Still relying on ocean carrier data? Manually checking rail carrier websites?
Anyone who tracks rail movements knows that ocean carrier data is not enough.
As a result, operations teams often spend a lot of time visiting rail carrier websites and calculating ETAs using spreadsheets.
This is tedious, time-consuming work — time better spent on higher-value tasks. But to rely fully on automation, you need data that your team can trust.
Why ocean carrier data isn’t enough
For containers going inland, ocean carriers coordinate with the rail carriers to move containers from vessels through terminals and onto the rail. As a result, they will often report some limited data on the rail leg.
However, seasoned operators know that ocean carrier data is lacking in key data quality dimensions of completeness, timeliness and accuracy.
How OpenTrack solved rail visibility
By integrating directly with the rail carriers, and leveraging our prediction algorithms on top, we built an enhanced rail visibility experience to address these gaps and deliver the data our customers need automatically, directly in their OpenTrack feed.
Here is an overview of the major benefits that operators see with OpenTrack Rail Visibility:
- ETAs that are 3x more accurate than the ocean carrier
- Much less missing data (for example Availability data that is present 25x more of the time)
- Updates that are much less delayed
- Granular rail sightings to track progress en route and help catch anomalies early
- Much better Last Free Days to avoid demurrage
- Complete details on gate transactions (J1)
Let’s dive into each of these in detail.
ETAs that are 3x more accurate than the ocean carrier
Using our own algorithms, trained on millions of monthly data points, we’re able to report rail ETAs that are on average 3x more accurate than the ocean carrier.
This is important because our data shows that 45% of containers are delayed more than 7 days compared to their initial ocean carrier ETA.
So, if you’re relying on the ocean carriers for inland ETAs, you’re dealing with serious delays more than half the time.
Not only that, but as they get closer to arrival — and especially at port, when dwell time uncertainty spikes — ocean carrier ETAs are prone to significant errors.
This makes a huge difference managing customer expectations and coordinating pickup and receiving workflows.
Eliminate data gaps and data delays
Steamship lines report some rail milestones, but not consistently. This leads to big data gaps and delays in reporting that can cause serious operational issues.
We track completeness and latency closely, so we can measure the difference between the ocean carrier’s rail data and the data we get directly from rail carriers (via OpenTrack’s enhanced rail visibility).
Completeness is a measure of data gaps: How many containers have all the data points you expect them to have?
Latency is a measure of data delays: How delayed is a new update relative to when the event occurred?
Eliminate data gaps on key milestones
Looking at some key rail milestones, we can see big gaps being filled by data from rail carriers.
For example:
- Departed milestone is 8% more present in OpenTrack data vs the ocean carrier
- Arrived milestone is 12% more present in OpenTrack data vs the ocean carrier
Availability data is present 25x more often
When we consider the Available milestone the difference is even more striking.
The Available milestone is present 25 times more often in the OpenTrack enhanced rail visibility data compared to the ocean carrier rail data alone.
Eliminate data delays
Timeliness is also critical, and we can see huge benefits there too. Compared to the ocean carrier, OpenTrack’s enhanced rail data provides much faster updates:
For example:
- Departed milestone updates are 20% less delayed
- Arrived milestone updates are 2x less delayed
- Unloaded milestone updates are 3x less delayed
- Outgated milestone updates are 2.14x less delayed
Sightings directly from railroads
On the rail, it’s also essential to receive granular progress updates as the train moves across the country.
Ocean carriers often don’t provide these sightings, so integrating with rail carriers directly is essential to providing consistent rail sightings data.
Thanks to these sightings, we can even report border crossing events which are essential to certain customs compliance workflows.
With these granular rail sightings, you can get an automated report of exactly when and where each container crossed the border.
More reliable Last Free Day data directly from railroads
When a container is de-ramped at an inland rail terminal, it’s essential to know when it is available for pickup and what is its last free day.
Relying on the ocean carrier’s LFD alone is not enough. Our data shows that the LFD reported by the railroad can be earlier (it is about 10% of the time).
If you’re not using the earliest LFD, this means you may be at risk of paying storage when you shouldn’t be.
Rail ramp free time is typically very short and may run on weekends. Having reliable arrival, LFD, and Available information is critical to ensure timely pickup to avoid fees. By integrating data from the rail carriers and building and developing our own ETA prediction algorithms we’re giving time back to the operators to focus on more important things.
Gate Transactions
Logistics teams have become used to collecting pickup details from truckers or manually logging into railroad websites to grab the J1 details. That’s why a big part of OpenTrack’s Rail Visibility is leveraging our integrations to pull the J1 details straight into OpenTrack:
- More accurate outgate date
- Trucker info
- Chassis numbers
Relying only on steamship line data for inland rail tracking is not sufficient. Operators know that they also have to log into rail carrier websites for updates and often calculate their own ETAs.
By integrating data from the rail carriers and building and developing our own ETA prediction algorithms we’re giving time back to the operators to focus on more important things.
