport from 18 countries, ranging from Great Britain to Singapore - plus the representative of railway companies, significant forwarding agents, transport magazines representatives, etc.

The main subject of the conference was increasing the competitive advantage of railway transport in the prevailing conditions of global world economy and its comparison to other types of transport - road and sea transport, with emphasis on the growing volume of transport between the countries of Europe and Asia.

The conference participants, in their lectures and subsequent discussions, spoke about how the quality of railway transport services can be enhanced - increasing the speed of transport, simplification of state border crossing procedures, adherence to competitive tariff policy, and the inter-modal transport development.

Great interest was stirred by the lecture of the JERID company representative, Mr. Volodomyr Garbuz, on the subject of monitoring trucks and consignments on railway. The practical significance of this monitoring was acknowledged as an important factor for increasing the overall quality of transport services in the field of railway transport.