Real-Time Freight Visibility: What Works, What Doesn’t, and How to Improve

In a world where you can expect anything, logistics providers expect a comprehensive view of cargo movements across roads, rails, oceans, and air. Are they getting enough? Definitely not.  

As recent industry reports show, freight visibility remains a work in progress for 50% of businesses, with around 20% still relying on manual tracking. Meanwhile, $1.4 billion in venture capital invested in freight visibility providers over the last five years raises some reasonable questions: 

Why is freight visibility falling short? 
Is it worth investing in popular visibility solutions? 
How can businesses bridge the gap between visibility expectations and reality and finally get what they came for? 

In this article, we’ll explore the complete picture of freight visibility, diving into the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for shippers, carriers, and 3PLs. 

What is freight visibility?

Speaking about freight visibility, logistics professionals usually refer to the ability to track and monitor the movement of goods across the supply chain, providing stakeholders with real-time data on location, condition, and estimated delivery times. From a strategic perspective, it’s about transforming the flow of cargo into actionable insights that enable businesses to operate more efficiently.  

Why freight visibility is important 

By connecting the physical journey of goods to crucial data, freight visibility technology helps businesses make smarter decisions, from inventory management to route optimization. It’s not just about knowing where shipments are—it's about understanding the bigger picture, including potential delays, supply chain bottlenecks, and performance trends. This level of visibility allows companies to be more agile, responsive, and prepared for any challenges that arise during transportation. 

Just like that, for shippers, carriers, and 3PL providers, freight shipment visibility is a cornerstone of operational efficiency, ensuring that they can meet demand, optimize resources, and build stronger relationships with customers. 

Freight visibility across different transportation modes 

Freight visibility isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. Each mode of transportation presents its own challenges and opportunities, and these directly impact how visibility can be achieved.  

While businesses strive for comprehensive, real-time tracking across road, rail, ocean, and air transportation, each mode comes with unique limitations—whether it’s fragmented road networks, limited access to data in rail systems, or visibility gaps in ocean and air freight. 

How road freight works 

Road transportation is the most widespread and flexible mode of delivery. However, the fragmented nature of the road freight industry presents challenges for achieving visibility across all carriers. The absence of standardization among fleet management systems, paired with occasional resistance from truck drivers to use digital trackers, makes it difficult to ensure accurate, consistent data for real-time tracking.  

Ocean freight visibility: a crucial component for global shipping 

In ocean freight, visibility has historically lagged behind other modes, but significant improvements are being made. Ships themselves often have robust tracking systems, such as the Automatic Identification System (AIS), but freight container visibility remains a significant gap. While advancements in ocean freight visibility are promising, the challenge lies in tracking cargo once it leaves the port, especially when it transitions to other transport modes like rail or truck. 

Rail freight visibility: overcoming tracking and data limitations 

Rail freight has unique challenges. Visibility is hindered by different tracking identifiers used across modes, as well as limited access to data from rail operators, especially in North America. This lack of integration often prevents full visibility into railcar movements, making it difficult to provide accurate estimates for pick-up times, delays, and cargo availability. The rail industry is gradually making progress, but comprehensive, end-to-end visibility remains elusive. 

Air freight visibility: tackling the final-mile challenge 

Air freight is often seen as one of the more advanced modes in terms of digital connectivity, with high API integration for tracking. However, end-to-end visibility remains challenging, particularly in the complex logistics process of connecting air transport with ground handling. The small carriers and myriad truck routes involved in the transportation from airports to destinations make it difficult to track shipments accurately across the entire air cargo journey. 

3 reasons to invest in freight visibility in 2025 

Freight logistics visibility remains a top priority for businesses, yet achieving it is often easier said than done. As highlighted earlier, different transportation modes present unique challenges, from fragmented road networks to data silos in ocean and rail freight. Despite these hurdles, the demand for seamless, real-time tracking continues to grow, driven by the need to enhance operational efficiency, customer satisfaction, and supply chain resilience. 

Why does visibility remain such a sought-after goal?  

Reason 1. Operational efficiency 

Even with advancements in technology, many businesses still rely on outdated processes or incomplete solutions that leave significant gaps. For example, a 2024 Ecosystem Integration Global Market Report by Cleo revealed that 32% global companies believe manual processes in the supply chains is the key challenge impacting their company’s ability to meet their business commitments. 

