Cargo tracking in transit

Azerbaijan has become a key transit point between Asia and Europe: millions of tonnes of cargo pass through the Baku-Alat port every year, moving from China, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan towards Turkey, Georgia, the EU and the Middle East. At the same time the country remains a large importer of food from Turkey, Iran and Ukraine and of pharmaceuticals from Europe — categories where an unbroken cold chain is critical to the final value and to the safety of the product.

The classic freight risks in the region — theft in transit, breaches of the temperature regime while crossing the hot Kara-Kum desert or on the ferry crossings of the Caspian, damage during transhipment in ports and at rail marshalling yards — cost cargo owners 3-7% of the value of the load in direct losses. Satellite monitoring brings those losses down to under 0.5% and makes the insurance settlement simpler when an incident occurs.

For customers working international routes, what matters most is that the tracking is not broken when the mode of transport changes or a border is crossed. Our devices send data over GSM, LoRa and Wi-Fi and, where there is no terrestrial network, over a satellite channel if the project provides for one. When the link drops, points are stored in the tracker's memory and sent on later.

The vehicle and the load are not the same thing. A tracker on the tractor unit answers the question of where the vehicle is. If the load has been moved into another body or the trailer has been dropped, it will not know about it. To see the load itself, a self-powered battery tracker is placed inside it. It does not depend on whose vehicle is carrying the consignment or on whether the haulier changes along the way, but it reports in less often and does not measure temperature itself.

Connectivity and battery life. On the Caspian ferry and on stretches with no coverage the tracker cannot send anything: it stores the positions and sends them once a network appears. On the map in the meantime you see the last position that was transmitted. A frequent reporting mode drains a self-powered tracker's battery faster, so the mode is chosen to suit the length of the route.

Freight through Azerbaijan is often multimodal: road transport from Iran and Turkey, the Baku — Tbilisi — Kars railway, ferries across the Caspian to Aktau and Turkmenbashi. On the ferry and on stretches with no coverage there is no connection for many hours at a time, so on routes like these what matters is the memory capacity of the tracker and a reporting mode that will not flatten the battery before its time.

Dealing with the customs services of four countries (Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russia, Iran) calls for standardised reporting: for every trip we produce a report with the route, stops and events, which can be attached to the transport documents and handed over at the request of the supervisory authorities.

Particular attention goes to work at the Baku-Alat port, the largest logistics hub in the South Caucasus. For projects near the Port of Alat, we choose trackers for the route's connectivity and site access requirements. We check any port-system data exchange with the operator before deployment. Tracker data lets a shipper see where a container is from the moment it comes off the vessel to the moment it goes onto a lorry or a railway wagon.

A change of haulier. If a consignment is carried by several companies, the tracker on the first one's tractor unit stops being of use at the very first transhipment. In that case the main source of data becomes the self-powered tracker in the load, and the consignee can follow the consignment through a temporary link without access to your fleet.

What we need from you to make a selection. The route and the modes of transport, the typical length of a run, whether temperature matters, who owns the vehicles and whether anything can be fitted in the body, and how the tracker will find its way back after delivery. Monitoring does not replace customs clearance or port procedures — it gives the shipper and the consignee a picture of how the load is moving.