ISO 26683-1:2013

INTERNATIONAL ISO
STANDARD 26683-1
First edition
2013-04-01
Intelligent transport systems —
Freight land conveyance content
identification and communication —
Part 1:
Context, architecture and referenced
standards
Systèmes intelligents de transport — Identification et communication
du contenu des marchandises transportées par voie terrestre —
Partie 1: Contexte, architecture et normes référencées
Reference number
©
ISO 2013
© ISO 2013
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ii © ISO 2013 – All rights reserved

Contents Page
Foreword .iv
Introduction .v
1 Scope . 1
2 Normative references . 1
3 Terms and definitions . 3
4 Symbols and abbreviated terms . 8
5 Context .10
5.1 General context .10
5.2 Road transport information exchanges for supply chain freight time-sensitive delivery .10
5.3 Dangerous goods .12
5.4 Domestic land transport scenarios .16
5.5 Complementariness of standards .16
6 Architecture .18
6.1 Overview .18
6.2 Standardization aspects for intermodal transport .22
6.3 Make and break bulk content identification .24
6.4 Variety of forms of freight land conveyance .25
6.5 Multiple trailers .26
6.6 Principal standards for the intermodal transport scenario .27
6.7 Subsequent standards .27
6.8 Operational aspects for data collection .27
6.9 On-board cargo stress measurement information during road transport .28
7 Freight land conveyance content identification architecture overview .28
7.1 Generalized framework .28
7.2 Cargo/vehicle information data layer .28
7.3 Sensor data .29
7.4 Item data .30
7.5 Agglomeration of data .32
7.6 Aggregation of data .32
7.7 Data transfer .33
8 Freight land conveyance and communication - Application interface profiles .33
8.1 General .33
Annex A (normative) List of referenced International Standards .34
Annex B (informative) Examples of the system implementation .73
Annex C (informative) ISO 6346 in respect of land conveyance identification .76
Bibliography .81
Foreword
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) is a worldwide federation of national standards
bodies (ISO member bodies). The work of preparing International Standards is normally carried out
through ISO technical committees. Each member body interested in a subject for which a technical
committee has been established has the right to be represented on that committee. International
organizations, governmental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO, also take part in the work.
ISO collaborates closely with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) on all matters of
electrotechnical standardization.
The procedures used to develop this document and those intended for its further maintenance are
described in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1. In particular the different approval criteria needed for the
different types of ISO documents should be noted. This document was drafted in accordance with the
editorial rules of the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2. www.iso.org/directives
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of
patent rights. ISO shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights. Details of
any patent rights identified during the development of the document will be in the Introduction and/or
on the ISO list of patent declarations received. www.iso.org/patents
Any trade name used in this document is information given for the convenience of users and does not
constitute an endorsement.
The committee responsible for this document is ISO/TC 204, Intelligent transport systems.
This first edition of ISO 26683-1 cancels and replaces ISO/TS 26683-1:2012.
ISO 26683 consists of the following parts, under the general title Intelligent transport systems — Freight
land conveyance content identification and communication:
— Part 1: Context, architecture and referenced standards
— Part 2: Application interface profiles
The following parts are under preparation:
— Part 3: Monitoring cargo stress measurement information during road transport [Technical
Specification]
— Part 4: Security profile
iv © ISO 2013 – All rights reserved

Introduction
In a scenario of international land transport and logistics, it is often difficult for a consignor and a
consignee to know the physical real time location of cargo after consigning the cargo to a transport and
logistics service provider. Where a cargo is transferred from one haulier to another, obtaining information
of the manifest at a detailed level is often difficult. Auditing the actual content of a consignment en route
and monitoring cargo stress measurement information during road transport is also difficult, especially
in the case of sealed land conveyances such as sealed intermodal containers. It is a different task to that
of progressing order administration from consignor to consignee.
Seamless exchange of accurate, complete, and timely data at transportation hand-offs has always been
important for efficiency and accountability. There is now a growing understanding of needs for security
of transport information, and for transfer of information related to security against terrorism as well as
theft and traditional contraband.
There is no single organization responsible for standards through the intermodal supply chain. To
achieve a coherent set of standards requires coordination among the various international organizations
working on pieces of these standards.
