## 4 Spectrum of Heterogenous Services for Transport Means and the Communication of Information
### The Information Flows and Modelling for the Context of Tracking
#### 5.1.2 Assessing of CMR Implementation  
By assessing of carriage of goods by road (CMR), we found that the around 88 per cent of all European Union (EU) cross-border transportation operations still include paper waybills.  
IRU initiated protocol to the CMR concerning the electronic its version, which allows that CMR could be managed electronically and should include the same content as its paper version. This protocol entered into force on the 5 June 2011. Up to date, 20 European Union countries out of 28 have acceded it including Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, The Netherlands, Portugal, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, The United Kingdom, and Sweden. However, the protocol has acceded; there is no legal obligation to use electronic CMR form between supply chain or transport partners. Even though the first, computerised CMR form was officially launched in the European Union (EU) for cargo transportation between Spain and France in January 2017.  
Later, more EU countries have started pilots without having a common framework on the eCMR data content. However, the main issue is to standardise and harmonise the content for the exchange between the actors of cargo transportation that an electronic form would have evidentiary value.  
The electronic form of CMR should have the same procedures as paper form: issue, cancellation (used with defined reason code), cargo return (the change of freight receiver by stating return reason code) and CMR closure (when cargo receiver confirms cargo receipt and notifies the number of packages accepted in full, 100%, or any other amount).  
CMR holds all critical information about the cargo, such as its temperature settings, dangerous goods data, and other handling instructions and information about locations, also known as the place of loading and delivery. Indications concerning dangerous goods (abbreviated DG) are mandatory for DG.  
Delivery conditions applied to the shipment are specified in CMR together with delivery terms specified as Incoterms rules. Instructions are provided for a cargo carrier, if necessary. All instructions that could affect the transport, such as the instructions concerning customs procedures, the request on transhipment of the goods, insurance of the cargo or any other useful instructions are indicated in CMR. Field 15 also shows the Incoterms conditions which are applied to sales transactions. Reservations and observations of the carrier at the time of taking cargo are essential, as the number of packages and their packaging are stated herein. There are notes on cargo damage; in particular, it is noted the nature of the defects and the amount of cargo damaged. The field holds other useful indications such as the net weight of the goods, the number of the TIR Carnet, or any other relevant document numbers.  
Overall, the application of eCMR form could guarantee faster administration (i.e., reduction of manual data entry, paper printing, handling, and archiving, improvement of data quality, and minimisation of time required for issuing paper version).