Reason 2. Building resilience to withstand disruptions 

Another important point is that freight visibility is an essential driver of supply chain resilience in a world where disruption has become the new norm. From geopolitical conflicts to extreme weather events and pandemic-induced challenges, the past few years have shown how unpredictable the logistics landscape can be. Freight visibility provides businesses with the ability to quickly identify where disruptions are occurring and assess their impact in real-time.  

For instance, if a storm delays a cargo ship or a rail strike halts critical deliveries, businesses with robust visibility solutions can reroute shipments, notify customers, and adjust inventory allocations before the disruption cascades into larger problems. This level of adaptability not only minimizes losses but also strengthens a company's ability to maintain service levels in the face of uncertainty. 

Reason 3. Proactive supply chain risk identification 

What is more, freight visibility technology helps to mitigate those risks. Just like that, according to Business Continuity Institute, 72% of suppliers who dealt with a breakdown in their supply chain lacked the full, real-time visibility needed to come up with a fast and simple solution. 

By leveraging historical and real-time data, businesses can uncover recurring bottlenecks, forecast potential disruptions, and implement measures to safeguard operations. This proactive approach not only minimizes risks but also enhances the supply chain's ability to withstand unforeseen challenges, ensuring continuity and competitiveness in an increasingly volatile environment. 

Identify and mitigate potential supply chain risks

with AI-powered demand forecasting

Download PDF

Strategies to achieve freight visibility in practice 

So, where does the logistics industry stand when it comes to freight visibility? 

On one hand, visibility has become a cornerstone of modern supply chains, a capability in high demand as businesses seek to improve efficiency, resilience, and customer satisfaction. On the other hand, achieving true visibility remains a daunting task. The fragmented nature of transportation ecosystems—marked by varying standards, siloed systems, and operational complexities across modes like road, rail, ocean, and air—continues to obstruct progress. 

In such a challenging environment, a strategic approach is the only viable path forward. Building freight data visibility in practice requires more than just technology; it calls for identifying the root causes of visibility gaps and addressing them with carefully crafted, systemic solutions. To bridge these gaps, businesses must focus on foundational shifts that modernize freight processes, break down silos, and enable real-time data sharing.

Nataliia Hladushyna, Product Strategist at Trinetix

Digitalization in freight processes 

The foundation of freight visibility lies in digitalizing core processes. Traditional methods like manual documentation, siloed systems, and offline communication slow down decision-making and obscure the flow of critical information. By transitioning to digital tools and platforms, businesses can: 

• enable real-time data sharing across supply chain partners; 

• streamline communication between shippers, carriers, and customers; 

• reduce human errors caused by manual data entry or outdated processes. 

Digital transformation also creates opportunities to integrate technologies such as IoT (Internet of Things), blockchain for data security, and API-based connections, all of which are crucial for collecting and sharing visibility-related data efficiently. 

The role of advanced shipping notice (ASN) 

An often-overlooked tool in the freight visibility toolkit is the advanced shipping notice (ASN). This document provides key details about a shipment before it arrives, including the contents, dimensions, and expected delivery time. 

Implementing ASN processes allows businesses to: 

• enhance inventory management by preparing receiving operations in advance; 

• reduce discrepancies between expected and actual deliveries; 

• improve coordination with downstream partners, ensuring smoother handoffs across transportation modes. 

When combined with digital tracking solutions, ASNs serve as a critical link in creating visibility across the supply chain, particularly in multi-modal logistics. 

Collaboration across the ecosystem 

Freight visibility can’t be achieved in isolation—it requires strong collaboration among stakeholders, including shippers, carriers, 3PLs, and technology providers. By sharing data and aligning goals, businesses can overcome fragmented systems and gain a unified view of their operations. 

For example: 

• collaborative platforms can centralize data from multiple carriers and modes of transport, enabling seamless tracking; 

• standardized data formats and protocols can reduce discrepancies and improve interoperability; 

• transparent communication fosters trust and accountability across partners. 

Real-time visibility: a game-changer? 

