Shippers and forwarders tend to want visibility piped into the existing systems they already use rather than accessing data in a standalone solution. Photo credit: Shutterstock.com.
Container visibility software provider Terminal 49 on Tuesday began offering an application programming interface (API) that allows logistics companies and fellow software providers to pull container location and status information into their existing systems.
Terminal 49’s API is part of a wider trend of software providers arming other companies in the logistics technology ecosystem with data or tools to supplement their customer-facing systems.
San Francisco-based Terminal 49 sells its service on a standalone basis to shippers and intermediaries, but was finding more traction in supplying its data to systems offered by forwarders, customers brokers, and transportation management platforms that shippers already use, CEO Akshay Dodeja told JOC.com.
“You have people manually entering the data whose core product is not this data,” he said. “They’re happy to have someone else get that part. There’s tooling we can build to bring movement in the supply chain space. The pipes are not built yet. Once you build the pipes you can build the services.”
Terminal 49’s current customers include importers, forwarders, and logistics startups like drayage NEXT Trucking and the digital customer broker Zeus Logics.
“We began as a drayage business, so we were surprised at how inadequate current API offerings were, lacking the data operators actually need,” Dodeja said in a statement.
The goal of the tracking solution, like with most container visibility providers, is to help shippers identify problem containers, automate track and trace, and eliminate fees assessed for not picking up containers by a contractually agreed upon date, or demurrage. Terminal 49 integrates with all major shipping lines and US ports, and says it is able to track shipments status, including essential data like the last free day (the day by which a container needs to be picked up from a marine terminal), and any customs holds or other fees, for roughly 95 percent of worldwide container volume. Users need to provide a bill of lading and standard carrier alpha code (SCAC) numbers to access the data.
“Terminal 49’s API gives us the visibility data we need in a modern, developer-friendly package,” Chris Wall, chief operating officer at Zeus Logics. “There are other APIs out there, but they often lack timely and accurate data and don’t clean or normalize anything, which makes the results hard to work with.”
Customer service implications for shippers
One of Terminal 49’s importer customers, Yokohama Tire (Canada), said the need for such data is acute to manage customer expectations and how delays impact those expectations.
“Because [estimated times of arrival] from our supplier are often inaccurate due to multiple reasons, from sailing delay to customs hold to congestion at the rail yard, our customer service team often ends up giving customers wrong information about product availability,” Yuske Abe, director of distribution for Yokohama Tire (Canada) told JOC.com. “Also it throws our warehouse operation plan off in terms of space and manpower. There was no system in place to keep track of container release dates, and we had no way to validate shipping lines’ invoices for detention charges.”
Yokohama uses the data for its shipments from Japan, Thailand, and the Philippines into the ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert, with final destinations in Langley, British Columbia, and Brampton, Ontario.
“We’ve spoken with our customs broker and tried to have them create a container tracking report, but it never worked,” Abe said. “We were able to get some info from shipping lines’ websites, but checking multiple websites was not practical.”
Across the logistics software space, partnerships between software providers are becoming the norm, whether between visibility providers and transportation management software makers, or between instant quoting and rate management systems. The vast preponderance of these arrangements are based on API connectivity.
APIs, once a technology tool virtually unknown and arcane to the logistics industry, are becoming selling points in and of themselves. For instance, in late July, marine terminal technology provider Voyage Control released an API for container availability status at two terminals in the Port of Los Angeles.
APM Terminals released its own API for several North American terminals in early July.
Separately, Terminal 49 also announced a partnership with logistics systems integration specialist Chain.io, with the forwarder Jaguar Freight as its first joint customer. The partnership connects Terminal 49’s API into a transportation management system (TMS) via Chain.io’s existing TMS plug-in solution.
“Companies can leverage Terminal49’s Chain.io platform to feed updates directly into their (transportation management system) with no code needed at all,” Chain.io CEO Brian Glick said. “Forwarders are always looking to enhance their visibility offerings to their customers and operations, but they don’t always have the IT resources to make innovation happen.”
Contact Eric Johnson at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter: @LogTechEric.
