Collaboration Across the Transport Trinity: Unlocking Shared Value

Executive Teaser

•    Transport reliability will emerge when the transport trinity - cargo owners, transport operators, and nodes - acts as one operating unit.

•    By managing time, risk, and asset integrity as shared assets, and acting on five trustworthy signals, namely time window, connection risk, readiness, emissions, and asset conditions, the industry can move from dashboards to agreements, from observation to execution.

•    This model transforms coordination into infrastructure, federated, not centralized, and built on trust, fairness, and shared outcomes.

Introduction

Transport reliability fails not for lack of data or software, but because decisions clash with incentives at handoffs between cargo owners, operators, and nodes. When a gate cut-off shifts, a ramp re-sequences, a driver hits the hours limit, or a security hold appears, the resulting cascade reflects a coordination gap, not a technology deficit. Despite heavy investments in platforms, dashboards, and proprietary infrastructure, end-to-end performance still hinges on how well independent actors synchronize around a shared promise.

The way forward is to manage time, risk, and asset integrity as common assets across the transport trinity, using cargo owner-scoped, permissioned visibility and a minimal set of shared signals that trigger pre-agreed actions.

The Five Principles of Coordinated Transport

Five signals - time window, connection risk, readiness windows, leg-level emissions, and asset conditions - convert visibility into pre-agreed action (Figure 1).

1.    Time and risk are shared assets, not individual responsibilities.

2.    Five trustworthy signals, namely time window, connection risk, readiness, emissions, and asset conditions, drive timely and pre-agreed action.

3.    Federated, not centralized, governance preserves autonomy and scalability.

4.    Contracts and incentives align with reliability and emissions performance.

5.    Trust is infrastructure, secured through cybersecurity, lineage, and auditability.

 

Figure 1: The inseparable transport trinity and example signals captured in the value ledger

 

The Diagnosis: Reliability Is a Coordination Problem

Every element of the trinity displays the same pattern. Plans are made in isolation; execution unfolds in interdependence. Buyers promise delivery times to markets and customers. Operators balance schedules, assets, and crews. Nodes regulate physical movements through readiness windows.

Each actor is locally rational, yet collectively fragile.

More integration and software have helped within networks, but not across them. Terminals, yards, or hubs align local decisions but not the multi-party journeys most shipments take. The scarce resource in modern transport is no longer data volume, but shared, trustworthy signals that empower coordinated action.

The Thesis: Treat the Trinity as One Operating Unit

We advocate a new operating model that treats buyers, operators, and nodes as a single, inseparable operating unit, aligned on a single outcome: keeping time, reducing emissions, and mitigating risks.

Each actor retains its own perspective, but decisions interlock through shared signals and incentives.

•    Shippers understand demand rhythms, inventory breakpoints, and the cost of delay.

•    Operators know how disruptions propagate across schedules, equipment, and crews.

•    Nodes possess the ground truth: yard accessibility, dock status, apron readiness, and release states.

Within the node, digital transparency plays a decisive role. Because operators’ responsibilities often extend beyond the node - through either their own fleets or contracted partners - sustaining information continuity becomes essential. Bridging data between in-node and post-node operations ensures that downstream participants act on accurate, timely signals. This bridging duty applies to every actor in the transport trinity, yet the node remains pivotal as both the physical and digital gateway where synchronized visibility must be secured.

When these perspectives align, a late truck can be retimed, a missed rail can be recovered the same evening, and a ground-handling delay becomes manageable instead of costly.

The one-operating-unit model benefits every layer of the ecosystem. Cargo owners - exporters and importers alike - gain predictable flow, verifiable emissions, and fewer penalties from disruption. Operators and nodes deliver higher asset utilization and fairer returns. The industry at large raises its reliability benchmark, while the broader economy and society benefit from lower logistics costs, a reduced carbon footprint and emissions, and a steadier trade rhythm. Transparency becomes not only an operational tool but a public good.

Scenes of Execution 

These scenes show execution when it matters: when handoffs strain, signals arrive, and decisions must align across the transport trinity. A cross-border convoy is about to miss a rail connection; shared risk alerts trigger a pre-agreed swap of slots and rapid resequencing, saving time and avoiding extra cost with the decision transparently logged. An air shipment hits a ground-handling hold; early visibility prompts diversion to a nearby airport within predefined emissions and cost thresholds, keeping the promise while the carbon impact is recorded. On the road, worsening weather pushes a driver toward duty limits; refreshed slot windows and rescheduling bands enable proactive resequencing - no last-minute heroics, no waste. When a vessel’s ETA slips on a sea-to-rail transfer, the parties convene immediately, choose an inland diversion with a known CO_² impact, and still meet the customer commitment.

Operational Analytics Without Black Boxes

Time and capacity in transport behave probabilistically. We therefore treat them as such, while remaining transparent, auditable, and practical.

