Tracking shipments has always been an essential aspect of logistics, but let’s be honest: the old traditional techniques are not always reliable. Delayed shipments, lost freight, and poor visibility are a few issues that arise, resulting in increased expenditures, dissatisfied customers, and erratic operations. 

That’s exactly why the logistics world is buzzing with talk about real-time tracking solutions: an innovative alternative that bridges the gap between logistics service providers and their clients (cargo owners). 

A real-time container tracking API or application is no longer a luxury. With technological advancement in freight tracking solutions, it has become a pivotal tool for logistics managers, operations directors, and supply chain professionals. 

In this blog, you will learn about real-time shipment tracking, its key features, the technologies on which it is built, and the major benefits of implementing it.

What is a Real-Time Shipment Tracking System?

A real-time shipment tracking system refers to a technology that can monitor a shipment’s location and status as it travels through the shipping process. 

This technology gives both retailers and customers access to up-to-date shipment information, allowing them to track their orders from the moment they are placed until they arrive at their final destination. Information may include real-time location (city/state), latitude + longitude of vessel, POD facility information, MMSI, IMO, firms code, SMDG code, and more. 

To understand real-time shipment tracking and monitoring holistically, you must be aware of its key features, which you’ll come across next.  

Key Features of Real-Time Shipment Tracking Systems

A modern tracking software offers a wide range of features that cater to the needs of logistics professionals:

• Live Location Updates: It provides precise information about a shipment's current geolocation. 
• Shipment status updates: It provides up-to-date information on the departure, estimated arrival and actual arrival, plus when a container is available to pickup. This can help you manage expectations and make informed decisions about routing your freight after its processed at the destination terminal. 
• Geofencing Alerts: It sends milestones when shipments enter or exit predefined zones around a real-world location. 
• Integration Capabilities: It seamlessly connects with warehouse management systems (WMS), transport management systems (TMS), and enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms for holistic visibility.

Evolution of Shipment Tracking in Logistics

Traditional logistics relied heavily on directed tracking with hand-recorded information, resulting in a lack of real-time freight tracking information, inefficiencies, and mistakes. However, real-time shipment tracking systems nowadays leverage advanced technologies like GPS tracking, RFID tagging, IoT devices, AIS data, APIs, and cloud computing to offer accurate, real-time shipment updates. 

According to an S&P Global survey, at least half of companies in all subsectors have real-time tracking capability in place, ranging from 59% among logistics service providers to 55% among carriers and 50% among shippers. These statistics highlight the fact that freight tracking systems have been beneficial to businesses.

Having said that, you must be thinking about how implementing a real-time shipment tracking and monitoring system can benefit your logistics tracking. Let’s jump right into it.

Top 7 Benefits of Implementing a Real-Time Shipment Tracking System

Real-time freight tracking systems can help mitigate catastrophic supply chain disruptions by improving visibility and control over the movement of goods. Below, we will look at the seven most significant benefits of real-time shipment tracking.

1. Enhanced Visibility

Transparency is a key demand for today’s supply chains. A real-time shipment tracking system improves end-to-end monitoring offering up-to-date insights into the location and status of your goods. Whether at the port of origin, in transit, or at the final destination, a complete view of the entire journey is key. 

2. Improved Operational Efficiency

With precise data on container locations and statuses, logistics service providers can use real-time cargo monitoring information to optimize vessel loading and unloading schedules, reduce port dwell times, select the carrier/port with the top performance, and reroute to avoid congestion or delays. Real-time freight tracking ensures a seamless flow of goods, improving operational efficiency and minimizing costly disruptions.

3. Cost Savings

Container tracking can help you minimize the reliance on manual tracking processes, and helps avoid unnecessary detention and demurrage fees caused by delays or lack of visibility. The streamlined visibility allows for enhancing the overall customer experience through timely and reliable deliveries. 

5. Enhanced Customer Experience

Customers increasingly demand faster and more reliable deliveries. A real-time shipment tracking system lets you update them with accurate ETAs and ensures you can quickly address any issues that arise. 

6. Better Inventory Management

A real-time shipment tracking system provides constant visibility into the movement of commodities throughout the supply chain, allowing you to optimize inventory levels, decrease waste, and avoid stockouts or overstocking. 

7. Better Decision-Making Through Data Analytics

Real-time tracking and logistics performance systems provide you with data identify the latest trends, analyze and predict issues before they occur, make data-driven, strategic decisions on route optimization and inventory, and select the best carrier for your shipping needs.