In times of uncertainty, real-time freight visibility is an ultimate goal for many businesses. Dedicated visibility platforms report leveraging advanced technologies, including GPS tracking, telematics, and machine learning, to provide up-to-the-minute insights into shipment status. These visibility solutions promise to help businesses: 

• monitor shipments across transportation modes and geographies; 

• quickly identify disruptions and reroute shipments to avoid delays; 

• provide customers with accurate, real-time updates to enhance satisfaction. 

By integrating real-time visibility platforms with existing transportation management systems (TMS) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) tools, shippers and carriers aim achieve a more holistic, data-driven approach to managing their supply chains.  

The role of real-time transportation visibility platforms (RTTVPs)

The buzzwords “supply chain visibility” have been around in the shipping sector for a couple of decades now. But today, speaking of freight visibility, logistics professionals mostly mean getting real-time updates on freight movements.  

As of June 2024, in their Hype Cycle for Supply Chain Execution Technologies, Gartner classified real-time transportation visibility platforms as ones that are approaching the plateau of productivity. 

This means that among supply chain professionals, real-time freight visibility solutions emerged as a way to mitigate disruptions, get timely updates on cargo statuses, and ultimately gain more control over transportation and, logistics operations.  

Subsequently, there appeared a bunch of dedicated solutions promising transportation visibility as a service. Among them, Gartner highlights Shippeo, FourKites, and project44 as the leading ones. But deeper technology market research reveals that the RTTVPs market has dynamically gained traction, with more than a dozen of products branded as ‘visibility’ solutions promising instant transportation data updates.

The role of such solutions can be defined like this: 

• enabling end-to-end supply chain transparency  

• empowering businesses to track shipments across modes 

• pinpoint disruptions instantly 

• make data-driven decisions to optimize operations.  

By consolidating data from multiple sources—GPS devices, telematics systems, carrier updates, and IoT sensors—these platforms aim to provide a single source of truth, allowing logistics professionals to proactively address delays, improve customer communication, and enhance overall supply chain resilience. 

But are providers of such freight visibility solutions fulfilling their promises when it comes to reality? And is it a100% their responsibility? 

How real-time freight visibility software works

Let’s take a look under the hood of freight visibility platforms. As data is the core asset when it comes to supply chain visibility, we suggest looking at the market from bottom to top, from carriers to end data users, and following the natural data flow. 

The natural data flow in any freight visibility solution is as follows. 

1. Carriers, responsible for transporting goods,
 track the status and location of their cargo, either
 by themselves or in cooperation with partners who install tracking devices and collect the data.   

2. This data is then acquired by all kinds of technology companies or other market participants, where it undergoes a series of manipulations as these entities process, analyze, or trade it between themselves.  

3. Ultimately, after navigating this intricate process,
 the data finally reaches the end users.  

However, in practice, this multifaceted structure is plagued with solid issues that no transportation practitioner can deny. And mostly their nature lies in siloed data layers and a disconnected ecosystem. 

Challenges with real-time freight visibility

Real-time visibility isn’t a myth. But even with all the new tracking tools popping up, getting useful transportation insights still mostly falls on the shoulders of transportation companies and logistics providers.

Volodymyr Horovyi, RPA Architect / Consultant at Trinetix

There’s ample evidence of a number of problems in the transportation visibility industry leading to end users frequently receiving low-quality tracking data and missing timely updates on cargo statuses. Interestingly, some of these issues lie beyond the control of visibility software providers. 

After thorough research of recent industry reports and market studies, and collaboration with logistics companies, we identified several key challenges that cause real-time visibility to fall short in practice, despite significant efforts to achieve it. 

Inaccurate data provided by carriers 

Since visibility software providers obtain the data from carriers, whether directly or indirectly, the quality of carrier data means a lot. For freight forwarders, this creates additional challenges in ensuring that both freight load visibility and end-to-end supply chain visibility are reliable and actionable. 

