Sept/Oct 2005

'Nested RFID' offers prospect of tracking both containers and goods worldwide

SaviTrak, a global network for tracking shipping containers and their contents, went live in September - bringing the prospect of truly global, universal tracking a step closer.

But what does container tracking mean to you, and what should it mean? If you're despatching goods by ocean freight between continents, arguably you need only track the ocean freight section of the journey goods at key points - notably when the vessel arrives at or leaves ports. The rest of the time, in theory at least, you can more or less guess where the goods are, so long as you have a rough idea of the journey time scheduled for the ship.

However, there is a school of thought which says that true go-anywhere tracking should enable users to find the location of shipping containers at literally any time, wherever they are in the world. This approach poses financial and technical challenges, but could also emerge as a mainstream concept in due course.

 

Savi Technology has opted for the more modest port gateway approach with its SaviTrack system. The company uses active RFID (radio frequency identification) tags on containers to track their movement through ports participating in Savi Networks, an operation set up with port operator Hutchison. Savi controls the network itself, supplying information to customers over the Internet. The service is provided on a per-container service.

The inaugural shipment involved a container of goods made in China and bound for US-based retailers such as Wal-Mart. The container company in the inaugural operation was Mitsui, and according to Masahiko Tsumoto, a senior vice president in the US: 'Mitsui USA believes that a new generation of software driven by real-time, RFID-generated data already is helping to transform how shipments are managed and secured in the global supply chain.'

The program is deploying several types of active RFID tag, including the latest Savi Tag ST-676 ISO Container Security Tag, which clamps on to the container's door and communicates the container's identification, contents, location, security status and interior environmental conditions to the network.

An important element of the movement was something that could become increasingly important in other forms of tracking, too - namely 'nested tagging'. The theory is simple; the active RFID tag on the container tracks only the container itself, but cases or cartons within the load have their own EPC-standard passive tags, so effectively the information held by them can be aggregated to form real-time electronic 'manifests' of what is actually being carried - and where it is.

The tags are still limited of course to being monitored at points where the container tags are tracked. But if you extend that concept with the MobinTele approach, in theory you could monitor the location of any RFID-tagged pallet or case anywhere in the world.

MobinTele, a Finnish company, aims to track your goods at all times. It uses conventional GPRS, SMS or even Wi-Fi technologies where these technologies are available and in range, but feeds the signal to a satellite communication network at other times.

Technology from German partner TriaGnoSys Wessling provides the satellite 'gateway' technology, and now the two companies are working with Singapore-based Globaltrax on a commercial version called SECURED by CargoTrax. IBM is believed to be working on a similar system, and other such developments are likely to follow.

A potential downside of their approach is cost; a figure of 100 euros per movement is quoted. Then again, the company argues that this is a small price to pay for security, and far less than would be necessary to provide more elaborate measures. But that equation has to be squared with budget and other considerations.

Perhaps the most practical alternative at the moment is the kind of system offered by OxLoc, which aims to track containers anywhere in the world where there's a GSM phone network. Even if you don't track ships on the high seas, this means you'll know when they are approaching a port.

Interest in container tracking owes more than a little to international concern about container security - prompted in particular by Nine Eleven and everything that followed. This has been focused in the Container Safety Initiative, which was launched by the US Bureau of Customs and Border Protection in 2002, but in turn took inspiration from the US Government's earlier Smart and Secure Tradelanes programme.

Savi says that during the development phase involving the US and other defence departments, more than 1.5 million RFID-tagged shipments have been tracked.

The appealing news emerging from the new Savi and MobinTele developments is that these programmes are now filtering into the commercial mainstream. Key points to look out for include affordable cost, accessibility, reliability, ease of integration and frequency of reporting. The latest Savi development shows that operators already believe at least some of these targets are being met.