Geospatial Technology in Global Logistics

WiseTech Global integrates advanced geospatial technologies such as GPS, GIS, remote sensing, and satellite imagery within its CargoWise platform to enhance global logistics by improving the accuracy, efficiency, and seamless tracking of goods delivery worldwide, addressing industry challenges through data-driven spatial analysis and mapping.

When spatial technology first emerged, it was difficult to foresee how a global mapping schema would become vital in the routing and delivery of goods worldwide. For WiseTech Global, spatial technology is now an essential tool within the CargoWise platform.

WiseTech Global investigates industry pain points and works to solve them. Spatial technology has enabled the development of a more seamless global solution, leveraging the latest technological advances to address delivery and tracking concerns. This is a key reason why the CargoWise One platform is a leader in its field.

Understanding Spatial Technology

The question "Where are you?" can be answered in several ways: using a street address, identifying an area, or relying on local knowledge and landmarks. However, these methods have shortcomings in a data-driven environment. As the world becomes more digitized and fast-paced, it is increasingly important to know exactly where we are and where we want to be.

Spatial (or geospatial) technology refers to software or hardware that assists with mapping the earth through the study of position, area, and size of locations. Also known as applied geography, spatial science uses technologies such as:

Global Positioning Systems (GPS)
Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
Remote Sensing (RS)
Satellite imagery
Augmented reality

These technologies are used to visualize, manipulate, analyze, display, and record spatial data.

Spatial information is increasingly used across many industries, including transport, defence, security, agriculture, mining, construction, healthcare, and retail. The spatial information industry had an estimated combined market worth of nearly US$340 billion in 2018, with expectations to grow to around US$440 billion in 2020.

The Benefits of Spatial Technology

The rapid growth of the spatial technology market reflects expected and realized improvements in productivity and efficiency. In recent years, the positive economic impact of the spatial industry has been nearly double the industry’s revenue growth. This is due to the availability of new technologies and their broader adoption.

Spatial technology offers commercial, social, political, and environmental benefits. It helps businesses and consumers optimize travel routes to avoid traffic congestion, increase fuel efficiency, and improve road safety. This saves time, reduces emissions, and enhances safety. Ridesharing companies use spatial technology to determine user locations and pricing. In construction, companies use high-quality satellite imaging and spatial technology to quote jobs without site visits. Insurance companies assess risk by remotely evaluating the proximity of buildings and threats. Even dating apps use spatial technology to accurately locate potential matches.

CargoWise One recently introduced address validation using spatial technology, enabling more than 200 million address validations.

Spatial Technology in Logistics

Spatial technology has diverse and important applications in the global logistics solutions industry. As trade volumes and regulatory complexity increase, and international ecommerce changes commercial demands, border compliance risks, and customer expectations, spatial technology—particularly geofencing—offers significant operational productivity improvements.

Geofencing involves drawing a virtual boundary around a geographic entity, such as a national border, suburb, building, or loading area. Once an area is geofenced, it can be paired with software that triggers a response when a predetermined boundary is breached. For example, geofencing a warehouse can set up an alert when a truck carrying goods is about to arrive.

End-to-end logistics is complex, especially across diverse geographies. It requires many components working together across the supply chain. The typical endpoint is a delivery address in a postcode, which is used to determine routing, timing, and cost. However, postcode areas are not consistently defined, and some countries lack a postcode or reference code system. These inconsistencies affect decisions around optimized routing, pricing, and reporting.

Geofencing in Practice

Geofencing can assist logistics providers in various ways. Some countries have internal borders that distinguish between different legal or regulatory regimes. For example, in the UK, England and Scotland have distinct legal systems, affecting shipping requirements. Geofencing allows shippers to determine exactly where deliveries go, enabling them to prepare documentation accordingly.

CargoWise One engineered an address validation engine using spatial technology. This service ensures delivery addresses are entered accurately, using geocoded coordinates aligned to geographic locations. This allows users managing global freight shipments to make more accurate delivery and routing decisions. Since its introduction, more than 200 million addresses have been validated.

Previously, delivery times at ports might not account for road congestion, leading to trucks queuing outside ports and reserved docks sitting unused. Geofencing allows specific delivery areas to be geocoded, so delivery notifications are only made when the truck actually arrives, reducing wasted dock time. Many trucks are now fitted with GPS devices that allow shipments to be tracked, including port notifications or triggering warehouse unloading events.

The potential of geofencing is vast. In the future, more people may be able to import and group their own geoshapes, such as post offices, government bodies, or border agencies, allowing for more accurate and specific logistics and delivery decisions.

References

WiseTech Global is a leading developer and provider of software solutions to the logistics execution industry globally. Customers include 12,000 logistics companies across 150 countries, including 43 of the top 50 global third-party logistics providers and all 25 of the largest global freight forwarders worldwide.

CargoWise One, the flagship product, forms an integral link in the global supply chain and executes over 50 billion data transactions annually. WiseTech is committed to innovation, adding more than 3,500 product enhancements to the global platform in the past five years, continually improving the world’s supply chains. The software solutions are known for their productivity, functionality, integration, compliance capabilities, and global reach.