CARGO optimizes intermodal routing for imports, exports and empty containers, from ports and terminals to inland destinations, and connects to your ocean services to choose the gateway port as well. Rates, carrier contracts, lane capacities and service levels are optimized together, at the lowest cost of the whole network.
Our algorithms decide, AI operates. Our optimization algorithms choose every route. Our AI planner operates them as an expert user would: it runs what-if scenarios through them, such as a port closure or a capacity cut, and recommends the plan that best meets your KPIs.
Request a demoA month of intermodal moves means thousands of containers, each with dozens of candidate routes, tied together by volume commitments, incentive tiers, lane capacities and service levels. The route of one container changes the contract position of all the others, and the possible assignments run into the millions. A problem of this size cannot be evaluated by hand. CARGO solves it as one optimization, for each intermodal network with its own carriers and contracts.
CARGO builds complete routes from the legs of your intermodal network, and every leg carries its attributes: mode, carrier, schedule, transit time, rate and the cargo it accepts. Each container carries its own attributes and is matched only with the routes that fit. A specific requirement, such as hazardous cargo, a refrigerated service level or a customer accepting new containers only, becomes one more attribute instead of a manual exception.
Each carrier contract has its own period, targets and incentives: an annual minimum volume commitment with one carrier, a quarterly growth incentive with another, a midyear rate increase with a third. Volume given to one carrier is volume taken from another, and the contract periods rarely line up, so keeping every contract on track is a trade-off made again with every container.
Hard constraints are always respected: lane capacities, transit-time commitments, refrigerated and hazardous cargo, customer requirements. Soft constraints are targets met whenever the network allows, with a cost for every shortfall: a minimum share for a carrier on a shared corridor, or volumes balanced between the two directions of a lane.
Routing each container on its cheapest available lane, in order of arrival, looks like the lowest-cost approach. A plan built lane by lane under all these contracts and constraints misses volume commitments, falls short of incentive tiers and gives scarce capacity to whichever containers come first. Penalties and lost incentives land on the total cost of the network.
CARGO routes all containers of the network together and minimizes freight cost plus contract penalties, minus incentives, within every hard constraint. A few containers take a slightly more expensive route so that volume commitments are met, incentive tiers are reached and capacity goes where it saves the most.
CARGO reads your container demand, your network of legs and your carrier contracts, and returns the route of every container with its cost and the contract position it produces.
| Container | Size | From → to | Route | Carrier | Days | Cost |
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Share a representative period of container moves, your intermodal network and your carrier contracts; we will walk you through the optimized routing and its contract position.
Request a demoRead the CARGO case study (PDF)