The quest for real-time visibility in global shipping took a big step forward recently, as German ocean carrier Hapag-Lloyd recently announced a new visibility service name Live Position.
The new serviced is based on the approximate two-thirds of its shipping containers Hapag-Lloyed has outfitted with transponders that communicate their position via satellite.
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| So for a cargo owner, because Hapag-Lloyd can now provide proof to Customs officials and therefore get their container processed faster than those shipped on other carriers. |
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Hapag-Lloyd is actually splitting its transponder sourcing across two different technology vendors, Orbcomm and Nexxiot.
Such tracking, including temperature data, has been available in the refrigerated container market for some years, but Hapag-Lloyd’s service is for standard ocean containers. It says it is the first ocean carrier to offer such a service.
As theLoadStar,com web site notes, for many years it has been possible long been for imports and exporters, freight forwarders and BCOs to infer the position of their container via a ship’s Automatic Identification System (AIS data) – “as long as they know which ship is carrying it.”
However, the rollout of Live Position “closes the blind spots of global logistics, enabling real-time decision-making and risk mitigation for our customers, while allowing a more efficient steering of our fleet of boxes,” Hapag-Lloyd COO Maximilian Rothkopf said in a press release.
Of course, if the service is popular with shippers and others, other box carriers will be forced to follow suit.
Nexxiot CEO Stefan Kalmund agrees, saying on the news that he expects dry container tracking will soon become a must-have for shipping lines.
“The interesting new capability is in monitoring and tracking the container from door-to-door,” Kulman state, adding that “Historically, you never knew if your cargo was sitting on the back of a truck, or met or missed the ship. Now, you will know exactly when it is moved – it sends you a ping.”
Kalmund also said he thinks the most important thing about real-time data is of course not when everything is in good shape for a container being shipped, but when there are problems, such as that a container has been delayed or dropped.
According to theLoadStar, Kalmund also noted the ability to provide container-level ETA’s is also key.
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 “Historically, the data aggregators provide this information, but aggregation means data is always outdated by a couple of hours, [sometimes] even days. Now, the asset owner can create an ETA themselves, with real-time data,” Kalmund notes.
Other services are likely. For example, Customs organization might make use of the information.
“Certain boxes would be “green,” for fast processing, while others would be ‘red’ and need to be checked,” Kalmund told theLoadStar.
So for a cargo owner, because Hapag-Lloyd can now provide proof to Customs officials and therefore get their container processed faster than those shipped on other carriers.
At least until the other carriers follow suit, which we bet won’t take long.
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