EDI 101 \ The Transportation Data Coordinating Commitee

The Transportation Industry recognized the need for industry standards early on and formed the Transportation Data Coordinating Committee in 1968. The TDCC was formed as a non-profit organization in Washington DC and organizes data standards, formats codes, and protocols for the transportation industry. The ground rules the TDCC began its standards development with were:

• The EDI interface must be insensitive to computer equipment internal architecture.
• The EDI interface should be responsive to end users needs.
• EDI should leave the choice of communication speeds and services to the using parties.

Several hundred people worked in teams to develop these standards. These teams consisted of shippers, railroads, motor carriers, forwarders, ocean carriers, air carriers, and banks. The end product was the publication of the TDCC Electronic Data Interchange Standards. These Standards were first used in the rail lines and later across motor carriers. TDCC estimates that 90% of all rail waybills were electronically interchanged between railroads by 1985. Today, the usage of TDCC's EDI standards include:

• Export/import information for international shipments carrier-to-carrier waybill exchange.
• Reservation or pickup request.
• Shipment information from shipper to carrier.
• Freight bill data, carrier to payer.
• Shipment tracing information.
• Payment data, payer to bank, bank to bank, bank to payee.