Reference

The things this trade assumes you already know. Free, and without an email address.

Tools

Used without signing up and without leaving an email address. They are here because somebody who uses them three times a month comes back, and that is worth more than an address captured in exchange for a table.

8container types

Container cuber

Inside dimensions, volume and weight for the eight that move in drayage — and how much cargo actually fits on the road, which is not the same figure.

Open

10lines and their prefixes

Check a container number

Who owns a box, from its prefix, and whether the number was copied right. The ISO 6346 check digit, worked out in your browser. It is not tracking: it does not say where the box is.

Open

6,447warehouses and inspection sites

Bonded warehouses and inspection sites

Where in-bond cargo can go near a terminal. From CBP and CBSA, each place with the date its source was published.

Open

68series about terminals

Terminal activity

How the ports and rail yards BTS measures are running right now — every indicator with the date it was published, and the dead ones marked dead.

Open

3live series from the port

Veracruz, live

Vessels berthed, anchored and expected, read live from the port’s open data. The only machine-readable feed in all of Mexico and Canada.

Open

Worldwide

Article
Per diem and demurrage are not the same charge
Who bills which, what stops each clock, and why a carrier can owe one while the shipper owes the other.

United States

Article
FIRMS codes, and why a terminal has more than one name
The four-character code CBP assigns to a bonded facility, what it does not tell you, and how to match a terminal somebody named differently.

Canada

Nothing here yet. What exists is written; what is missing is missing.

Mexico

Article
Carta Porte: what a US buyer needs to know
The complemento that turns a Mexican freight invoice into a legal transport document, and what happens to a load without one.