This part of ISO 26683 specifies the data concepts applicable to the movement of freight and its intermodal
transfer. This part of ISO 26683 focuses on a single “thread” of the overall end to end supply chain.
These data concepts include information entities (data elements), aggregated/associated information
entities (groups of data elements) and messages that comprise information exchanges at transport
interfaces along the chain of participants responsible for the delivery of goods from the point of origin
through to the end. This work is integrated closely with ‘Universal Business Language’ (UBL) espoused
by OASIS and refers to the UN/CEFACT standards (Data Elements TDED, Core Components Technical
Specifications and Library CCL).
ISO 17687 provides a consistent context for the presentation and storage of ‘Dangerous Goods’/HAZMAT
information. ISO 17687 is designed to support the automated identification, monitoring and exchange of
emergency response information regarding dangerous goods carried on board road transport vehicles.
However, ISO 17687 does not specify nor even imply that any particular on-board or off-board systems
should be capable of performing such monitoring, data retention, or communications. ISO 17687 deals with
the on board information but not the media used for transmitting the information, nor the means of collating
and transferring the information. ISO 17687 identifies that such communications are beyond its scope.
However, in domestic land transport, particularly where no border crossings are involved, and except in
the case of ‘Dangerous Goods’/HAZMAT loads, a trucker usually does not have to report cargo manifest
information to any regulator. A trucker receives an order from the client with delivery date/time and
location and except in the case of ‘Dangerous Goods’/HAZMAT, may not necessarily be given any detailed
cargo information. The haulier may or may not use a wireless tracking system for its vehicles, and such
systems may or may not carry any detailed consignment/cargo details. In these situations real time land
transport cargo monitoring is not often possible, and in respect to auditing the content of the load and
monitoring cargo condition information, even where possible, has limitations.
There are also many situations where the tractor and trailer combination changes during the course of
a journey from consignor to consignee.
Further, even where such comprehensive systems are in place, they rely on the level of detail that exists
within its controlling computer system, and without the ability to monitor the actual contents, there is
no possibility to:
a) audit the actual contents of the consignment. This is particularly difficult in the case of a sealed
intermodal container (ISO 668 and subsequent related international standards for freight containers);
b) monitor the condition of the contents of the consignment (cargo stress measurement information).
The ISO 26683 series is therefore complementary to the context of ISO/TS 24533 (Intelligent transport
systems — Electronic information exchange to facilitate the movement of freight and its intermodal
transfer — Road transport information exchange methodology) and may well provide sources of data
required by such systems, and an electronic auditing capability has yet to be embraced by ISO/TS 24533.
As has been seen above, ISO 17687 does not address the means by which its data are collected. ISO 26683
is complementary to ISO 7372.
Further details concerning the complementary nature of the ISO 26683 series to ISO/TS 24533, EFM,
ISO 17687, IEEE 1512.3, UN/CEFACT, particularly UN/CEFACT UMM, ISO 7372, OASIS/UBL can be found
in Clauses 5 and 6 of this part of ISO 26683.
The ISO 26683 series provides a data agglomeration/aggregation capability as one means to capture and
transfer information about the content of the cargo load and its condition to a central system. Therefore
the ISO 26683 series can also support both ISO/TS 24533 and ISO 17687/IEEE 1512.3 instantiations.
ISO 26683 is designed to present data to end-to-end cargo application systems; it does not provide end
to end system (consignor to consignee) system design.
The ISO 26683 series envisages that a combination of existing technologies can be used to
agglomerate/aggregate relevant data and use a tractor/truck mounted communications means to
realize real time cargo visibility of land transport, and is thus not dependent on future technologies
or technologies currently in research and development phases (although it will be suitable for future
technical means to deliver its data).
This part of ISO 26683 is the first part of a series of standards which provides context and high level
architecture for all parts of the ISO 26683 series.
Part 2 defines application interface profiles to agglomerate/aggregate and transfer land cargo transport
data to provide improved land cargo transport data and specifies one or more modes of transfer using
available ICT technologies.
Part 3 will specify the handling of on-board cargo stress measurement information during road transport.
Part 4 will provide a security profile requirement and definition.
vi © ISO 2013 – All rights reserved

INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ISO 26683-1:2013(E)
Intelligent transport systems — Freight land conveyance
content identification and communication —
Part 1:
Context, architecture and referenced standards
1 Scope
This part of ISO 26683 provides the context for application interface profiles for the exchange of land
transport data using current technologies and existing standards for item identification, package
identification, container identification, and international standards and practices regarding freight and
its movement.