• First, milestone coverage and update delays remain a significant obstacle. As reported by representatives of Windward, crucial milestones such as the actual time of arrival (ATA) and the actual time of departure (ATD) are not consistently provided by most carriers. Even for milestones they do cover, updates are often incomplete or delayed—sometimes by hours or even days—creating blind spots and uncertainty throughout the shipment process. This lack of reliable milestone data disrupts the ability of shippers and freight forwarders to make timely decisions.
• Second, poor data quality leads to inefficiencies in operations. A shipper interviewed by the S&P Journal of Commerce shared that they often need to act on 5–10% of shipments posing risks, such as detention and demurrage. However, the data they receive is often inaccurate or incomplete, requiring time-consuming efforts to verify information and chase false negatives. This reduces productivity and makes risk mitigation unnecessarily burdensome. 
• Third, limited data accessibility further hinders visibility efforts. The CEO of FreightRight highlighted that many freight visibility initiatives reveal a surprising gap: businesses simply don’t have all the data they need. In some cases, the missing data isn’t due to a lack of technology but rather to the inaccessibility of key information from partners or carriers. 
• Finally, over-reliance on ocean carrier data exacerbates the issue. A representative from Gnosis Freight pointed out that many freight visibility platforms depend solely on carrier-provided data, which is often insufficient. For instance, this data may not cover milestones that carriers aren’t responsible for or are poorly positioned to report on. As a result, logistics professionals frequently have to look elsewhere to fill in the gaps. 
• The evidence shows that carriers often provide track-and-trace data that falls short of the required quality. Until these gaps in milestone coverage, data accuracy, and accessibility are addressed, achieving reliable, real-time freight visibility across the entire supply chain will remain a challenging goal. 

Supply chain blind spots like interchanges, ports, and transshipment areas 

Supply chain blind spots at critical interchanges, ports, and transshipment areas represent one of the most persistent challenges to achieving real-time freight forwarder visibility.  

Despite technological advancements, many shippers report little progress in resolving historic pain points, including accurate freight container visibility, terminal milestones and insights into modal handoffs. 

• The data quality issues are particularly pronounced at container terminals, where status updates are often conveyed out of sequence or delayed by several days. These blind spots hinder logistics teams' ability to make timely decisions, creating bottlenecks and inefficiencies. 

• Ports exemplify the complexity of the logistics ecosystem. As Anthony Miller highlights in his blog, “The port landscape is disjointed and complex, with many stakeholders and different systems in play.” This fragmentation often results in a lack of cohesive data flow, which limits visibility across key handoff points. 

• Furthermore, end-to-end freight visibility remains elusive due to poor data integration across industry systems. The S&P Journal of Commerce notes that, even decades after the freight container visibility market took shape, challenges persist in connecting inland modal handoffs—particularly from ocean freight to rail. Similarly, WiseTech Global’s CEO acknowledges that the lack of integration across liners, terminals, and parks exacerbates data quality problems, requiring collaborative efforts to address these systemic issues. 

• Even when carriers provide ETAs for ocean shipments, these figures often fail to account for delays at ports or downstream bottlenecks. As the SVP at FourKites explained to Forbes, “It is the end-to-end ETA that matters to shippers,” not just when a vessel reaches the port. Shippers need reliable insights into the entire journey, from port unloading to final delivery, to optimize operations and improve planning.  

In summary, blind spots at interchanges, ports, and transshipment areas lead to fragmented ecosystems, delayed insights, and an ongoing struggle to achieve true end-to-end visibility in global supply chains. Addressing these gaps requires a concerted effort to improve data quality and integrate systems across all stakeholders. 

Software providers overpromising customers and falling short of expectations. 

Despite significant investment in visibility solutions, many shippers express frustration over the lack of progress on resolving long-standing issues, as reported by the S&P Journal of Commerce. While real-time freight visibility remains a critical priority for supply chains, the promise of seamless, multimodal solutions often fails to materialize, leaving customers dissatisfied and questioning the reliability of these platforms.  

The challenges are not confined to smaller players; even leading platforms we mentioned earlier face criticism for falling short of their ambitious claims. During the logistics "Gold Rush" sparked by the Covid-19 pandemic, visibility solutions were heavily promoted as a transformative capability. However, as Anthony Miller notes in his blog, “companies like project44, FourKites, and Shippeo weren't really up to the task of delivering what they were selling.” This underscores a recurring theme within the industry: visibility solutions being oversold and under-delivering, as echoed by the CEO of OpenTrack. 

