List of the Top 5 Transportation Blogs. Educating and answering questions about international transportation of cargo and the shipping process.
With the need to move products around the globe comes a requirement for a basic understanding of international transportation, documentation, financial flows and formalities. While understanding the processes and interaction between different parts of the supply chain is a study in itself, fortunately there a number of great resources available online for familiarising yourself with the basics.
The transportation blogs are updated and maintained by logisticians and transportation enthusiasts, and can be an excellent resource when you face challenges with your first shipments or need greater understanding of documentation or the logistics process.
In this article we try to cover 5 transportation blogs you can reference to get your questions answered. For each of the transportation blogs we include a short description and a link, which can hopefully be beneficial in your search for knowledge about the subject.
List of the 5 best Transportation Blogs
In no specific order, we have tried to add our suggested for the 5 best blogs to follow if you want to get a basic understanding of international transportation of cargo.
Shipping and Freight Resources
http://shippingandfreightresource.com
Hariesh Manaadiar, who writes about shipping and answer questions in this blog, has a long history in shipping and freight forwarding. The topics covered are typically technical, and aim to answer specific question about the meaning of certain terms or function of certain documents. This is a good resource for very specific questions, rather than browsing to learn about transportation.
The Logistics of Logistics
http://www.thelogisticsoflogistics.com
Joe Lynch is a veteran in the logistics industry why through this blog tries to make simply by explaining key terms and sharing relevant information from other industry sites. This is a good transportation blog to follow and dip into when there are specific topics of your interest. While the blog has a newsletter function, it does not yet offer an RSS feed.
More Than Shipping
http://morethanshipping.com
MTS Logistics maintains a good blog frequently updated with new and relevant topics. The content is slightly US centric but explains the main themes of transportation well in short postings. A monthly visit to check the list of recent posts gives a good overview of topics you might want to read up on.
The Lean Logistics Blog
http://leanlogisticsblog.leancor.com
This transportation blog is written by LeanCor, who also offer supply chain improvements. The blog is focused on lean logistics and supply chain management, and is probably more advanced than most first time shippers can benefit from. If you would like to go in more detail with some of the strategic topics corporations with larger supply chains focus on, it is, however, a good starting point.
3PL News
http://www.3plnews.com
This is a logistics business portal for readers who are interested in latest news from the logistics industry. Signing up to the news feeds will give you updates on most of the large players in the logistics field. You can also find regularly updated top 100 lists of the largest logistics companies on this transportation blog, but should not expect to read deep dives of specific topics or have your logistics questions answered unless they relate to certain organisations.
What to look for in a Transportation Blog
The number of quality transportation blogs available is still quite limited. There are a few things to be aware of when referencing them for having your questions answered.
The owner of the blog controls the information in a transportation blog post. Consequently, you cannot be 100% certain of the accuracy, and should double check the information against other sources or directly with your freight forwarder if it is critical to your shipments.
Often, the comments on specific blog posts can be relevant to study, as this is where users raise and have their questions answered. It is also where any errors in the initial blog post can be addresses.
Ideally, the blog has an option to be informed about new postings either via e-mail, or ideally via an RSS feed. This gives you a quick overview the new topics covered and whether they have your interest.
Lastly, most blogs have an option to contact the owner. If you have specific questions, which you cannot find the answer to, often the blog owner will be delighted to answer them. That would just be another great topic to cover in a future blog posting.
For more information
There are a number of sources of mixed quality available online when it comes to learning about international transportation. Much of the content you will find is published by logistics providers and regretfully often rather commercial.
One resource which can offer additional inspiration is the 100 Elite Resources For Logistics published by Logistics Degree. Obviously, we appreciate that Transporteca is included in this list.
http://logisticsdegree.net/logistics-resources/
Lastly, if you have a question you struggle to find the answer to, don’t hesitate to ask the Transporteca team via the contact form. We can’t promise that we can answer it straight away, but we can promise that we will do our best.