This part of ISO 26683 provides:
a) a context of the relationship between the ISO 26683 series and other freight and fleet standards
and defines the objectives for the ISO 26683 series. The explanation is provided as to how existing
International Standards and Technical Specifications can be utilized to agglomerate/aggregate data
concepts by using standardised application interface profiles within the context of ISO 26683 and
how ISO 26683 can be used to provide information/data to cargo management systems.
b) descriptions of use cases of providing information to cargo tracking and tracing in end-to-end
transport by exploiting identifiers, data carriers, EDI messages and data elements with respect to
various types of cargo and transport means within an international intermodal/multimodal cargo
movement context.
c) an architecture for the collation and transfer of data agglomerated/aggregated from information
contained in the transport load to transport operating systems, with the objective being to enable
efficient handling of truck/trailer identification and on-board cargo information for tracking,
tracing and cargo monitoring purposes in a land cargo transport situation.
NOTE ISO 26683 is designed to present information on end-to-end cargo application systems; it does not
provide end to end (consignor to consignee) system design.
This part of ISO 26683 is the first part of a multi-part series which provides context, high level
architecture and a list of referenced standards used for all parts of the ISO 26683 series of deliverables.
2 Normative references
The following referenced documents are indispensable for the application of this document. For dated
references, only the edition cited applies. For undated references, the latest edition of the referenced
document (including any amendments) applies.
In addition to the references listed below, Annex A identifies a large number of international standards
that may be used in the identification, labelling and communication with the contents of a land
conveyance. Data may conform to any of the international standards listed below, but shall conform to
at least one of the international standards listed below or in Annex A.
ISO 6346, Freight containers — Coding, identification and marking
ISO 7372, Trade data interchange — Trade data elements directory
ISO 13183, Intelligent transport systems — Communications access for land mobiles (CALM) — Using
broadcast communications
ISO/TR 14813-2, Transport information and control systems — Reference model architecture(s) for the
TICS sector — Part 2: Core TICS reference architecture
ISO 17261, Intelligent transport systems — Automatic vehicle and equipment identification — Intermodal
goods transport architecture and terminology
ISO 17262, Intelligent transport systems — Automatic vehicle and equipment identification — Numbering
and data structures
ISO 17263, Intelligent transport systems — Automatic vehicle and equipment identification — System parameters
ISO 17264, Intelligent transport systems — Automatic vehicle and equipment identification — Interfaces
ISO 17687, Transport Information and Control Systems (TICS) — General fleet management and commercial
freight operations — Data dictionary and message sets for electronic identification and monitoring of
hazardous materials/dangerous goods transportation
ISO 21210, Intelligent transport systems — Communications access for land mobiles (CALM) — IPv6 Networking
ISO 21212, Intelligent transport systems — Communications access for land mobiles (CALM) — 2G
Cellular systems
ISO 21213, Intelligent transport systems — Communications access for land mobiles (CALM) — 3G
Cellular systems
ISO 21214, Intelligent transport systems — Communications access for land mobiles (CALM) — Infra-red systems
ISO 21215, Intelligent transport systems — Communications access for land mobiles (CALM) — M5
ISO 21216, Intelligent transport systems — Communication access for land mobiles (CALM) — Millimetre
wave air interface
ISO 21217, Intelligent transport systems — Communications access for land mobiles (CALM) — Architecture
ISO 21218, Intelligent transport systems — Communications access for land mobiles (CALM) — Access
technology support
ISO/IEC/IEEE 21451-1, Information technology — Smart transducer interface for sensors and actuators —
