US Should Mandate Real-Time Cargo Transit Info, FMC Commissioner Says

Federal Maritime Commissioner Carl Bentzel hopes to issue a final report later this year that will expand on ways carriers, ports, railroads and others can better share supply chain data and real-time shipping information, he said this week. Bentzel said he believes the government eventually should turn some of the report’s recommendations into new mandates, including one that would require carriers to provide shippers with live, in-transit updates on their cargo.

Bentzel, speaking during an Aug. 19 National Shipper Advisory Committee meeting, said he’s “open” to discussing whether the recommendations should remain a set of voluntary guidelines or should be required by law. But he also said he’s concerned carriers and others may simply ignore the recommendations if they’re not made mandatory.

“We did voluntary guidelines on detention and demurrage. What happened? Not much,” said Bentzel, referring to the FMC’s 2020 rule that provided guidance on how the commission assesses the “reasonableness” of detention and demurrage charges (see 2004290037). The industry had complained ocean carriers were ignoring the rule (see 2009140045), and the FMC has since issued new rules to better regulate unreasonable carrier conduct and set demurrage and detention billing requirements (see 2402230049).

“If we can do it with a voluntary guideline and we can get that information, that's fine,” Bentzel said of his maritime transportation data initiative, which seeks to address data constraints that are impeding ocean cargo flow and slowing U.S. supply chains (see 2111160006). “But I believe that certain elements of what the recommendations are need to be required, because if you don't tell someone that you're going to require them to have estimated arrivals, they don't have to have them.”

Bentzel previously released a set of recommendations under the effort (see 2302150050), and said this week that he hopes to complete another, “final” version “by late October.” That report will incorporate some public comments the commission has already received, including in response to an April notice that requested feedback on the types of data elements that are communicated between transportation service providers and importers and exporters about transported containers, and how that data can be improved (see 2404150008).

“The driving principle” of this effort “is really the quality of data that is received is inadequate,” Bentzel said. “It's just amazing to me that we would lose so much money as an industry by not coming up with simple harmonization and simple requirements for the provision of certain information.”

Bentzel specifically wants to improve shipper “visibility” into in-transit cargo, which he said should give them better estimates of cargo arrivals. He said arrival data has been especially challenging to access in recent months because of carriers having to avoid the Red Sea and instead transit around South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope due to Houthi attacks on commercial ships (see 2408080016).

“Today, in shipments around the Horn of Africa, we're seeing delays, losses, challenges of actually getting there. And the carriers are doing their best,” he said. But it’s “becoming increasingly challenging to assess where your cargo is and when it will arrive.”

Although some carriers provide this information, he said the industry needs new “standards that will require real time, in-transit visibility for shipping.” The current requirements “for real-time information about shipping are not there right now,” Bentzel said. “For the most part, a lot of this information is just not being provided.”

He also said the industry needs a “system of schedule reliability for ocean shipping,” adding that shipping schedules aren’t updated to reflect cancellations, blank sailings and other shipping service issues.

“How can you plan what you want to do with respect to your businesses if you do not have any visibility at least five months in advance?” Bentzel said. “If I want to buy a ticket to Disneyland five months from now, I can know basically when my plane would land, and plan accordingly in terms of reservations and hotels and everything else. But the same is not true of ocean shipping.”

The shipping industry would also benefit from more information about earliest receiving dates, especially exporters, who should be able to arrive at a terminal and “know that their cargo will be capable of being loaded on a vessel for outbound service,” Bentzel said. Shippers also need better data on terminal openings and closures and terminal container availability, he said.

Bentzel stressed that the government shouldn’t require carriers and terminals to publish all of this data, especially certain confidential information that should only be shared between the parties in a shipping contract. But other cargo and terminal information should be “made available on a real-time basis,” Bentzel said.

He said companies that would be required to publish this information “would have to make it available as soon as safely feasible.”