Rail Transportation 
This example process describes a typical rail transportation process for shippers.
Prerequisites
You have defined one or several default routes in SAP NetWeaver Business Client under
Master Data 
Transportation Network Default Route Create Default Route 
. For more information, see Default Route.You have defined transportation zones. For more information, see Transportation Zone.
You have configured the prerequisites for freight agreements (see Agreement Maintenance). Freight agreements represent the contracts you have signed with your carriers. They are equipment-based and must contain the following data:
Source and destination location or transportation zones that contain these locations
Equipment
External reference number
External item number
Commodity codes
You have created a freight order type for rail and the corresponding item types in Customizing. For more information, see Customizing for Transportation Management under
Freight Order Management Freight Order Define Freight Order Types .If you want the system to automatically create railcar units in freight unit building, you must create a transportation unit type in Customizing and assign it to your freight unit building rule. For more information about creating transportation unit types, see Customizing for Transportation Management under
Planning Transportation Unit Define Transportation Unit Types . For more information about freight unit building rules, see Freight Unit Building Rule.You have configured the prerequisites for freight settlement (see Freight Settlement).
You have configured the prerequisites for charge management (see Charge Management and Service Product Catalogs). At a minimum, the rate tables need to have scale items including source and destination rail locations or zones. Moreover, you must have defined the charge type as the leading charge type in order for through rates to be considered.
Process
You define master data (equipment, for example) and create a delivery in SAP ERP and transfer them to SAP TM. Thus, the required master data and a railcar are available in SAP TM. Moreover, a delivery-based transportation requirement has been automatically created in SAP TM. For more information, see ERP Logistics Integration. In freight unit building, a railcar unit has been created instead of a freight unit if you have indicated a transportation unit type in your freight unit building rule. For more information, see Creation and Editing of Freight Units.
You manually create a rail freight order and assign the railcar unit to it. You need to indicate at least the source and destination rail location, the carrier, and the equipment. In SAP NetWeaver Business Client choose
Freight Order Management Rail Create Rail Freight Order . Alternatively, you can create the rail freight order in the transportation cockpit by dragging the railcar unit to a locomotive.In your rail freight order, you choose Routing to search for possible routing options based on the source and destination rail locations. The system executes the following steps:
It searches for all default routes where the first and last location (or transportation zone) of the default route matches the source and destination rail locations.
For each default route found, it searches for all freight agreement items for each executing carrier defined in the default route, filtering on trade lanes and commodity codes.
For each default route, it searches for rates in all of the rate tables of the selected freight agreement items for each location combination within the default route.
It proposes a list of routing options for each default route and rating alternative. A rating alternative includes any combination of rates from different executing carriers that can get from the source to the destination rail location.
You select a routing option from the list. The system automatically generates transportation stages in the rail freight order according to the stage information in the selected routing option. This includes the stage types and executing carriers from the default route as well as the invoicing carriers and freight agreement items determined according to the rating results.
You send your rail freight order to your carrier.
For more information about the rail transportation process from the point of view of the carrier, see Creation of a Forwarding Order for Rail Transportation.
You use the standard freight settlement process to settle your rail freight order.
If you have a different invoicing carrier for each transportation stage of a rail freight order, the system creates one freight settlement document for each of the different carriers in the rail freight order. For more information on freight settlement, see Freight Settlement.
Example
You have created a rail freight order from source rail location A to destination rail location C with a rail junction in B. You have also defined default route 100:
Location | Executing Carrier |
|---|---|
A | X |
B | Y |
C | Not applicable |
Based on this default route and the rates and tariffs that you have defined, the system determines the following routing options:
Routing Option | Default Route | Transportation Stage | Executing Carrier | Invoicing Carrier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 100 | A -> B | X | X (rate for carrier X for A -> B) |
1 | 100 | B -> C | Y | Y (rate for carrier Y for B -> C) |
2 | 100 | A -> B | X | X |
2 | 100 | B -> C | Y | X (through rate for carrier X for A -> C) |
You decide to select routing option 1. You send the rail freight order to carrier X. Carrier X carries out transportation for the first transportation stage itself and sends the routing instructions for the second transportation stage to carrier Y. You will receive invoices from both carriers for their respective transportation stages.