Arviem AG has announced the launch of its new real-time container monitoring and tracking service developed for monitoring the location and condition of rail freight shipments on the New Silk Road.

The purpose of the New Silk Road initiative is to streamline the transport of goods from Asia to Europe by connecting European and Chinese cities. As shipping via the Silk Road train is faster than marine transport and significantly cheaper than air transport, this logistics option appeals especially to customers who are shipping time-sensitive goods or high value cargo.

Even though the New Silk Road is still under development, many shippers are already taking advantage of the new global logistics options offered by the extensively developed rail infrastructure and the steadily growing number of China-Europe express trains.

As the trans-Eurasian rail freight services are gaining popularity among shippers, Arviem developed its new monitoring solution to respond to clients’ monitoring and tracking needs. “After successfully completing the first monitoring missions on the Silk Road for a selected number of existing clients, Arviem is ready to offer the services to a wider range of companies”, said Mirko Schneider, director of sales at Arviem.

Transporting high value cargo across Central Asia by train imposes supply chains to various risks. There are severe temperature variations along the route as the train passes through the warm climate of China to the super freezing environment of Russia. Bearing in mind that cargo ferried along the railway is often temperature sensitive, manufacturers are putting in place mechanisms to monitor their goods ensuring the correct temperature is being maintained and mitigating the risks of disruptions.

Additionally, cargo is increasingly becoming a target of violence. Implementing cargo tracking and monitoring solutions is crucial to mitigate the risk of cargo theft, extortion, hijacking and smuggling – risks that are often faced by shippers of high-value cargo.

“Knowing where our cargo is at any time and being informed in real-time of its condition helps us to optimize our supply chain and mitigate the effect of disruptions,” said Marc Linten, Transportation Manager Logistics & Demand Chain at SKF, an Arviem client. “Thanks to Arviem’s cargo tracking and monitoring solution we can compare various transport modes with respect to shock, temperature and humidity fluctuations and use this intelligence to select the best option for our global shipments.”

The solution developed by Arviem enables exporters, importers, distributors, and manufacturers of goods to understand what’s going on in their supply chains and gain unprecedented, uninterrupted visibility. Arviem ensures the continuity of its monitoring service even on remote locations, such as the steppes of Central Asia, by equipping containers with tracking devices that can transmit data both via satellite and GSM. Thanks to this offering, tracking devices are able to automatically switch to satellite communication whenever the GSM network in not accessible ensuring the elimination of logistics blind spots.

“Our cloud-based supply chain visibility platform displays a constant data stream on the location and condition of cargo,” said Stefan Reidy, CEO of Arviem, “displaying information on temperature, humidity, shock, door opening as well as and dynamically calculating the estimated time of arrival based on big data.”