Harbitt, Inc. (Representative Director: Koji Nakata; head office: Minato-ku, Tokyo), a provider of cloud solutions for international logistics, has launched a new solution, “Harbitt Route Search,” that lets users search for routes and carriers with a low risk of delay before booking a container vessel.
Conventional schedule search shows the scheduled departure and arrival dates and transit time, but could not indicate how likely a route actually was to run late. Harbitt Route Search lets users compare not only the scheduled transit time but also delay trends and other information on the same screen, so that shippers’ logistics staff arranging transport, and forwarders proposing routes or alternative sailings to customers, can act on data rather than experience alone.
Harbitt also announces that it has acquired two Japanese patents for technology related to this solution.
Background: the fastest route on paper is not always the fastest in practice
In international ocean freight, port congestion, bad weather, strikes, changes to vessel schedules, and, in recent years, geopolitical risk all contribute to delays that occur as a matter of course.
Route selection has traditionally relied on the latest schedules published by carriers, combined with staff experience. In practice, however, a route with a shorter scheduled transit time often experiences more delays, and can end up arriving later than an alternative route.
Detecting delays early through tracking is important, but by that point the booking and transport arrangements are already complete. Once a delay occurs, a great deal of follow-up work is required: re-investigating alternative routes, coordinating with carriers and customers, and identifying the shipments affected.
To address this, we developed Harbitt Route Search, which goes beyond responding to delays after the fact: it lets users compare how delay-prone each route is before booking, so that transport can be arranged with delay risk factored in from the start.
To reduce this after-the-fact workload, we call the approach of predicting and avoiding delay risk before booking “proactive logistics.” Together with this solution, we will support companies as they shift toward logistics operations based on delay risk anticipated in advance.
Three features of “Harbitt Route Search”
1. Efficiently choose routes with a low chance of delay before booking
Search the latest schedules from every carrier at once, and compare delay trends by service and delay status at the previous port of call. Because users can choose a low-delay-risk route and carrier before booking, this reduces both the work of rearranging transport after the fact and the impact of delays on the supply chain.
2. Faster selection of alternative routes when trouble occurs
When trouble such as a port strike, port congestion, or a weather disaster occurs, users can quickly find alternative routes that avoid the affected ports and lanes.
Integration with “Harbitt Tracking” also lets users quickly identify which of their own shipments could be affected, turning impact checks and alternative-route planning into a single connected workflow — speeding up the initial response when trouble hits.
3. Quantitatively evaluate the track record of carriers, services, and routes
Drawing on global container vessel operating data, not limited to vessels departing from or arriving in Japan, users can quantitatively see how a carrier’s service compares with others in terms of delay.
This makes it possible to evaluate the transport quality of the carriers used and, for forwarders, to back route proposals to shippers and alternative-route proposals during trouble with quantitative data.
Schedule and delay information is also available via API and in data form.
On the patents
In connection with the launch of this solution, Harbitt has acquired two Japanese patents related to optimal route search.
[Contact for this announcement]
Company: Harbitt, Inc.
Contact: PR and Alliances
Write to us here