As more airports become more involved in cargo operations, some are looking to expand their data connectivity to nearby ports.
Some airports in North America are implementing Cargo Community Systems (CCS) to improve the efficiency of data exchange between operators and customers.
Countries that have recently registered or started proof-of-concept trials include Vancouver, Rockford, Boston and Philadelphia.
Typically, the ability to manage truck traffic and avoid congestion has been a major factor in driving airports to adopt the CCS concept, but now airports are looking to deploy a wider range of features and capabilities in their CCS, Kale CEO Amar Mor said. Logistics solutions providing a CCS platform for the cargo community.
He added that several airports located near the sea cargo gate have even shown interest in CCS functions outside of their core business.
Over the years, the concept of sea and air has come and gone. As supply chains continue to change, forwarders are looking at this as another tool to find viable routes. In addition, congestion and disruptions in maritime supply chains since the advent of Covid-19 have exacerbated the need to improve the visibility of sea and air cargo, as beneficiary shippers and their logistics service providers seek to release cargo from congested ports and deliver it to forward transfers to air transport.
It hasn’t been easy, said James Coombes, CEO of Vector.ai, a provider of digital forwarding platforms that automate processes, adding: “People crave and need multimodal visibility. It’s a bad service market today.”
Executives from Vizion and BlueBox, two shipping information companies, have come to the same conclusion and formed a business partnership to help profitable shippers and logistics companies link air and ocean tracking.
California-based Vizion promotes shipping transparency by claiming to cover 98 percent of all shipments, while Germany-based BlueBox is connected to 130 airlines and about 1,600 airports.
“Supply chain issues over the past two years have highlighted a lack of transparency from shippers when positioning their products,” said Vizion CEO Kyle Henderson. “The impact of providing transparency for multiple types of cargo has improved the performance of businesses and supply chains in meeting consumer demand.”
To simplify connectivity, both companies use the API primarily for customers and partners.
Five days later, Vizion announced another strategic partnership with a logistics software solution provider working with Vector.ai. This step links the tracking capabilities of the former with Vertor’s automation of the forwarding process. The exchange is fully automated with the Vector workflow, providing forwarders with useful and comprehensive data.
“Visibility is good, but freight forwarders need to communicate effectively with customers and take action when changes occur,” said Mr Coombes. For example, changes to the estimated time of arrival of goods should trigger actions such as notifying shipping and warehousing service providers.
Diffusion of CCS may be an important catalyst in this process. If goods and associated data move between airports or seaports that have CCS platforms, digital corridors can be created so that data in the source ecosystem can flow directly to the platform at the receiving end and to parties connected to it.
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