Glossary: intermodal terminal terms
The language of combined transport, explained for everyone who deals with a terminal without standing in one every day.
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35 terms from terminal operations and terminal software
What a terminal operating system is, and how it differs from a yard management system, is explained in detail on the page “What is a terminal operating system?”.
- Buffer area
- Area in front of the terminal proper where trucks wait until they are called for handling.
- CODECO
- EDI message about the arrival or departure of a loading unit at the terminal, sent to the authorised partner.
- COEDOR
- EDI stock report: which units of a customer are currently at the terminal.
- Combined transport
- Transport where the major leg runs on rail or waterway and only the first and last mile on the road.
- COPARN
- EDI order from a shipping line to a depot, for example to release an empty container.
- Damage documentation
- Photographic and written record of damage to a loading unit, usually at entry and exit.
- Dangerous goods (RID)
- Rulebook for transporting dangerous goods by rail. Affected units must be flagged in the system and stored separately.
- Direct transhipment
- Transhipment without interim storage: the unit goes straight from wagon to truck. Saves space and two lifts.
- EDI
- Electronic Data Interchange: standardised data exchange between companies, without anyone retyping anything.
- EDIGES
- EDI message format of combined transport, used among other things for bookings, orders and train arrivals.
- Empty container depot
- Area and process for storing, inspecting and releasing empty containers.
- ERP
- Commercial system for receivables, accounting and controlling. It does not know the terminal stock in real time; the TOS hands it the billable services.
- Gantry crane
- Crane travelling across tracks and storage areas. Higher throughput than a reach stacker, but fixed in place.
- Gate-in / gate-out
- Entry and exit at the terminal gate. Loading unit, truck and driver are recorded and the condition is documented.
- Interface
- Defined connection between two systems through which data flows automatically, at a terminal for example to the crane control or the operator's ERP.
- Intermodal
- Transport in the same loading unit across several modes, without handling the goods themselves.
- Lifting order
- Instruction to a handling machine to move a loading unit from A to B. The smallest unit of work in terminal operations.
- Loading unit (ITU)
- Umbrella term for container, swap body and semi-trailer: everything handled as one unit.
- OCR
- Camera-based recognition of container and licence plate numbers on entry, instead of manual input.
- On-premise
- The software runs in the terminal's own infrastructure.
- Pre-advice
- Advance notice of a loading unit before it reaches the terminal. The transport order is created from it; without pre-advice, handling only starts at the gate.
- Reach stacker
- Mobile handling machine with a telescopic arm that grabs and stacks loading units, flexible in use and independent of crane rails.
- Repositioning
- Movement of a loading unit inside the yard without it leaving the terminal.
- SaaS
- Software as a service: the provider runs the software, you use it in the browser, maintenance included.
- Self check-in
- The driver registers on their own, at a kiosk or on their own smartphone, instead of being processed at a counter.
- Swap body
- Detachable truck superstructure, more common in European land transport than the maritime container.
- TEU
- Twenty-foot equivalent unit: the measure for handling volumes, based on a 20-foot container.
- TOS
- Terminal operating system: the central software of a terminal, bringing gate, yard, rail, handling equipment and billing together in one system.
- Train dispatching
- Planning which loading unit goes on which wagon, and managing the wagon lists per train.
- Transhipment
- The transfer of a loading unit between two modes, for example from train to truck.
- Trimodal
- Terminal connected to road, rail and waterway.
- Video gate
- Gate installation that records loading unit and vehicle automatically and documents the condition.
- Wagon check
- Inspection of wagons at the track before loading or departure: condition, brakes, load securing.
- Wagon list
- Record of all wagons of a train and their load. Basis for load planning and the departure message.
- Yard management system
- Software for slot management on the site. A subset of what a TOS covers.
Read on
From the terms to practice
The terms only make sense in context. How a terminal operating system connects these workflows is covered in the introduction; which areas smartTOS covers in detail is shown in the module overview.
Questions about a term?
We would rather explain the workflows on a running system than in a glossary.
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