•    Time windows, encompassing the ETA and ETD bands for carriers’ visits, reflect real variability, using recent corridor/lanes and carrier performance.

•    Connection and dwell risk express likelihoods, not predictions based on local, historical transfer success.

•    Readiness windows are evidence-based statements grounded in observed throughput and document-release patterns.

•    Emissions exposure per leg is displayed alongside time, using mutually agreed activity factors.

•    Real-time asset condition reflects probabilistic confidence levels in vehicle, infrastructure, and equipment health.

Verification is routine: do stated arrival ranges match actuals, and do risk bands reflect real outcomes? When deviations persist, data quality is refined, not through new models, but by tightening thresholds. This keeps analytics legible to operators and actionable in real time.

Trust as Infrastructure

The reliability of signals equals the reliability of coordination. If time windows for carriers’ visits or readiness windows are manipulated or misaligned, collaboration collapses. Hence, trust is not an assumption; it is engineered.

This model adopts a zero-trust architecture:

•    Role-based access limits data exposure.

•    Every signal maintains lineage and redundancy, validated across independent sources.

•    Cryptographic integrity and continuous verification prevent tampering.

•    Federated design ensures autonomy and data sovereignty remain intact.

Trust, cybersecurity, and auditable lineage thus form the backbone of this coordination model. To reinforce this trust fabric, distributed ledger technology (DLT) can serve as the immutable record layer of the shared infrastructure, enabling data sharing across the network. Each action, signal validation, or contractual trigger leaves a cryptographically verifiable trace, shared in confidence, preserving proprietary content. DLT thus anchors transparency and accountability at the architecture level, ensuring that trust, once earned, cannot be revoked or rewritten.

The Signals That Matter

Visibility should improve decisions, not multiply dashboards; what the system needs is a small set of standardized, trustworthy signals that trigger action. Five signals suffice in most cases: time windows for visits with confidence bands; connection and dwell risk; authentic readiness windows; leg-level emissions calculated using standardized methodologies, such as ISO 14083, and exchanged via widely available data-sharing mechanisms; and real-time asset condition from IoT sensors to manage damage risk as proactively as delay risk.

These signals are drawn from primary operational sources and validated through redundancy, such as port community data against customs, and electronic logging device (ELD) feeds against ramp data, allowing discrepancies to be identified quickly and resolved. Conflict-resolution and lineage rules make the signals auditable and dispute-proof, turning provenance into a shared asset rather than a point of contention. Trust, in this model, is engineered through verification and auditability, rather than being declared by fiat.

Scope defines trust. The rightful cargo owner sees all the necessary facts to act, while partners see only what pertains to their shared shipments. Role-based streams expose the minimum actionable truth - readiness, slot availability, connection risk - without revealing competitive details. This marks the shift from platform ambition to execution discipline: less data noise, more signal.

Moving from Monoliths to Federation

Coordination should travel like freight: across networks, not into them. The Virtual Watch Tower (VWT) (www.virtualwatchtower.org) network enables this distributed model, known as the Internet of Towers. Each tower operates within the circle of trust for a particular cargo owner, with its event exchanges optionally on a distributed ledger to maintain independent, tamper-proof lineage across federated nodes.

This is federation, not centralization. It compounds benefits while protecting autonomy and scalability. Start where the pain is highest, prove value fast, and expand by repetition and interconnection. Federation means data stays where it is owned; only auditable signals travel: scope-limited, role-based, and revocable. Federated data sharing ensures autonomy endures while coordination scales; exchange only lane-level signals where interests overlap.

Contract Alignment Mechanics

Contracts define behavior. By tying incentives and accountability directly to the shared signals that trigger action, make shared reliability concrete and enforceable. Tie pay to signals so behavior follows the clock: on time within band, authentic readiness, managed connection risk, verifiable emissions, and asset conditions.

 

Actor	Key Incentive	Signal Used	Right & Obligation	Value Metric
Buyer (Cargo Owner)	Service reliability & CO2 transparency	Time windows, emissions	Authorizes mitigation	On-time reliability, CO2 per ton-km
Operator	Stable utilization & fairness	Time windows, connection risk, asset conditions	Executes pre-approved interventions	Reduced dwell, higher capacity use
Node (Terminal)	Throughput and readiness	Readiness windows, asset conditions	Publishes authentic windows	Dwell reduction, slot performance

 

Contracts link compensation to signals, not completed moves, including delivered conditions where asset integrity is material. Reliability and emissions become more measurable, auditable, and financially meaningful.

