With some 26 million containers worldwide, and a widespread use of manual systems, the intermodal industry is ripe for reform.
But the introduction of intelligent transport systems (ITS) to containers is lagging because the intermodal industry is not healthy.
The global economy is down, goods movement is down, and many assets are sitting idle, Dick Schnacke of the USA told last week’s ITS ‘summit’ in Auckland.
“Carriage rates have dropped in parallel, profitability is way down, and mergers and bankruptcies characterise the industry – there are just not the dollars for investment in intelligent solutions.
“But things will improve and ITS solutions will be introduced,” adds Schnacke, head of TC204 standards for ITS.
He says that use of non-metals in containers is already giving added strength and durability, while embedded systems and devices are adding safety, security and efficiency. But the systems are still very manual.
“There are manual seals on containers, and manual inspections. Paper records and manual transmission of data to the next link in the supply chain can lead to delays, errors and costs.
“The primary area of concern is cargo visibility — tracking (where is it, when is it expected?) and monitoring (is it secure, has anything been taken out or put in?).”
But he adds that while many devices can communicate data in different ways, there are no easy answers to what is a very complex, multi-dimensional problem.
“However, further ahead lie highly automated processes, giving access to lots of information at low cost. But first we have to agree on a system to describe cargoes, and to make sure that data communicated is secure and accurate,” Schnacke says.
Bill Johnson of Trends Consulting in Canada says that work is being done to develop common data definitions and message sets for use by all supply chain stakeholders to track containers and contents, including freight content identification and communication.
