Shipping Container Tracking System

Last updated: April 2026

A shipping container transit company operating out of the Port of Newark, NJ needed a system to track multiple containers daily across a driver fleet with specific freight certifications, vehicle assignments, and regulatory reporting requirements. The system had to match the right driver and vehicle to each freight type, including hazardous materials, and produce government-compliant reports for regulatory audits. PCG built it in Microsoft Access with VBA. The result was 100% on-time delivery efficiency and the elimination of regulatory fines.

Project requirements

Driver and vehicle scheduling. Cost tracking for fuel, maintenance, drivers, and permits. Container location tracking and scheduling. Client delivery coordination. Manifest management.

Languages and database

Microsoft Access, Visual Basic for Applications (VBA).

Company size

Small business.

Industry

Transportation / freight logistics.

❓ What problem did this project solve?

Container freight moving through a major port operates under layered regulation. Not every driver is certified to carry every freight type. Hazardous materials have their own certification requirements, and assigning the wrong driver to a hazmat container is not a paperwork error. It is a regulatory violation with real consequences.

This company was managing those assignments, along with container location tracking, manifest management, fuel and maintenance costs, and delivery scheduling, without a system that connected all of those pieces. The result was delivery delays, regulatory exposure, and cost tracking that required manual reconciliation. For a small business competing on reliability out of one of the busiest ports on the East Coast, those gaps were a direct threat to the company's operating license and its client relationships.

🛠️ What PCG built

PCG built the tracking system around the core matching problem: which driver, with which certifications, could move which freight type, in which vehicle, to which destination. That logic was coded into the assignment workflow so that the system would not allow a driver to be assigned to a freight type outside their certification. The operational staff did not need to remember the rules. The system enforced them.

Container location tracking gave the company precise visibility into where every shipment was at any point in the delivery cycle. Delivery scheduling was coordinated with client timelines, and manifest management kept the documentation current for each movement. Fuel costs, driver costs, vehicle maintenance, and permit tracking were all integrated into a single cost view rather than tracked separately in disconnected records.

Custom reports were built to meet the specific documentation requirements of the government agencies overseeing the operation, so that a regulatory audit did not require manual assembly of records from multiple sources. The company eliminated regulatory fines entirely after deployment and brought on-time delivery performance to 100% efficiency.

🔍 Technology used

Microsoft Access Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) Driver certification matching Hazardous materials compliance Container location tracking Manifest management Government regulatory reporting Fleet cost tracking

Running a freight or transportation operation where driver assignments, compliance tracking, and delivery scheduling are managed without a system that connects them? PCG has built transportation and logistics systems for regulated freight operations since 1995. The $2,500 diagnostic engagement scopes the work before any development begins.

Talk to PCG

PCG founded 1995. All project details drawn from PCG's internal documentation. Client identity withheld at client request.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a custom container tracking system enforce which drivers can move which freight? +

The system PCG built for this Port of Newark transit company matched freight type to driver certification before a move could be scheduled. Hazardous materials required drivers with specific endorsements. Non-hazardous freight had its own set of requirements. The system stored each driver's qualifications and checked them against the freight classification at the point of dispatch. A driver who was not certified for a particular load could not be assigned to it. That enforcement happened in the software, not in a dispatcher's memory, which meant it applied consistently to every container move regardless of who was scheduling the shift.

What does a regulation audit trail for freight transportation actually need to contain? +

For a regulation-controlled freight operation, an audit trail needs to show which driver moved which container, under which authorization, at what time, with what vehicle, and whether all permits and licensing requirements were current at the time of the move. For hazardous materials, it also needs to document the manifest and the classification of the freight. The system PCG built captured all of that at the point of dispatch and stored it in a format that could be produced for a regulatory audit without manual reconstruction. Before the system, that documentation existed across paper records, spreadsheets, and dispatcher notes. Getting it into a single auditable record was a core requirement of the project, not an afterthought.

How did the system bring on-time delivery to 100% efficiency for a high-volume port operation? +

Late deliveries at a port operation come from scheduling gaps, not from drivers being slow. A container that is assigned to a driver who is already committed elsewhere, or a vehicle that is scheduled for maintenance it did not get flagged for, or a delivery window that was confirmed without checking whether the receiving client was actually ready. Those are the sources of delay. The system PCG built tracked driver availability, vehicle inventory and maintenance status, container location, and delivery coordination with the receiving client in one place. Dispatch had a complete picture before committing to any move. When all the variables that cause late deliveries are visible at scheduling time, the late deliveries stop.

Can a transportation tracking system built in Access handle the volume of a busy commercial port? +

It depends on the concurrent user count and the daily transaction volume. For a small transit company operating out of a single dispatch point, Access with VBA handles the workload reliably. The Port of Newark operation PCG built this system for was that type of operation: a focused team managing a defined set of daily container moves with a small dispatch staff. When an operation grows past that, with multiple simultaneous dispatch stations, thousands of daily transactions, or external API connections to port authority systems, the migration path is to SQL Server or a .NET-based platform. PCG has built both and handled the migrations between them. Contact PCG to assess where your current operation stands relative to those thresholds.

How does the system track fuel costs, maintenance, and permits alongside container movements? +

The cost tracking module PCG built covered fuel consumption per vehicle, driver costs per run, maintenance schedules and costs, and permit status and expiration dates. Each container move was costed against those variables so that the actual cost of a delivery was visible, not estimated after the fact. Permit expiration tracking flagged vehicles whose operating permits were approaching renewal deadlines, which prevented the situation where a vehicle was dispatched on an expired permit and created a regulatory problem mid-route. For a freight operation where regulatory compliance and cost control are both daily concerns, having those two things tracked in the same system that schedules the moves is what eliminated the fines and regulatory issues this client had been dealing with before PCG built the replacement.