Supply chain

Singapore-based container line ONE is the seventh carrier to provide guaranteed digital contracts through NYSHEX, which seeks to resolve the systemic issue of shippers making multiple bookings and carrier overbooking.

The second-largest US LTL carrier has completed its AOBRD to ELD conversion, and now looks to expand the integration of its ELDs with other technologies, including geofencing.

Gary Cohn, former director of the National Economic Council under President Donald Trump and former president of Goldman Sachs, was named as the opening keynote speaker of the 20th TPM, the world’s largest container trade conference, organized by IHS Markit.

Chicago-based startup Transship is teaming with TradeLens and other tech companies to create an automated shipping and forwarding platform for containerized perishables shipments.

DB Schenker will use a Dutch startup to provide container line schedules to enable the German 3PL’s digital quoting and booking tools, pressing home the need for digital procurement platforms to have good underlying schedule data.

Partnerships between core logistics software providers continue to expand, the latest example being SAP integrating North American and European visibility from project44 for its TMS user base.

Brokers with digital freight marketplaces continue to partner with widely used TMS providers to give users of those systems direct access to electronic capacity and booking capabilities, while the marketplaces get an influx of direct shippers customers.

India-based Allcargo has taken a controlling stake in domestic express leader Gati, a move that signals Allcargo is looking to diversify beyond its core ocean transportation business and reshape the country’s logistics space.

With a third iteration of Maersk’s digital interactive OceanPro platform in place, as many as 15 Indian tech startups have joined on as the country continues its push for greater logistics transparency.

With a deadline looming for US truck drivers to switch to ELDs, one telematics provider is banking on luring drivers onto its platform via a new carrier-centric smartphone app.

Cass Information Systems is partnering with the University of Tennessee to enhance its benchmark truckload and intermodal pricing indexes, and explore new data opportunities.

Austin-based technology company Shipwell has in the past been dubbed a freight marketplace, a broker, and a software provider, but bolstered by a large funding round in October, the company is focusing on automation and connectivity for shippers.

The European Shippers’ Council has vowed to challenge the decision by the European Commission to extend the carrier exemption from competition laws for another four years.

Maersk is investing venture capital into a technology startup that provides global device connectivity and will be used by the container line to better align its container, vessel, and terminal assets.

SaaS tools in the international logistics space have been relatively underfunded compared to other models, like digital freight forwarders and marketplaces, but investment in Seattle-based Logixboard could signal investors are ready for more pure software-based plays.

An array of ocean freight portals, mostly developed by tech startups, have entered the Indian freight landscape in recent years, trumpeting pricing transparency and shipment visibility. But they have much ground to gain to seriously challenge traditional players.

Stakeholders in the Indian freight industry generally agree that digitization plays a role in improving transparency, but say a more coordinated effort at the human level is needed to fix many of the things ailing trade development in the region.

The Indian government has proposed selling a significant portion of its holdings in the country’s containerized transport sector, and railway Concor could be an attractive target for potential investors.

A truckers strike in Bangladesh ended after just 24 hours, but shippers were forced to pay higher truck rates amid the logjam of goods that had piled up in just one day.

Asset-monitoring technology will help Canadian Pacific and intermodal shippers to locate and better utilize the railroad’s chassis pool.

The acquisition of Emergent Cold gives US-based Lineage Logistics greater access to Asian markets and facilities at three US ports.

Shippers in Bangladesh are warning that an imminent strike by truck and van drivers will paralyze commerce by disrupting the movement of import and export goods.

Shippers and logistics providers are finding it difficult to secure refrigerated warehousing around the Port of New York and New Jersey as consumer demand for food and perishables sold via e-commerce increases.

The freight broker Convoy has landed the second biggest single funding round in North American logistics technology industry, as its investors more than double down on the idea of technology solving inefficiencies and waste in the truckload market.

India’s JNPT, responding to feedback from exporters, has set up a scheduled intermodal rail service to connect export cargo from a key inland container depot in the state of Punjab.

Through a partnership with the software provider BlueX Trade, the Taiwan-based container carrier will allow shippers and non-vessel-operating common carriers (NVOCCs) to book space digitally “within minutes,” the companies said Tuesday.

A shortage of truck drivers in Japan that is causing severe delays in cargo movements will become even more of a problem as next summer’s Olympics in Tokyo approach, stakeholders warn.

A single insolvency among smaller independent freight payment vendors can lead shippers to retreat to bank-backed service providers.

DHL Forwarding has been trialing a blockchain-based system of producing invoices for one-off non-contractual shipments with its customer Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

A deal between India and Bangladesh is designed to open more inland waterway routes, furthering developing coastal trade.

Shipment management software provider CargoSmart has tested a connection between a Hong Kong banking platform and shipment data provided by terminals and container lines to speed approval of trade finance processes and expand the range of shippers who can receive financing services.

Over the course of two months this summer and fall, the JOC interviewed numerous industry stakeholders, economists, and other experts about the lasting impact the US-China trade war has had on supply chains that, in some cases, were decades in the making.

The freight rate management software provider has developed a uniform way for carriers to convey real-time rates to forwarders and NVOCCs using its rate-sharing platform, allowing for quicker and more accurate quoting to shippers.

Regulators are accepting comments on a petition to exempt small carriers from the ELD mandate, as the final compliance deadline for truck drivers and carriers approaches.

A group of agricultural exports blames ocean carriers and terminal operators for creating crippling terminal congestion and then profiting off the problem.

DSV Panalpina is now in the top three air and ocean logistics service providers, but the expanded geographical footprint also exposes the forwarder to weakness in global trade.

Stakeholders in the container shipping industry are debating how demurrage clocks should begin, when they should be suspended, and when it’s fair and unfair to assess penalties to beneficial cargo owners (BCOs).

Chinese customs officials are giving a closer look to some goods being shipped from China into Hong Kong amid ongoing anti-government protests, causing delays in freight arrival.

Freight brokers believe spot market rates will remain lower than historical norms through the first half of 2020 despite a recent seasonal bump in rates.

In an unusual move, Flexport is gauging interest from competing forwarders about their interest in aiding the company with its “high volume” of customs entries.