Technology Fit for Purpose

The stack should be light and nimble yet rigorous and robust, capturing and reconciling primary events, maintaining lineage, and computing risk and readiness with transparent, explainable rules. It complements rather than replaces established frameworks, such as DCSA (Digital Container Shipping Association) standards in the ocean and Collaborative Decision-Making (CDM) for maritime-, aviation-, and rail-related operations, allowing existing investments to continue working while interoperability improves. 

Hybrid EDI/API connectivity ensures inclusion across all maturity levels, allowing both legacy partners and digital natives to participate on an equal footing. Above all, the purpose of technology here is human: to make the best decision easier and earlier for the people who move freight. By structuring clean, auditable signals, the stack lays a trustworthy data foundation for AI, one that is reliable enough for automation, prediction, and closed-loop control. Less dashboard, more decision: the right move, earlier, by design.

How Change Takes Root

Durability stems from a disciplined scope, rigorous measurement, and transparent governance. Apply a continuous improvement cycle, such as Plan-Do-Check-Act: Plan establishes shared playbooks and outcome-linked contracts; Do executes them as signals trigger pre-agreed actions; Check reconciles results in the value ledger; Act refines playbooks, incentives, and governance for the next cycle.

Governance then anchors the change: a community-led framework open to cargo owners, operators, and nodes secures transparency, auditability, and fair data terms, while federated watch towers mature into lane-based benchmarks that enable comparison without coercion. Above all, change takes root when proof precedes scale, incentives match the signals, and every improvement is visible, verifiable, and worth sharing. Start where misses hurt most; prove, codify, repeat across lanes.

A Call to Action - The Coalition of the Willing

This coordination model is ready to execute; what is needed is a coalition of cargo owners, operators, and nodes prepared to invest in a prototype and pilot to act on shared signals and measurable outcomes. Start small: one lane, one signal set, one playbook. Prove the value, then expand with purpose. Each gain compounds trust and returns. Initiatives like the VWT are turning coordination into both a public good and a competitive edge.

 

Yes, trust is scarce, systems are uneven, contracts are misaligned, and incentives are local. But none are decisive barriers if intent is shared. Keep the compact list: redundant sources with precedence, scope-limited sharing, tie pay to signals, federate governance, deliver signals in existing workflows, value ledger, start where misses hurt, prove and repeat. Coordination is not a mystery; it is a choice.

 

Conclusion

Reliability emerges when many hands operate on one clock: shared signals, shared incentives, and shared proof. Cargo owners, operators, and nodes should be treated as a single operating unit, managing time and risk as common assets, and trigger pre-agreed moves from a minimal set of auditable signals. Federate so autonomy endures while coordination scales, then start where the pain is highest, measure what matters, and expand by repetition. 

Do this, and networks deliver fewer surprises, steadier flow, verifiable emissions, and promises kept, without paying for buffers or green premiums. In thin margin, high-stakes markets, minutes saved become cost avoided and CO_² reduced. The operating system for reliable, decarbonized transport is not another platform; it is the decision to coordinate.

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions of the following colleagues, partners, and industry practitioners whose insights and lived experiences have grounded this work in practical reality: Anders Berg (Stamford), Jan Bergstrand (Trafikverket), Kim Elman (NorthWave Security), Xiuju Fu (A*Star/IHPC), Rudy Hemeleers (51Biz Luxembourg), Ernst Hoestra (independent), Kaisa Ilves (Taltech), Lars Jacobsson (AFRY), Kris Kosmala (independent), Boris Kruik (Co-Founder and CTO STREVIO), Ioannis Kyriakides (CMMI), Barry Van Leuven (Pionira), Kenneth Lind (RISE), Hele-Mai Metsal (Port of Tallinn), Richard van der Meulen (Infor Nexus), José Andrés Gimenez Maldonado (Valenciaport Fundación), Eddy Ng (PSA), Lasse Nykänen (Vediafi), Toni Penttinen (independent), Sara Petersen (H&M), Lutercia Porto (MSC), Johan Sandberg (Umeå University), Mark Scheerlinck (Chasqee), Erick Sirali (TradeMark Africa), Fredrik Svedberg (Logtrade), Ulla Tapaninen (Taltech), Emil Thodal (Billerud), Cara Vandael (Scania), and Richard Watson (Digital Frontier Partners).

About the authors

Mikael Lind is the world’s first (adjunct) Professor of Maritime Informatics engaged at Chalmers and Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE). He is a well-known expert frequently published in international trade press, is co-editor of the first two books on Maritime Informatics and is co-editor of the book Maritime Decarbonization.

Wolfgang Lehmacher is a global supply chain and logistics expert. The former director at the World Economic Forum and President and CEO Emeritus of GeoPost Intercontinental is an advisory board member of The Logistics and Supply Chain Management Society, an ambassador for F&L, and an advisor to Global:SF and RISE. He contributes to the knowledge base of Maritime Informatics and is a co-editor of the book Maritime Decarbonization.