Who it's for
The party with the widest view holds the least detail. The parties with the most detail see the least of the journey. No one's view spans a handoff on both sides — which is exactly where the movement fails.
The same movement, seen from every side
Freight owner
Milestones only — despatched, in transit, arrived
Forwarder
Leg level — each leg sourced separately
Road carrier
Event level — its own legs only
Above rail
Event level — terminal to terminal
Terminals
Event level — a point at each end
Below rail
Event level — its own network only
Bar length — how much of the journey each party sees. Bar tone — how much detail it holds.
What each party puts in, and gets back
Interstate, regional and metropolitan below-rail networks
Contributes
Gains
Above-rail freight operators
Contributes
Gains
Intermodal terminals, ports and their operators
Contributes
Gains
Forwarders, and the shippers behind them
Contributes
Gains
Why it has to be shared
Any one party can instrument its own operation, and most already have. None of them can instrument the point where freight changes hands, because that point belongs to two parties at once.
Built alone
Five systems, five versions of the same movement, reconciled by phone every time something changes.
Built shared
One version, agreed at the point of exchange, read by each party through its own lens.
RailExchange sits beside the systems that already exist, not against them. Terminal platforms instrument the terminal; train control is safety-critical and deep; each operator's portal serves its own customers. Nobody occupies the interface between below rail and above rail — that is the position RailExchange takes, as a neutral layer no participant owns.
The question everyone asks
Private
Commercial terms, customer identity, pricing, and consist detail beyond what the path requires. Visible to the owning party only.
Bilateral
Shared between two named parties to a specific movement — operator and network, operator and terminal, forwarder and customer.
Network
Aggregated and de-identified corridor performance. This is the layer that feeds industry and programme reporting.
Permissions attach to the role a party holds on a movement, not to the company — so an integrated group does not inherit access across its own divisions, and no party sees a counterparty's commercial position.
The ask
No procurement, no integration project and no lock-in. A short session to look at one of your existing data extracts together, and you are live inside two weeks.