• Claims of multimodal capabilities further highlight the gap between marketing promises and real-world performance. According to Anthony Miller, “There isn't a company out there that has consistently delivered on their promises.” He also points out that some providers focused more on raising funds, acquisitions, and marketing than on addressing foundational issues, such as the accuracy and sources of their data. The questions of “Where does the data come from?” and “How precise is the data?” often remain unanswered, eroding trust in these real-time freight visibility solutions. 

• The shortcomings of freight visibility platforms are perhaps most vividly illustrated by an ex-employee of one leading provider. In a LinkedIn discussion, the former team member revealed that milestones within the platform often appeared illogical, with discrepancies like departure times listed after arrivals. Even for VIP customers, the resolution of such issues typically involved manual intervention—contacting carriers, cross-checking databases, and correcting data by hand. This reliance on manual fixes starkly contrasts with the automated, real-time capabilities that customers expect. 

Ultimately, the failure to deliver on promises, coupled with over-reliance on marketing and inadequate data precision, has left many visibility solutions under scrutiny. Yet, with real-time freight visibility remaining a top objective for logistics service providers, the logistics community has no other remedy than learning to address these shortcomings.

Nataliia Hladushyna, Pitch Strategist at Trinetix

How to make the most of freight visibility platforms

So, currently, real-time capabilities of transportation visibility software can be described as limited. On one side, there are carriers providing inaccurate data, multiple supply chain blind spots like interchanges, modal handoffs, and transshipment points. On the other side, there are visibility software providers overpromising to their clients and failing to deliver.  

Despite the growing dissatisfaction in the global freight transportation communities, issues with data quality, timely updates, and the necessity to deal with fragmented information are likely to persist. Some of these issues, however, are beyond the control of freight visibility platform providers.   

• Visibility solution providers themselves face the challenge of dealing with inaccurate data from carriers and other sources, often without any viable alternatives.  

• On the other hand, visibility providers have indeed overpromised their customers, committing to real-time visibility and exceptional quality, only to fall short in delivering this standard. 

But what’s the way out and are investments in visibility software still worth it? 

At Trinetix, we regularly partner up with companies involved in supply chain management to help them digitize their logistics operations and business processes, adopt innovation, and undergo major strategic transformations related to data management. 

Thinking of freight transportation, we’d like to emphasize that with the domain itself being complex and dynamic, it’s no wonder that there is no simple solution or ready-made that would satisfy all the challenges at once. In this situation, real-time freight visibility platforms should be treated as one of the options to get the desired full picture, one that comes with its flaws and advantages. 

As practitioners however, we aim to provide the logistics community with actionable tips on maximizing the efficiency of visibility solutions that are currently available in the market. 

Step 1

Choose a reliable visibility provider. When evaluating global freight visibility platforms, consider factors like covered transportation modes, company location, and financial stability. 

Step 2

Make sure you understand where the data actually comes from (directly from carriers, or from a third party) so that in case of data inefficiencies or poor quality, you know the root cause and have more transparency on how the issues can be tackled. 

Step 3

Test multiple providers or sources of data. When using them, focus on where exactly data workflow fails. As an option, consider getting information via direct integrations with each carrier. In some cases, this works even better than utilizing a freight visibility platform. 

Step 4

Communicate with freight visibility solution providers to understand their attitude towards solving the issues.  Check if they are committed to solving the issues in the nearest future and learn HOW they are planning to work on fixes (manually or automatically). This will allow you to build grounded expectations and finally make your choice of partnering or not partnering with a certain vendor. 

Step 5

Check if the freight visibility software vendor provides advanced analytics and AI as part of their visibility solution. In some cases, this could indeed compensate for blind spots and inaccuracies as well as help you build data-driven predictions. 

Step 6

Be proactive in working together with all industry stakeholders, including carriers and IT solution providers. Only this way you can make true end-to-end freight shipment visibility possible despite the challenges and bottlenecks present in the market. 

We don’t have a silver bullet for businesses aiming for end-to-end freight visibility, and we confirm that real-time tracking remains a work in progress. But our industry experience proves: any process or solution bottleneck can be minimized when a strategic, business-tailored approach is in action. Let’s chat on developing one to help you solve your unique transportation challenges.