Ocean freight visibility tools are digital solutions designed to increase transparency and control over the entire ocean freight process for shippers and logistic companies. These tools integrate various data sources including vessel tracking, port schedules, and cargo information (For example Bill of Lading Data), to provide real-time tracking and monitoring of shipments.

These platforms offer insights into vessel locations, estimated times of arrival, and potential delays enabling stakeholders to make informed decisions, optimise supply chain operations, and mitigate risks associated with transit times and operational inefficiencies.

These tools often look to also mitigate the challenge of communication between stakeholders in the logistics process, by building shared workflow tools and messaging solutions.

The process usually involves searching for a container/containers using bill of lading numbers, or container numbers so as to quickly identify where the containers of interest are, with some predictive capabilities included around arrival to ports, terminals, or berths.

The main datapoints included within these platforms are:

Container Tracking and Milestones: By combing AIS with BoL data and often other datasets such a port data, these tools are able to provide much more granular detail (or estimations) as to the location of a container and it’s estimated time of arrival. Many OFV providers will also go a step further by breaking down the container’s lifecycle to provide additional metrics such as Estimated time to Berth or indications as to whether it's been loaded onto hinterland transport.

Carrier Schedules and Performance: Alongside the tracking components, many OFV tools will also provide performance figures on the shipping lines, to provide context for their users when they make their logistics decisions. This is typically done by comparing AIS and port call records with the published container schedules

 Container schedules are often not met or will skip ports, so understanding the likelihood of this is another key component for shippers to consider.

Road and Rail: Some of the OFV solutions will also include additional tracking capabilities for hinterland transport. In practical terms this means providing tracking information for containers when they’re being transported by road or by rail.

Route Analytics: This effectively marries all of the previous features and datapoints from historic routes to provide analytics and insights on the selected route over time. An example of this would be looking at historical journeys from Shanghai to the US, and identifying simple things like the average transit time through to areas in which there are frequently choke points, or unreliability so as to enable cargo owners to pick the route which best serves them.

Benefits

Generally simple platforms which can transform a number of different and disparate data points into actionable intelligence via effective user interfaces.

Significant variety amongst the suppliers, which mean that the market is very competitive, enabling buyers to select a solution which best fits their profile and requirements.

Drawbacks

Given the number of different solutions available, it could be challenging to get all stakeholders to agree to use a single platform.

The price point for these tools seems to vary wildly, so it can be difficult to identify which tool provides the best value for money without significant market assessment.