APM Terminals has commenced the role out of its truck appointment application programming interface (API) this week, starting with data for APM Terminals Los Angeles.
The API automatically connects the customer’s Transport Management System (or equivalent) directly to TERMPoint, APM Terminals’ standard truck appointment system.
“This seamless integration puts the information required for efficiently managing terminal truck appointments at the customers fingertips,” explains APM Terminals in its statement. “With real-time information directly from the terminal, it can also help reduce transit times and associated costs. In addition to saving time and effort, APIs also remove the chance of human error that can occur when manually copying information between systems.”
The Truck Appointment API enables customers to perform appointment tasks currently carried out manually through TERMPoint, such as viewing available time slots; creating, updating and cancelling appointments; and producing a list of appointments, appointment information and updates for a requested timeframe.
Appointments can be made for empty container pick up and drop off, import pickup and export drop-off, according to an announcement.
APM Terminals said that combined with data from other APIs, such as vessel schedules and import availability, it can be a powerful tool for reducing the time a container takes to transit through the container terminal to an absolute minimum.
“Using APIs not only removes the manual errors that occur when copying and pasting between different systems,” noted Wiebe-Jan Kloosterman, Landside Digital Solution manager at APM Terminals who went on to add, “But having a complete set of real-time data all in one system, can help flag errors or oversights before they occur, through for example, real-time reporting.”
Data is currently available for APM Terminals Los Angeles, and will be rolled out for other terminals in 2021. The company’s developer portal provides clear instructions for setting up APIs and testing.
The TERMPoint API uses a two-step authentication process involving system and user-level authentication. All end-users must then be registered as authorised users on TERMPoint, where an authorisation key for the API will be stored.
This enables the API to validate that the user is a valid TERMPoint user, associate the user to a trucking company and a terminal and validate the user’s permissions in TERMPoint.
System level authentication is done using an authorisation key, which can be requested by a software provider or Trucking company via the developer portal.
