🌊 Detailed Overview of Ocean Carrier Tracking

Project44’s Ocean Visibility solution provides real-time tracking for containerized ocean freight across global trade lanes. By combining direct carrier integrations, EDI integration, AIS vessel tracking, and port event monitoring, we deliver end-to-end visibility with high data quality and granularity.

📦 Container Discovery

Our platform supports container discovery, allowing shippers and logistics providers to initiate tracking using minimal inputs, such as a Container Number or Booking Number or Bill of Lading (BOL) reference. Key capabilities include:

• Automatic Container Matching: Identify which vessel a container is loaded on, based on carrier data and AIS signals.
• Transshipment Detection: The system intelligently identifies if a shipment involves one or more transshipment ports—where containers are transferred between vessels. This includes automatically detecting vessel changes during the journey and updating tracking events to reflect the new leg of the route, ensuring continuous visibility from origin to destination.
• Multi-Container Handling: Track multiple containers under a single booking number or BOL, with synchronized milestones for easier management.

🧭 Shipment Journey Coverage

Ocean shipments tracked via Project44 follow a structured progression of events and stop types, spanning from initial pickup to container return. These stops are grouped into distinct phases to reflect how containers move through pre-carriage, main carriage, and post-carriage legs of the journey.

🚚 Pre-Carriage (Inland Pickup to Port of Loading)

This phase covers the inland movement of the container from the shipper’s location to the port where it's loaded onto the ocean vessel. The following are the various stops that can occur during the pre-carriage phase:

• PICKUP
• TRANSFER
• ORIGIN
• TRANSFER
• PORT_OF_LOADING

🌊 Main Ocean Carriage (Port to Port via Sea)

This phase represents the international ocean leg, including any transshipments between vessels.
The following are the various stops that can occur during the main carriage phase:

• TRANSSHIPMENT_PORT
• PORT_OF_DISCHARGE

🚛 Post-Carriage (Port of Discharge to Final Destination)

Final inland movement of the container until delivery and return of the empty box. The following are the various stops that can occur during the post-carriage phase:

• TRANSFER
• DESTINATION
• RETURN

Each stop is enriched with timestamped events, location coordinates, and carrier or AIS-based movement data. This structure enables detailed milestone tracking across multimodal segments, giving shippers complete visibility into every leg of the journey. The definitions of all the stops mentioned above can be found in the $.shipment.routeInfo.stops schema guide.

🔗 Direct EDI & API Integration Models

Project44 maintains deep connectivity with major ocean carriers through a combination of EDI and API integration models. These connections enable the ingestion of high-quality, event-driven shipment and container data in near real-time.

📄 EDI Integrations (Event-Based)

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is the most widely used method among traditional ocean carriers for transmitting milestone events in structured formats (e.g., EDIFACT, ANSI X12).

• Data Flow: Carriers push standardized event messages (e.g., 315 – Status Details, 301 – Booking Confirmation) to Project44 systems on defined triggers.

• Common Events Tracked via EDI:

  • Container gated in/out
  • Loaded on vessel / Discharged
  • Vessel departure / arrival
  • Booking status updates

• Typical Carriers: Maersk, MSC, CMA CGM, Hapag-Lloyd, Evergreen, ONE, COSCO, etc.

🔁 API Integrations

Modern carriers and digital-first platforms are adopting REST APIs for more dynamic data access. Project44 supports both Push and Pull models depending on the carrier’s capabilities.

🔔 API Push Model (Webhook-Based)

• How it Works: The carrier pushes shipment events to a Project44 webhook endpoint as they occur (event-driven).

• Use Case: Used by digitally mature carriers or forwarders with real-time event streaming capabilities.

📥 API Pull Model (Polling-Based)

• How it Works: Project44 periodically queries carrier APIs for shipment and container updates.

• Use Case: Useful when carriers expose tracking endpoints but don’t support webhooks.

✅ Hybrid Model Support

Some carriers offer both EDI and APIs, allowing Project44 to use a hybrid approach — e.g., ingesting milestone events via EDI while enriching with voyage details and vessel position via API.