When you are transporting cargo internationally, either by ocean freight or air freight, tracking your goods is important for various reasons. To start, it helps you know its location at any given point in its journey. It enables you to get a head’s up in case of delays and find out sooner rather than later if there have been any other mishaps. Keeping informed of the status will help you better plan the next steps in your supply chain and your delivery schedules.
This article will cover
Read our blog on the importance of freight tracking and how real-time freight cargo tracking can give them a competitive edge.
Almost all shipping lines and cargo airlines offer a tracking facility on their websites, where you can enter certain details and get information on the whereabouts of your shipment.
For ocean container tracking, you can enter one of the following to track your shipment and get details such as last location, estimated arrival date, among others depending on what that particular carrier offers.
With this method you will have to go to the individual websites of different shipping lines or container transport companies to check the status of all your containers. This can be cumbersome and time consuming. Cogoport’s container tracking tool allows you to track all your containers across various shipping lines, in one place.
To track your air cargo, visit the airline website’s track shipments section and input your Airway Bill (AWB) number to get details of the cargo's air route, a tracking report, status update, and estimated time of arrival for your shipment.
An AWB is a document issued by the airline and serves as evidence of the contract for the shipment. It contains details about the goods being transported. It has a unique 11 digit number that helps the shipping company keep track of cargo movements and serves as a way to identify your consignment.
Similar to the way you can track your ocean freight containers on each shipping lines’ individual websites, Cogoport offer you’re a free container tracking tool. This tool allows you to track containers across various shipping lines, regardless of where you have booked your shipment. All you need to do is enter your container number and shipping line and you can get comprehensive information such as location, real-time status, and estimated time of arrival at the different points in its journey.
Automatic Identification System (AIS) is an automated tracking system whereby transponders fitted to ships automatically provide its position and other information to neighbouring ships and coastal authorities. Ships equipped with AIS transponders can be tracked by AIS base stations that gather data to create a near-real-time picture of global shipping traffic.
There are multiple AIS ship tracking and intelligence providers that have websites on which you can enter the name of the vessel carrying your cargo to get the following details, and more:
Some such websites are MarineTraffic, FleetMon, ShipFinder, Vesseltracker, and Vesselfinder, among others.
If you wish to keep close track of your ocean or air cargo, you can attach a wireless GPS device to it. These devices provide the real time location of the containers right from the first mile to the last mile. A few things to keep in mind are -
Shipping lines and container leasing companies that own shipping containers may install advanced GPS tracking devices to their containers. These are built especially for ocean freight and work on an advanced GPS Container Tracking System which provides uninterrupted data about time, temperature, speed, latitude, longitude, shock reports, and battery information. You could choose to source containers from a company or shipping line that provides this.
It is always possible to monitor your ocean or air cargo by travelling along with it or in the vessel or air carrier holding it. This will allow you to supervise your cargo personally and ensure it gets loaded and unloaded. The journey, however, could be uncomfortable, long, and tedious.
Alternatively, you can hire personnel specifically for this task or entrust it to a specialised agency. This method will allow you to monitor cargo up-close but is expensive, time-consuming, and not very practical.
Signup to Cogoport. Get trade new & updates, and get assistance with booking international shipments online!
The major ports in China are the key axes of global trade. Take a look at some of the top Chinese sea ports, from Hongkong to Ningbo and beyond, to understand their contribution to world trade and to determine which ones suit your business needs.
Know about the shipping challenges that the world is facing in 2021. From Covid 19 to the Suez canal blockage to the resulting port congestion, container shortages, blank sailings and soaring freight rates.
Keeping our partners, small businesses and agents in mind, we have launched the Cogoport Partner Program. Join the program to get access to the Cogoport platform to book shipments for your clients.
Engineering goods remain India’s most exported commodity in 2021 so far while pharma exports have posted a strong showing in the face of the Covid-19 crisis.
The global shipping industry, which is crucial for the normal functioning of trade and commerce and the wider world took its baby steps towards digitalisation only recently, falling behind several other age old industries such as banking, travel, telecom and others. Read on to know how a few shipping pioneers are blazing the trail of digitalisation to modernise the landscape for seamless operations.
Read to know about the Global container crisis. How did it Start and its impact on India. What measures have been taken to curtail the crisis.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius enim in eros elementum tristique. Duis cursus, mi quis viverra ornare, eros dolor interdum nulla, ut commodo diam libero vitae erat. Aenean faucibus nibh et justo cursus id rutrum lorem imperdiet. Nunc ut sem vitae risus tristique posuere.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius enim in eros elementum tristique. Duis cursus, mi quis viverra ornare, eros dolor interdum nulla, ut commodo diam libero vitae erat. Aenean faucibus nibh et justo cursus id rutrum lorem imperdiet. Nunc ut sem vitae risus tristique posuere.
The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.
A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!
Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.