Part 1: Network Capable Application Processor (NCAP) information model
ISO/IEC/IEEE 21451-2, Information technology — Smart transducer interface for sensors and actuators —
Part 2: Transducer to microprocessor communication protocols and Transducer Electronic Data Sheet
(TEDS) formats
ISO/IEC/IEEE 21451-4, Information technology — Smart transducer interface for sensors and actuators —
Part 4: Mixed-mode communication protocols and Transducer Electronic Data Sheet (TEDS) formats
ISO/IEC/IEEE 21451-7, Information technology — Smart transducer interface for sensors and actuators —
Part 7: Transducer to radio frequency identification (RFID) systems communication protocols and Transducer
Electronic Data Sheet (TEDS) formats
ISO/TS 24533, Intelligent transport systems — Electronic information exchange to facilitate the movement
of freight and its intermodal transfer — Road transport information exchange methodology
ISO 25111, Intelligent transport systems — Communications access for land mobiles (CALM) — General
requirements for using public networks
ISO 25112, Intelligent transport systems — Communications access for land mobiles (CALM) — Mobile
wireless broadband using IEEE 802.16
ISO 25113, Intelligent transport systems — Communications access for land mobiles (CALM) — Mobile
wireless broadband using HC-SDMA
2 © ISO 2013 – All rights reserved

ISO 26683-2, Intelligent transport systems — Freight land conveyance content identification and
communication — Part 2: Application interface profiles
ISO 29281, Intelligent transport systems — Communications access for land mobiles (CALM) — Non-IP
networking
ISO 29282, Intelligent transport systems — Communications access for land mobiles (CALM) — Satellite networks
ISO 29283, ITS CALM Mobile Wireless Broadband applications using Communications in accordance
with IEEE 802.20
IEEE 1512.3, IEEE Standard for Hazardous Material Incident Management Message Sets for Use by
Emergency Management Centers
1)
OASIS Universal Business Language v2.1
OASIS UBL Common Library - - transport library
OASIS UBL-CommonAggregateComponents-2.1
CEFACT/TMG/N093, UN/CEFACT Modelling Methodology (UMM)
− UMM Foundation Module V1.0 (2006)
− UMM Base Module V1.0 (2006)
− User Guide UMM 1.0
UN/CEFACT Core Components Library CCL 10B
3 Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply.
3.1
application interface
communication point where one part of a system communicates with another in order to service an
application
Note 1 to entry: The communication point is typically but not necessarily wireless in the scenarios of ISO 26683.
3.2
application interface profile
series and sequence of behaviour and protocols including, where appropriate, the identification of
chosen classes, conforming subsets, options and parameters of those base standards necessary to
accomplish a defined function at an interface in a particular way such that it can be used interoperably
between two parties
Note 1 to entry: Profiles, which define conforming subsets or combinations of base profiles identify the use
of particular options available in the base standards, and provide a basis for the development of uniform,
internationally recognized, interoperability and conformance tests.
3.3
audit
methodical examination/verification/evaluation of the information associated with items in a cargo
and other relevant data
1) http://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/prd1-UBL-2.1/UBL-2.1.xml
3.4
authority
statutory body existing within a jurisdiction and a specific area of responsibility that administers
legislation to regulate trade and/or monitors compliance with existing legislation
3.5
base standard
approved international standard used as the basis of an application interface or an application
interface profile
3.6
cargo
goods or produce transported, generally for commercial gain, by ship, aircraft, train, van or truck
Note 1 to entry: In modern times, containers are used in most intermodal long-haul cargo transport.
3.7
cargo stress measurement information
data collected from sensors associated with an item, container or conveyance that provides information
about parameters that may affect the condition of the cargo
EXAMPLE Temperature, position/attitude (upright cargo), pressure, shock, dampness, etc.
