Blockchain could give transportation participants a shared, tamper-resistant record of freight transactions, improving security, payment, visibility, and data integrity across the supply chain.
Demand for supply-chain transparency was increasing interest in a continuously updated ledger maintained across a peer-to-peer network. Traditional freight transactions still occur, but each is validated and recorded so no single participant can alter or delete it without consensus.
The result is a permanent digital history from origin through final delivery.
Blockchain's Impact on Transportation
Transportation is a critical supply-chain link and could receive several benefits from the technology:
- Timelier shipment-status updates
- Faster freight payments
- Improved cargo security
- Better data for analysis
- Reduced risk
- More transparent contracts
- More direct transportation transactions
Early adopters were already using blockchain's transparency to reduce fraud in high-value goods such as diamonds and pharmaceuticals and to improve the safety of sensitive food shipments.
Blockchain in Transport Alliance
New technology requires common standards. The Blockchain in Transport Alliance, or BiTA, was formed in August 2017 to develop the first transportation-specific blockchain standards for supply-chain participants.
Its members included major transportation, logistics, and software companies. The alliance intended to provide education, direction, and a neutral clearinghouse for reaching consensus about implementation.
KSM and KSM Transport Advisors joined as the first CPA and consulting firm in the organization so they could better advise clients on blockchain's supply-chain effects.
BiTA's planned focus included:
- Smart contracts
- Freight payments
- Asset maintenance and ownership history
- Grey trailer pools
- Freight transparency and chain of custody
David Roush noted that a less obvious benefit would be better data integrity, supporting more precise carrier freight-profitability calculations.
Common Standards
Transportation already depends on standardized tools and formats such as bills of lading, EDI, ISO, and ASCII. Blockchain would need a similar shared framework.
BiTA planned to release its first transportation standards in 2018. The expectation was that common rules would allow blockchain to create efficiency, transparency, trust, and more accurate end-to-end shipment tracking.