IANA, BIC to collaborate on geofencing

The Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) and Bureau International des Containers (BIC) are extending their collaboration on container facility identification to include geofencing.

IANA will take the leadership role in collecting and reviewing geofence coordinates for North American intermodal facilities for inclusion in the global BIC Facility Code database and in the IANA Intermodal Facilities Directory, according to a news release.

The BIC Facility Code is a global database containing more than 17,000 container facilities that provides a facility name and address, latitude/longitude point and harmonized facility code.

As part of the 2021 harmonization exercise, the locations in IANA’s North American Intermodal Facility database were assigned a global BIC Facility Code and an API synchronization was put in place.

The database is being expanded to include geofence coordinates to help support the industry’s adoption of smart containers, IANA officials said. The methodology and recommendations for the project were developed by a global working group assembled by the United Nations Center for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business and includes ocean carriers, Internet of Things providers and software platforms.