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When does multimodal carriage of goods by road and rail take place under COTIF/CIM?

According to Article 1 § 3 of CIM, there are two situations in which the CIM Uniform Rules (CIM UR) can apply to multimodal road-rail transport. 
§ 3 of the CIM UR applies when carriage by road is used to supplement carriage by rail, and
- the carriage by rail is transfrontier, and
- the carriage by road is exclusively domestic.

In this case, the CIM UR apply only when the carriage by road is "internal traffic (…) as a supplement to transfrontier carriage by rail" (the so-called rail+ approach). In other words, the main focus of a single contract of carriage must be carriage by rail. The problem of a legal conflict with the Convention on the Contract for the International Carriage of Goods by Road (CMR) when bringing the supplementing carriage by road under the CIM UR was previously discussed in detail as part of the total revision of COTIF 1999. Due to the differing opinions expressed within the Revision Committee, only domestic supplementing traffic, i.e., the initial and/or final domestic carriage (the carriage by road may not cross a border), was finally included within the scope of Article 1 § 3 CIM. By the same token, the carriage by rail must cross a frontier. It is debatable, however, which must actually be the rail and road part, particularly in view of the revision of the Directive on Combined Transport within the European Union, which will provide for national regulation of the distance of road carriage. 

If railway undertakings do not carry out the initial and final carriage by road themselves but use road transport companies instead, these are not considered substitute carriers within the meaning of Article 27 CIM, but auxiliaries within the meaning of Article 40 CIM. This is made clear by the term "rail" in the definition of a "substitute carrier" in Article 3(b) CIM. With this in mind, the CIT together with the IRU (International Road Union) developed a checklist for a framework contract to be used in international rail-road freight transport, which it published for the benefit of all CIT and IRU members on 1 January 2020.