3.8
carrier
party undertaking or arranging transport of goods between named points
[UN/TDED 3126: UN/CEFACT definition 1001 code CA]
3.9
consignment
separately identifiable amount of goods items (available to be) transported from one consignor to one
consignee via one or more than one modes of transport and specified in one single transport document
3.10
consignee
party to which goods are consigned/shipped
[UN/TDED 3132: UN/CEFACT definition 3035 code CN]
3.11
consignor
shipper, sender, party which, by contract with a carrier, consigns or sends goods with the carrier, or has
them conveyed by him
[UN/TDED 3336: UN/CEFACT definition 3035 code CZ ]
3.12
consolidation
grouping together of individual consignments of goods into a combined consignment for carriage
3.13
container
receptacle for the transport of goods, especially one readily transferable from one form of transport to
another
[UN/TDED 3336: UN/CEFACT definition 8053 code CN Container]
3.14
conveyance
means of transport
4 © ISO 2013 – All rights reserved

3.15
data carrier
means or function which carries data objects from one point to another point
3.16
electronic freight manifest
electronic means of generating, storing, distributing, and accessing manifest-related data along the end-
to-end supply chain
3.17
forwarder
forwarding agent
person or company that organizes shipments for individuals or other companies and may also act as a carrier
3.18
freight
goods
any commodity transported
3.19
freight forwarder
party arranging the carriage of goods including connected services and/or associated formalities on
behalf of a consignor or consignee
[UN/TDED 3336: UN/CEFACT definition 3035 code FW]
3.21
identifier
unique and unambiguous expression in a written format either by a code, by numbers or by the combination
of both to distinguish variations from one to another among a class of substances, items, or objects
3.22
intermodal freight container
large cargo carrying object (of various formats) used for transport or storage that conforms to ISO 6346
and designed and constructed to permit it to be used interchangeably in two or more modes of transport
3.23
ISO intermodal freight container
ISO intermodal container
ISO container
large cargo carrying object used for transport or storage that conforms to ISO 668, Series 1 containers
3.24
international standardized profile
internationally agreed-to, harmonized document which describes one or more profiles
3.25
interoperability
ability of two or more systems to exchange information and to make mutual use of the information that
has been exchanged
Note 1 to entry: Sometimes called “open systems”.
3.26
ITS station
communication point for ITS system
3.27
land transport
mode of transport that is effected using roads and railways and may in some cases include use of
inland waterways
Note 1 to entry: See transport.
3.28
land transport conveyance
transport means to effect the land transport sector(s) of a cargo
3.29
manifest
specification of all cargo on board the transportation means (all modes) containing details of contents,
shipper, consignee, and other details that may be required by customs or consular authorities
3.30
open system environment
comprehensive set of interfaces, services, and supporting formats, plus user aspects, for
interoperability and/or portability of applications, data, or people, as specified by information
technology standards and profiles
3.31
rollercage
cage with casters for transporting loose items
3.32
security
protection of information and data against danger, damage, degradation of quality, loss and criminal
activity so that unauthorized persons or systems cannot read or modify them and authorized persons
or systems are not denied access to them
Note 1 to entry: Security has to be compared to related concepts: Safety, continuity, reliability. The key difference
between security and reliability is that security must take into account the actions of people attempting to
cause destruction.
3.33
security profile
characterization of security requirements
3.34
shipment
identifiable collection of one or more goods items (available to be) transported together from the original
shipper, to the ultimate consignee
Note 1 to entry: A shipment may be transported in one or a multiple number of consignments.
3.35
taxonomy
classification scheme for referencing profiles or sets of profiles unambiguously
3.36
tracing
function of retrieving information concerning goods, goods items, consignments or equipment
3.37
transport
transportation
movement of people and goods from one location to another performed by modes, such as air, rail, road, water,
cable, pipeline and space and the field comprises the attributes of infrastructure, vehicles, and operations
6 © ISO 2013 – All rights reserved

3.38
transport means
vehicles, trailers, vessels, aircraft, or combination thereof, used for the transport of goods to perform a
journey
3.39
tracking
function of maintaining status information of goods, goods items, consignments or equipment
3.40
trucker
truck driver
person who earns a living as the driver of a truck, usually a semi truck, box truck, or dump truck
Note 1 to entry: Commonly referred to as a trucker or driver in the United States and Canada; a truckie in Australia
and New Zealand; a lorry driver or driver in Ireland and the United Kingdom.
3.41
visibility
ability to audit the content of a land conveyance while en-route or at strategic points of an overland journey
4 Symbols and abbreviated terms
For the purposes of this document, the following symbols and abbreviated terms apply.
