FERRMED is a non-profit association of a multi-sectoral character, located in Brussels. It is started an initiative of the private sector in order to improve the competitivity by promoting: 

      ·The so-called FERRMED standards in the whole European Union.
        ·The Great freight railway axis Scandinavia - Rhine – Rhone – Western Mediterranean.

The FERRMED standards aim at the development of a reticular and polycentric railway network in the EU with a high socio-economic and intermodal impact.
The association wants to create several great axes within the network, each of them with a double-line system, one giving priority to freight transport and the other one to passenger transport. The freight line has to be adapted to allow trains of up to 1.500 m length and a loading capacity of up to 3.600-5000 t.
It also wants to develop a powerful and efficient multi-usable and flexible network of intermodal terminals along the great axes, to increase the gauge of tunnels, to unify the rail width and control systems, to support the free market and to implement a new philosophy of the management, based on the R+D+4i (Research, Development, innovation, identity, incidence and infrastructures).  

The network of the FERRMED Great Axis includes the zone of main economic and logistic activity of the EU. From the connection with Finland, the main trunk of the Great Axis starts in Stockholm, crosses the straits of Öresund and Fehmarn and connects in a fan-shaped manner all the sea ports of the North Sea, the Baltic Sea and the United Kingdom, uniting also all major inland ports. It passes over Duisburg then through the Rhine and Rhone valleys to join its two parallel branches that cross the Swiss Alps and Eastern Pyrenees respectively, continues along the Western Mediterranean coast from Marseille and Genoa until Algeciras and interconnects also the most important East-West axes of the EU.

All companies, entities and institutions interested in the improvement of the infrastructures along this Great Axis, the instalment of the "FERRMED standards", new operational systems, the free market in the rail freight network of the EU are invited to join FERRMED.