DCSA Event and Location Codes

The Vizion API can present milestones in a DCSA-compliant format

DCSA Event and Location Codes can reduce developer time by providing a programmable field to key on, enhancing the ability to filter specific event types, and reducing the need to maintain a list of Vizion's standardized descriptions.

The Value of DCSA Event and Location Codes

Through the years Track & Trace solutions have become a common service in the container shipping industry. However, due to misalignment of terminology and ways of working each carrier have designed their own events, which are published on their webpage.

One such example is carrier-reported "Vessel arrival" events. To carriers such as ONE Line, Yang-Ming and Hyundai Merchant Marine, this event means the vessel is at anchor, or in the vicinity of a port terminal. For other carriers, this published event means the vessel has berthed.

To align this type of reporting across the industry the DCSA has developed a Naming Convention to ensure equal interpretation of events published and that business needs are adequately reflected in the development of data and interface standards for Track & Trace.

Additionally, leveraging DCSA Event and Location codes, as shown in the Milestone below, would replace the need to identify all of following standardized descriptions to understand when a container is loaded at the Port of Loading:

• Loaded on vessel at origin port
• Loaded on feeder at origin port
• Loaded on barge at origin port

{
    ...
    "journey_event": {
        "journey_type": "EQUIPMENT",
        "event_classifier": "ACT",
        "event_type": "LOAD",
        "empty_indicator": "FULL",
        "transport_mode": "VESSEL",
        "facility_type": "POTE"
    },
    "shipment_location": {
        "type_code": "POL"
    },
    ...
}

Event Code Structure

Event codes, found in the Milestone object, utilize a discriminator JSON structure to compose a journey_event object, separated into three specific types (journey_type):

1. The Equipment Journey: governs the naming and understanding of events driven by physical occurrences related to the equipment (container) in question.

2. The Transport Journey: governs occurrences in the general transport of a shipment. This includes all customer relevant events carried out by one or more modes of transport.

3. The Shipment Journey: governs the occurrences in the customer facing information flow tied to a shipment.

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Please see here for the full list of event codes.

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For detailed documentation relating to the DCSA Event Naming Convention and Structure, see the update payload model's journey event API reference documentation.

Location Code Structure

Location codes, found in the Milestone object, are used to identify how an Event's location relates to the overall shipment via a shipment_location object.

Mapping core milestones

To map Vizion's core milestones to your system, you can expect to see the below values for the journey_event and shipment_location objects. If you would like to include planned events, you can filter by the event_classifier value of PLN, in addition to actual events (ACT).

Enabling DCSA Event and Location Codes

DCSA Event and Location Codes can be enabled for your account (on both demo and production environments of the API) as a part of a new or existing plan at no additional cost. Please request this feature by contacting support.