Candian Pacific, Canada’s transcontinental railway, has teamed up with the Blockchain in Transport Alliance (BiTA). CP declared its new partnership through an official press release on July 31.
As per the announcement, CP is helping in building new standards for using blockchain technology. By joining BiTA, CP is helping them to meet with global supply chain interoperability.
Mike Redeker, who is the CP Vice President of Information Services and Cheif Information Officer said,
“We are excited to be on this journey. As part of the BiTA, we look forward to creating opportunities and innovative solutions that benefit our customers and the broader supply chain.”
Patrick Duffy, President of BiTA, is very much pleased to have CP’s expertise and support as it will help to grow both organizations ahead in Blockchain. He also declared potential benefits of Blockchain in the transportation sector, saying that “technology has the potential to smooth the transactions that occur between shippers and carriers, but it requires the active participation of transportation leaders like Canadian Pacific Railway.”
As per the announcement, BiTA has around 500 member organizations in the freight, transportation, logistics, and affiliated industries. BiTA is working on education, advocacy, networking, and commercial outcomes regarding Blockchain and other emerging technologies.
Members allegedly share a common goal of making it smoother with the new technology in these sectors and work on developing industry standards and offer education on blockchain solutions and distributed ledger technology.
According to the report shared by Canadian Broadcast Corporation, Duffy explained the problem of transportation currently needing multiple tracking systems, stating that more systems mean more room for human error:
“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.”