Commercial Schedules standard

Today, carriers do not uniformly share schedule information. For customers, getting clarity on vessel voyage information, such as scheduled arrival and departure and routing changes, is essential for planning subsequent operations activities. But piecing together schedule information to achieve clarity can be manual and time-consuming. Data discrepancies and inaccessibility create a lack of transparency that increases dwell times at terminals and causes inland delays. As a result, supply chains are less reliable, which hinders effective resource planning and ultimately disrupts business performance.    

The DCSA Commercial Schedules (CS) standard creates a common way for carriers to communicate vessel schedule information to customers. With the DCSA CS standard in place, customers can expect to receive high-quality data about their container shipments regardless of which carrier is transporting them. CS expands the scope of the DCSA operational vessel schedule (OVS) standard with three options for accessing schedules from carriers: 

• Point- to-Point Routing: provides single or multiple end-to-end routing options with estimated timestamps during the pre-booking phase; 
• Port Schedule: provides estimated timestamps for all vessels arriving and departing from a defined port/terminal on a given date; 
• Vessel Schedules: provides estimated departure and arrival times for a required service, voyage or vessel, for each port call on the vessel’s rotation. 

Take a closer look at DCSA's Commercial Schedules Standard. It is designed to expand the scope of applicability of OVS by providing to BCOs, LSPs, and Platforms with three alternatives to consume schedules from carriers. With these standards in place, carriers can digitally share point-to-point routings, port schedules, and vessel schedules.