Japanese technology firm Fujitsu is a partner and investor in a new Japanese digital logistics platform, Sustainable Shared Transport. The company was founded by Yamato which has the largest market share for parcel delivery in Japan and also operates internationally. Fujitsu’s blockchain plays an important but relatively minor part of the platform by securing the logistics data across companies in a tamper resistant manner.
The novel solution launches on February 1 and aims to allow road transport and logistics companies to share long distance shipments by matching shippers to logistic firms, using the platform for booking purposes.
There are three key motivations. In Japan there’s a transport capacity shortage, which we suspect is a staff shortage issue. Additionally, there are climate change issues driving shipping firms to be more efficient. Driven by these two factors, new legislation becomes effective from April 1 requiring shipping and logistic firms to implement optimization.
Hence, rather than having hundreds or thousands of half empty trucks travelling up and down the country, the trucks could potentially have a smaller number of journeys but at a higher utilization.
It uses standardized pallet sizes, standardized data and a trunk route system on major highways running through the center of Japan, with seven hubs. As a result, a shipment could be relayed between different transport companies at one of the interchange points. This means local transport firms could play a bigger role between hubs. In future it aims to expand to rail and air.
Meanwhile, Japan is home to one of the larger blockchain shipping networks, TradeWaltz. Its main members are the large Japanese keiretsu (conglomerates) but Japan’s biggest bank, MUFG, is also a shareholder. Late last year SMBC and Mizuho invested, meaning all three of Japan’s largest banks are participants.
