06 January 2023

UN/CEFACT GUIDANCE FOR BETTER TRACKING OF MULTIMODAL TRANSPORT RELEASED

The United Nations’ electronic trade facilitation body, CEFACT, has released a ‘business requirement specification’ (BRS) that provides guidance for an integrated track and trace system for multimodal transport. It aims to shed light on supply chains that many beneficial cargo owners’ experience as a “black box”.

To address the lack of consistent identifiers end-to-end across the many actors involved and to bridge this communication gap between the trade and transport sectors, UNECE UN/CEFACT has produced the international standard “Integrated Track and Trace for Multi-Modal Transportation Business Requirements Specification (BRS)”. Developed in accordance with the UN/CEFACT Open Development Process and validated by the UN/CEFACT Bureau, the new standard was presented to the 28th UN/CEFACT Plenary in October 2022. It contributes a framework on how to close the gap by creating an effective linkage to unique identifiers.

Inconsistency in terminology persists as a major concern in the trade and transportation processes. Stakeholders involved in the trade transaction and the transportation of consignments tend to mix the use of common terms and definitions, or sometimes use different identifiers for the same object. For instance, the terms ‘trade shipment’ and ‘consignment’ have the same meaning but are usually not used consistently across various trading industries and modes of transport. Furthermore, ‘transport contract’ is also named differently at times by different modes of transport, such as road consignment note, waybill, master air waybill, bill of lading, rail consignment note.  

The group of experts involved in the UN/CEFACT project Cross Industry Supply Chain Track and Trace project had first delivered an executive-level White Paper on Integrated Track and Trace for Multimodal Transportation in April 2021, which then was the basis for the new BRS Integrated Track and Trace for Multi-Modal Transportation document, published October 2022.

“This new standard is a critically important step forward to support end-to-end monitoring of sustainable global supply chains,” said Ms. Sue Probert, Chair of UN/CEFACT. In the future, the newly launched international standard will be used in combination with the data sources from the UN/CEFACT library, and methods of digitalization and standardized identification schemes within and across supply chains.  

The new standard and its implementation can contribute to the digitalization of information exchange along supply chains across the UNECE region and beyond. It also can help digitalise the flow of data in the context of the Black Sea Grain initiative, or in the long term, help digitalise the so-called Green Lanes, facilitating exports from Ukraine.

An interesting article has been published explaining the benefits and the working of the new standard which can be read here