8 © ISO 2013 – All rights reserved

3GPP 3rd generation partnership project
AEI automatic equipment identification
AVI automatic vehicle identification
CALM communication access for land mobiles
CEFACT See UN/CEFACT
CCL Core component library
ebXML electronic Business eXtensible Mark-up Language
EAN European Article Numbering Association
EDIFACT electronic data interchange for administration, commerce and transport
EFM electronic freight management
ERI electronic registration identification
GSM global system mobile
HAZMAT hazardous materials/dangerous goods
IATA International Air Transport Association
ICAO International Civil Aviation Organization
IMO International Maritime Organization
ITS intelligent transport systems
JTC1 Joint Technical Committee 1
JWG joint working group
LTE (3GPP) long term evolution (sometimes called 4G)
OASIS Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards
OBE on-board equipment
OBU on-board unit
OCR optical character recognition
PDC personal digital cellular (Japanese advanced 2G mobile communications standard)
PHS personal handy-phone system
RFID radio frequency identification
RSU road side unit
SOA service oriented architecture
SOAP simple object access protocol
SSL secure sockets layer
TDED trade data elements directory
5 Context
5.1 General context
In a scenario of land international transport and logistics, it is often difficult for a consignor and a
consignee to know physical real time location of cargo after consigning the cargo to a transport and
logistics service provider. Where a cargo is transferred from one haulier to another, obtaining information
of the manifest at a detailed level is often difficult. Auditing the actual content of a consignment en route
and monitoring cargo stress measurement information during road transport is difficult, especially in
the case of sealed containers such as sealed ISO intermodal containers.
In the international context, an ocean or air carrier is required to report cargo manifest information to
related authorities, according to the standards designated by IMO (International Maritime Organization),
ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization)/IATA(International Air Transport Association),
therefore, a party concerned in an international air/ocean transport is able to track or trace cargo on a
real time basis.
Seamless exchange of accurate, complete, and timely data at transportation hand-offs has always been
important for efficiency and accountability. There is now a growing understanding of needs for security
of transport information, and for transfer of information related to security against terrorism as well as
theft and traditional contraband.
Transport information and control systems TICS (ITS) Reference model architecture for the TICS (ITS)
sector – Part 2 Core TICS (ITS) reference architecture (ISO/TR 14813-2:2000) identifies a Commercial
Vehicle functional domain including:
“Transactions to maintain the TICS (ITS) information about a shipment from the time of the order by
the consignor to the reception of goods by the consignee. The key TICS (ITS) transactions are to provide
registers of service providers and to enable the goods to be tracked throughout intermodal journeys.”
And deliverables in the ISO 26683 series of standards shall be consistent to this definition.
5.2 Road transport information exchanges for supply chain freight time-sensitive delivery
Some international shipments are entirely by the highway mode, others begin and end with motor
carrier service and travel on other modes in the course of the shipment. ISO/TS 24533 focuses attention
on an international truck-air-truck thread through the supply chain where the interfacing modes’ data
structures and formats must accommodate each other to ensure efficiency and security from end to
end, and shall be considered the reference for these aspects of road transport information exchanges
for supply chain freight.
Rail, ocean transport, air and road are vital components of intermodal, international shipping.
ISO/TS 24533 is focused on international end to end monitored supply chain operations where there is
aggregated system visibility of all aspect of data to all parties involved.
ISO/TS 24533 specifies the data concepts applicable to the movement of freight and its intermodal
transfer. It also addresses the business processes depicting the roles and responsibilities of the various
participants in the international supply chain. While designed for international freight movements, it is
as useable in domestic supply chains so long as the information/data are available.
ISO/TS 24533 focuses on a single “thread” of the overall end to end supply chain consisting of a road-
air-road combination. These data concepts include data elements, data frames (groups of data elements)
and messages that comprise information exchanges at road transport interfaces along the chain of
participants responsible for the delivery of goods from the point of origin through to the final recipient
as presented in Figure 1.
The scope includes motor transport data needs within the international supply chain to satisfy the
requirements of both businesses and governmental organizations. ISO/TS 24533 is applicable to highway
shipments that originate in one country and terminate in another. It may however also be applied to
highway shipments that originate and terminate in a single country. ISO/TS 24533 is applicable to
10 © ISO 2013 – All rights reserved

highway freight movements that interface with other modes and incorporates requirements set for
those other modes.
If goods change to or from another mode between origin and destination, ISO/TS 24533 does not establish
requirements for those other modes. However, it addresses the requirements of information exchange
between the truck mode and another mode (e.g. air freight). Further, ISO/TS 24533 does not constrain
the requirements of customs, regulatory, and safety bodies at border crossings. However, ISO/TS 24533
does include the data elements most likely to be required by Customs.
NOTE Re Figure 1 it is intended that this thread may be generalized to address the various combination of
segments that occur in the global supply chain.