Next, you need to know about the technologies that make real-time automated container tracking possible in real life.

How to Choose the Right Real-Time Shipment Tracking System?

Selecting the right tracking system requires careful consideration of your business needs and evaluation of the system’s features, costs, and many other factors, which include:

• Analyzing Needs: Evaluate the volume of your shipments and how you are tracking the flow-of-goods today. 
• Evaluating Key Features: Choose a solution that provides real-time tracking and projects accurate ETAs for your shipments. 
• Considering Integration Capabilities: Assess the tracking solution's compatibility with your ERP and Transportation Management System (TMS) systems. Also, determine whether it provides shipment tracking APIs for easier custom integrations.
• Checking User Interface & Accessibility: Ensure the system is easy to navigate and fits your needs. 
• Checking Scalability and Customization Possibilities: Verify if the system can handle tracking for large containers. Find out if users may customize the dashboard and whether it provides frequent updates.
• Considering Costs: Understand the monthly subscription fees, shipment volume, other costs, and product or service inclusions in the pricing structure. 
• Evaluating Customer Support: Look for freight tracking solutions that provides high satisfactory customer support. Request a demo to determine the pace of their response to inquiries.
• Looking at Case Studies & Reviews: Before finalizing freight tracking software, try to learn more about it through customer reviews, testimonials, comments, and case studies. This can assist you in making a better-informed choice.

Technologies Powering Vizion’s Ocean Container Tracking

Read on to learn key technologies that serve as the backbone of real-time shipment tracking systems.

1. Ocean Carrier APIs

Ocean carrier APIs provide detailed container event updates and shipment information directly from carriers. This data includes key milestones such as gate-in, gate-out, vessel loading, and discharge events, enabling stakeholders to monitor container movements in near real-time. This transparency helps identify potential delays and optimize decision-making throughout the journey.

2. Customs Data

Customs data offers critical insights into the clearance status of containers at borders and ports. It ensures compliance and provides alerts on any potential delays due to documentation issues or inspections. Integrating this data streamlines the customs process, reducing hold times and facilitating uninterrupted cargo movement.

3. Terminal-Level Data

Data from port terminals provides granular updates on container activities, such as customs hold/release information, when the container is available for pickup, and when is the last free day before demurrage fees incur. Terminal-level insights are invaluable for understanding the precise status of a shipment to identify the next leg of the journey. 

4. Terrestrial and Satellite AIS

Automatic Identification Systems (AIS), both terrestrial and satellite-based, provide real-time tracking of vessels during ocean transit. AIS data delivers critical information such as vessel position, speed, and estimated arrival times, ensuring accurate monitoring of container shipments even in remote or high-sea areas.

5. Vessel Schedules

Vessel schedules provide predictive insights into shipping timelines, including planned departure, transit, and arrival times. By integrating vessel schedule data with real-time tracking, logistics providers can better align operations, anticipate delays, and manage customer expectations effectively.

6. Class 1 Railways

For intermodal shipments, Class 1 railways in North America provide essential tracking data for containers moving by rail. These systems supply updates on container locations, railcar status, and estimated arrival times at inland destinations, ensuring continuity in visibility as containers transition between transport modes.

By combining these technologies, real-time shipment tracking systems create a comprehensive picture of container journeys, enabling better decision-making, cost control, and enhanced customer satisfaction.

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Conclusion

Real-time shipment tracking enhances overall performance and customer satisfaction by removing the uncertainty associated with traditional tracking methods. It also facilitates data-driven decision-making, results in cost savings, streamlines operations, reduces risks, increases supply chain efficiency, and fosters stronger customer relationships. 

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Book a demo at Vizion to access: 

• Real-Time Container Tracking: Gain access to the most complete, standardized, and detailed container tracking events via API or user interface with real-time container tracking data.
• Logistics Performance Hub: Access a comprehensive suite of global logistics datasets, including Port Performance, Port Activity, and Port Pairs, to analyze shipping trends, port throughput, container dwell times, and real-time port activity, enabling smarter decision making about containerized freight movements.
• TradeView: Monitor the live flow of any company's shipments 30 to 90 days before arrival to destination and analyze trends across 10 years of historical supplier, product, and logistics movement data. With 900 million shipment records, 140+ attributes per shipment, coverage spanning 190 countries, and comprehensive HS code data, TradeView empowers data-driven decisions that optimize global trade management.

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