Transportation EDI: What is Transportation EDI and how does it Work

Through several decades of evolution, many of the complexities and challenges inherent in the transportation and trucking industry have led to the extremely efficient EDI systems that are in place today. The replacement of paper documents with electronic documents was one of the most significant advances in logistics and transportation technology. Companies now rely on standardized electronic formats rather than having to manage different manual systems for load requests, load request responses, status updates, and invoices. EDI has become increasingly popular in the trucking & transportation industry because it helps communication flow between all parties in the supply chain process.

EDI in the Transportation industry

EDI has become very popular in the transportation industry as transportation companies and load brokers all aim to integrate and exchange information as fast as possible. With high volume transactions, EDI affords the ability to exchange the bills of lading, shipping manifests, shipping statuses, invoices, and remittances. The major advantage of EDI is it minimizes manual tasks, lower the costs, and dispatch information without any data being manually keyed in.

What are the most important transportation EDI documents used?

EDI plays a vital role in vendor compliance as just about all major retailers require EDI transactions.

EDI transactions are standardized electronic business documents used by trading partners to send and receive business information, such as when one company wants to electronically send an EDI order to another organization. If you are a trucking company and your customer requires you to be EDI capable, then you will be required to exchange ANSI X12 EDI transaction sets. Below are some of the most commonly used EDI transactions in the transportation industry.

• EDI 204 – Motor Carrier Load Tender: EDI 204 transaction set is used by the shipper to the transportation provider to request pickup of the shipment.
• EDI 210 Motor Carrier Freight Details and Invoice: This transaction is sent from the carrier to the shipper to request payment of freight charges.
• EDI 211– Motor Carrier Bill of Lading: EDI 211 transaction set is used by a shipper to a carrier and acts as a legally binding description of the delivery.
• EDI 212 Motor Carrier Delivery Trailer Manifest – EDI 211 transaction set is sent by shipper to a carrier for replacing paper bill of ladings
• EDI 214– Transportation Carrier Shipment Message – This transaction is used by freight carriers to inform shippers of the detailed status of their shipments.
• EDI 214– Motor Carrier Pick-Up Manifest – EDI 215 transaction set is sent by shipper to transmit a listing of the shipments to a carrier
• EDI 856 Advance Ship Notice (ASN): Provide a buyer (trading partner) how the supplier has packed the items for shipment.
• EDI 990– Response to Load Tender – The 990 Response document is used by carriers to communicate their reply to a 204 Motor Carrier Load Tender.

EDI Messaging Protocols

The EDI protocols are used to exchange data securely between different computer systems. To communicate with each other via EDI, both systems need to use the same EDI protocol. It is required that Freight carriers or transporters must support various types of protocols to exchange information to multiple service providers.

Following are the common EDI Protocols used in Transportation industry

• AS2: AS2 (Applicability Statement is a business-to-business data messaging protocol used to exchange EDI documents between business partners. AS2 uses HTTP or HTTPS technology protocols to transmit data (especially EDI messages) safely, cheaply and quickly.
• HTTPS: HTTPS stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure. HTTPS uses SSL or TLS to encrypt all communication between a client and a server. It is a protocol for securing the communication between two business partners.
• SFTP: Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) is a file transfer protocol for securely exchanging and managing large files and sensitive data.
• JSON: JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) protocol is a lightweight data-interchange format. It is used to exchange data typically between a server and web applications.
• ebXML: ebXML protocol enables secure data transfer of EDI using XML parsing. ebXML allows various organizations, in any location to meet and conduct business through.

Benefits of EDI in the Transportation Industry

The EDI process provides many benefits. Computer-to-computer exchange of information is much less expensive than handling paper documents.

• Much less labor time is required
• Fewer errors occur because computer systems process the documents rather than processing by hand
• Business transactions flow faster.

Faster transactions support reduction in inventory levels, better use of warehouse space, fewer out- of-stock occurrences and lower freight costs through fewer emergencies expedites.

To learn more about how Infocon Systems can take care of your EDI needs for your transportation industry, contact our sales department at +1 888-339-0722 or email us at sales@infoconn.com