Figure 1 — ISO/TS information exchanges at intermodal interfaces (source ISO/TS 24533)
ISO/TS 24533 utilizes the (UBL) ‘Universal Business Language’ developed by OASIS, referring to
the foundation of UN/CEFACT standards (Data Dictionary TDED, CCTS Core Components Technical
Specifications…). The Universal Business Language is the product of an international effort to define a
royalty-free library of XML schemas for business documents built upon a set of common components.
UBL formatted electronic messages enable direct connection into existing business, legal, auditing, and
records management practices, eliminating the re-keying of data in existing fax- and paper-based supply
chains. It aims to provide an entry point into electronic commerce for small and medium-sized businesses.
The concept being that that these information elements should all come from a single coherent superset
of information elements (a consolidated library of information elements). UBL is focused to a royalty-
free library of XML schemas for business documents. UBL uses XML to interchange business documents
between two trading partners, but recognizes that the trading partners will have their own internal
storage representations for the information found therein. When it comes time for an organization to
fulfil their business reporting obligations, the information to report does not come from their business
documents but from their own internal storage representations. UBL may embrace only some of the
attributes commonly used in physical, and particularly, domestic land transport movements. Some of
the data required for the appropriate UBL data concepts may not yet be carried in or available to the
land conveyance OBE. However, where UBL is going to be used, it is important to be able to forward data
collected from land conveyances to such systems in a format that is meaningful to those systems and easily
translated into UBL when it comes time for an organization to fulfil their business reporting obligations.
Refer to the use cases presented in ISO/TS 24533 for examples of multi-modal freight movement.
As a complement to ISO/TS 24533/UBL, the USDoT initiative ‘EFM‘ (EFM Design, EFM Architecture
Summary, EFM_UBL_Profile_and_WSDLs, EFM_DeploymentGuide, EFM Database Schema) provides a
detailed instantiation for implementation design, down to software level which is not a standard but
provides a detailed model of how such systems can be applied.
Figure 2 depicts a high level logical view of the EFM architecture.
Figure 2 — EFM high level Architecture (source: EFM Design USDoT)
There is no single organization responsible for data standards through the intermodal supply chain. To
achieve a coherent set of standards for information exchange processes requires coordination among
the various international organizations working on pieces of these standards. TC 204 has advanced
the idea of close coordination among other ISO Technical Committees, IEC, CEN, UN Centre for Trade
Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT especially their Transport/Logistics domain), and the
World Customs Organization. The ISO 26683 series shall be complementary to ISO 7372.
The vision of ISO/TS 24533 and the EFM project is to have an electronic supply chain manifest that will
satisfy the needs of the transport business industry and governmental organizations that regulate the
flow of commerce. ISO 26683 is designed to present information to such end-to-end cargo application
systems, it does not provide end to end system (consignor to consignee) system design.
5.3 Dangerous goods
Deliverables in the ISO 26683 series shall be consistent with ISO 17687. ISO 17687 provides a consistent
context for the presentation and storage of ‘Dangerous Goods’/HAZMAT information. ISO 17687 is
designed to support the automated identification, monitoring and exchange of emergency response
information regarding dangerous goods carried on board road transport vehicles. Such information
may include the identification, quantity, and current condition such as pressure and temperature of such
goods as well as any relevant emergency response information. Reporting this information may occur
prior to or during transportation of the goods in a manner that allows all interested parties to access and
correctly interpret the information. When equipped with appropriate electronics and communications
capabilities, vehicles carrying dangerous goods may respond to queries regarding their status or self-
initiate a message.
12 © ISO 2013 – All rights reserved

However, ISO 17687 does not specify nor even imply that any particular on-board or off-board systems
should be capable of performing such monitoring, data retention, or communications. The provisions of
ISO 17687 cover four contextual situations:
a) General requirements;
b) On-board systems;
c) Roadside recipient to emergency control centres;
d) Emergency control centres to emergency control centres.
It is intended that the information is carried on-board the transport vehicle and may then be transferred to
interested roadside systems by whatever communications means are appropriate to that roadside system.
ISO 17687 proposes that the following levels of identification and monitoring systems for ‘Dangerous
Goods’/HAZMAT are possible:
1. Direct supplement to existing product identification placards (which are visually oriented, non-
electronic);
2. Added data beyond that contained in existing placards;
3. Interface with on-board systems;
4. Intelligence to react to product or goods conditions.
ISO 17687 states that ‘with a suitable communications interface, it is possible to transmit the information
to and
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