Update on Cargo iQ Road Feeder Services pilot

In July, Cargo iQ launched a pilot study to enhance shipment visibility and increase speed in the road freight segment of an air cargo shipment’s journey.

Emirates Airlines, Jan de Rijk, and software company CargoHub have been co-operating for the trial, which has been testing new Cargo iQ Road Feeder Services (RFS) messaging specifications in order to close the communication gap between the truck driver, the trucking company’s head office, and the airline.

The pilot set out to test if a third-party platform could exchange the required event data as status updates to the airline, whether subcontracted RFS operators are providing the service or ad-hoc trucks are being used for the operation of a direct pickup from the shipper.

The third-party platform links the truck driver with its home base and the airline, providing information via the trucking company’s internal IT system to the IT system of the airline. This platform must transmit and translate the status updates from the STM (messaging standard for a RFS provider) in the requested format which is being used by the airline.

The results so far have shown that the pilot is working successfully with just one truck in the fleet; in parallel, the pilot is also working on connecting the entire subcontracted fleet of trucks, so that all can send and receive status updates between their home base and the airline.

The measurement of additional milestones, such as loading report, truck manifest data and message, receipt of departure documents, report of unloading at destination, and so on, is also being addressed.

A second pilot with a different team of airline, trucking company and IT platform provider will be launched in the near future.

Closing the existing data exchange gap, the entire industry will be taking a big step towards measuring 100 percent of shipments and providing a much higher level of visibility.