Live container tracking means big savings

Category: News

A transport provider is using a clever new app and Facebook to live track containers on the road saving time and money for its customers.

Facebook Chatbot, powered by arl-shipping, tracks containers on the road enroute from discharge port to import warehouse, giving real-time visibility of a truck on the road.

Import customer and warehouse operator follow the trucks in real-time and prepare for speedy container unstuffing upon arrival to the warehouse. The tracking is facilitated by truck drivers using arl-shippings free app, tracking the shipment and OCR’ed container numbers via driver’s smartphone GPS location services. The Facebook tracking service is fully embedded into the transport provider’s Facebook page as an integral service.

“We explore maturing technologies, which can be deployed with little effort to the benefit of real life shipping scenarios like container number OCR, GPS trackers and other IoT devices, drones and blockchain technology,” said René Bendt, director of art-shipping.com.

The tracking technology works by tracking the shipment and OCR container numbers via a driver’s smartphone GPS location. It’s a service which is fully embedded into the transport provider’s Facebook page.

Because the app provides real-time information, a warehouse operator can be better prepared for warehouse docking and unstuffing when a truck arrives.

Upon providing the warehouse’s location to the chatbot via smartphones’ built-in location sharing services, Last Mile Container Tracker alerts in Facebook messenger when a container is close to the warehouse, as well as giving hourly status messages while in transit.

Soon the chatbot will also be able to advise warehouse ETA by the imbedding online traffic pattern services into the tracker.

Mr Bendt pointed out that on top of its Facebook chatbot cargo tracking, arl-shipping will soon launch Skype and WeChat Last Mile Container Tracking for shipping line agents, freight forwarders, warehouse operators or other intermediaries via the same chatbot.

•Source port strategy / Hellenic Shipping News