Gartner defines the real-time transportation visibility platform (RTTVP) market as platforms that provide real-time location and status insights into orders once they have left the warehouse. This includes other facilities, such as those of a brand owner, supplier, contract manufacturer or service provider. Such platforms, owned and managed by third-party software vendors, represent part of the supply chain visibility market that predominantly — but not solely — addresses domestic road transportation modes. RTTVPs obtain data through integration (via API or electronic data interchange [EDI], for example) with carrier systems, direct feeds from telematics (in-cab or in-trailer devices) or other technologies or apps. RTTVPs are used to gain near-real-time status and location of shipments in transit, along with predictive estimated times of arrival. This information can be used internally, as well as externally, to inform and update both types of customers related to shipments delays, estimated times of arrival (ETAs) and statuses.
Gartner defines transportation management systems (TMSs) as software that supports multimodal planning and execution of the physical transport of goods across the supply chain. It allows a company to manage varying levels of transportation complexity across multiple transport modes and geographic regions. TMS solutions are utilized by companies of differing sizes, operational complexity, industries and geographic locations. TMS solutions are utilized to plan and execute the physical transport of goods across the supply chain. They provide a company with the ability to manage the entire transportation life cycle of an order or shipment. This includes: 1. Sourcing and procuring transportation capacity from third-party companies by supporting bid management and optimization. Intaking orders to provide a shipment plan, including order and shipment consolidation, mode selection, routes, and carrier selection. 2. Taking the shipment plan and enabling communications with carriers to facilitate execution against the plan. 3. Tracking and tracing the movements of shipments from pickup to final delivery. 4. Matching expected transportation charges against actual charges to manage discrepancies. 5. Making better transportation decisions by utilizing embedded analytics and reporting capabilities to measure key performance indicators, such as on-time performance, emissions calculations, and costs by customer, product line and location. TMS solutions enable a company to have tighter control of their transportation operations, optimize costs, improve efficiencies, and have improved visibility into the movement of goods.