Container tracking by API: goodbye to emails and scraping
How to move from chasing statuses across emails and carrier websites to real-time container tracking via official API and the DCSA standard.
Most forwarders still track their containers the way they did twenty years ago: logging into each carrier’s website one by one, copying the latest status into a spreadsheet and forwarding emails whenever a client asks “where is my cargo?”. It works, but it’s expensive: hours of your team’s day, data that goes stale the moment you copy it, and human errors that end up in a claim.
API-based tracking fixes the problem at the root. Instead of a person going to fetch the status, the status arrives on its own.
What “official API” means
Every major carrier publishes a Track & Trace API: a technical channel through which it authorises software to query a container’s events —departure, transshipment, arrival, discharge— automatically and in a structured way. This is not scraping (reading the public website by imitating a browser), which is fragile, breaks whenever the page changes, and usually goes against the terms of use.
The practical difference:
- Scraping: you depend on the website not changing, there are no guarantees, and the data arrives late.
- Official API: a stable, authorised connection, normalised events, and updates as soon as the carrier records them.
The DCSA standard, the common language
The problem with connecting to ten carriers is that each used to speak its own language. The DCSA (Digital Container Shipping Association) published a Track & Trace standard so that all of them describe the same milestones in the same way. A “Gate out” event means the same thing at CMA CGM as at Maersk, and your software doesn’t need a separate translator per carrier. At Rowan Cargo we treat it as the common language and, on top, add vessel AIS to recalculate the ETA from the ship’s real position.
What you gain by switching
- Less manual work. Your team stops chasing statuses and gets on with operating.
- Fresh data. The event comes in as it happens, not when someone has a gap to copy it.
- A single screen. Every container, from every carrier, on one map with its ETA.
- Traceability. It’s on record who saw what and when — useful in a dispute.
Where to start
You don’t have to change everything at once. Start with the two or three carriers you move the most with, connect them by API, and let the rest of the team see the status in one place. Once you see “where is my cargo?” disappear from the day-to-day, the remaining integrations follow on their own.
Rowan Cargo connects to the major carriers via official API and the DCSA standard, plus vessel AIS and cargo flights, so you see everything in one control tower. Want to see it in action? Book a demo.
