Canadian Pacific (CP), Canada’s transcontinental railway firm, has reportedly joined BiTA i.e. the Blockchain in Transport Alliance. This membership was announced by CP on July 31^st in an official press release.

Per the announcement, CP wants to improvise on the supply chain technology using blockchain. BiTAsays that by entering the group, CP is allowing them with inter-operability of the global supply chain.

BiTA president Patrick Duffystressed on the valued benefits of blockchain in the transportation sector, saying that this new tech “has the potential to smooth the transactions that occur between shippers and carriers, but it requires the active participation of transportation leaders like CP.” 

The Blockchain in Transport Alliance

BiTA consists of almost 500 member organisations in the alliance groups of transportation, logistics and affiliated industries, as mentioned in the press release. They purportedly aim a common goal to provide information about blockchain solutions and distributed ledger technology, to facilitate the adoption of blockchain technology in these sectors, and to work to establish the industry standards.

According to a report by the Canadian Broadcast Corporation, Duffy discussed how the transportation sector currently does not need multiple tracking systems, adding that it is bound to cause more human errors:

“When you order a pair of shoes and they’re manufactured in Vietnam, currently the information you put into the website where you order those shoes goes from a website into an ERP [a type of business management software] that’s transmitted to a manufacturer’s system … the possibilities of the number of people involved and the number of technology systems involved, it grows exponentially. At each one of those steps there’s an opportunity for human-induced error.”

Blockchain interoperability in transportation

In a previous report by Cointelegraph, a number of companies recently tested an international container shipment with the help of an interoperable blockchain platform. Samsung SDS, Dutch bank ABN AMRO and the Port of Rotterdam progressively completed a track shipment from South Korea to the Netherlands in July. This blockchain platform is known as DELIVER, and was co-developed by the above three participating firms. It allows instant finance and tracking on the shipments, and is conducted in a paperless form.