Glossary
Logistics + AI terms, explained
Definition-first pages for the vocabulary freight desks and AI tools share. Built for people and for answer engines.
TMS
A TMS (Transportation Management System) is the operational system freight teams use to manage shipments — requests, orders, carriers, documents, and billing. It is the system of record; AI agents typically sit beside it, not replace it overnight.
RFQ agent
An RFQ agent automates the first pass on a Request for Quote: detect a freight inquiry, extract parameters, propose a price, and draft a reply. In 4logist AI the agent stops at draft — a human sends.
POD
POD (proof of delivery) is the evidence that a shipment reached the receiver as agreed. Forwarders chase POD to invoice, close files, and resolve disputes.
CMR
A CMR consignment note is the standard road-freight document under the CMR Convention. It records sender, receiver, goods, and carriage details. Errors in parties or goods create legal and claims risk.
Freight exchange
A freight exchange — also called a load board — is a marketplace for spot freight. Forwarders publish loads or search capacity; carriers bid or book. Major European examples include Trans.eu and TIMOCOM.
LTL
LTL means less-than-truckload: freight that does not need a full trailer. Shipments are often consolidated; pricing depends on weight, dimensions, density, and lane.
FTL
FTL means full truckload: one shipper’s cargo occupies the trailer. Pricing is usually per trip or per lane rather than per kilo brackets used in LTL.
Freight forwarder
A freight forwarder designs and runs the shipment for the cargo owner: selecting carriers, managing documents, and coordinating handoffs. Many SMB forwarders also operate some trucks.
Human-in-the-loop
Human-in-the-loop means the model proposes; a human disposes. For freight, that usually means draft quotes, draft CMR fields, and approval taps — not autonomous client emails.
Lane history
Lane history is the trail of completed (or quoted) moves on an origin–destination pattern. Good quoting systems ground prices in your history, not a public index alone.
IMAP
IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) lets email clients and apps read mailbox folders while messages stay on the server. SMTP is used to send. Together they connect “any mailbox” integrations.
Freight quote
A freight quote is the commercial reply to an RFQ: price, currency, assumptions, and validity. Speed and accuracy both matter; a fast wrong price burns margin or trust.
Proof of delivery
Proof of delivery (often abbreviated POD) proves handover. Without it, invoicing stalls and claims get messy. Teams chase POD across drivers, email, and portals.
Sanctions screening
Sanctions screening compares shipper, consignee, and related parties against government restricted lists. In document automation it should block or alarm unsafe filings rather than silently proceed.
Carrier RFQ
A carrier RFQ goes the other direction from a client RFQ: you ask carriers for buy rates. Desks often spam similar emails; templated, history-aware outreach saves time — still with human send.
Groupage
Groupage means combining multiple customers’ smaller consignments into a single truck. It is the common European word for what North American freight calls LTL, and pricing depends on weight, volume, and how well the freight consolidates on the lane.
e-CMR
e-CMR replaces the paper CMR consignment note with a digital equivalent carrying the same legal weight in countries that ratified the additional protocol. Adoption across Europe is growing but uneven, so mixed paper/digital flows remain the day-to-day reality.
Freight forwarding automation
Freight forwarding automation means handing the repeatable first pass of desk work to software: reading RFQs, drafting priced replies, extracting document fields, watching for stalled deals. Mature setups keep a human decision on anything irreversible, like sending a quote or filing a legal document.
AI agent (logistics)
An AI agent in logistics goes beyond a chatbot: it watches a real channel (an inbox, WhatsApp, a TMS), understands the freight context, and carries a task through several steps — triage, extraction, pricing, drafting. The safest designs propose actions for human approval instead of acting autonomously on clients.
Rate card
A rate card fixes prices for known lanes and brackets so recurring business quotes instantly. Spot requests fall outside it — that is where lane history and judgment take over.
Spot freight
Spot freight is the one-off deal: a load that needs a truck this week at whatever the market bears today. Prices swing with capacity, season, and lane balance, which is why spot quoting leans on recent lane history rather than standing rate cards.
Detention & demurrage
Detention — often called demurrage in road transport — compensates the carrier when loading or unloading exceeds the agreed free hours. It is one of the most disputed charges in forwarding because the evidence lives in timestamps, CMR remarks, and driver messages.
Cabotage
Cabotage lets a foreign EU carrier run domestic legs after an international delivery — currently capped (three operations in seven days, with a cooling-off period) under the EU Mobility Package. It shapes how Baltic and CEE fleets plan Western European rotations.
ADR transport
ADR is the European agreement governing dangerous goods on the road: classification, packaging, vehicle equipment, driver certification, and transport documents. An RFQ mentioning UN numbers or hazard classes is an ADR request and prices differently.
TIR carnet
The TIR carnet, issued under the UN TIR Convention, lets sealed trucks transit countries without paying duties or being inspected at every border — the guarantee travels with the carnet. It matters most on routes touching non-EU countries, where EU internal transit does not apply.
Incoterms
Incoterms are three-letter trade terms published by the International Chamber of Commerce that fix where cost and risk pass between seller and buyer — EXW, FCA, CPT, DAP, DDP and the rest. For a forwarder, the stated Incoterm decides who your customer actually is on each leg and what the quote must include.
OCR grounding
OCR grounding constrains document extraction to the text actually recognized on the page: if a value is not in the OCR output, the model must leave the field empty rather than infer it. For legal documents like CMR consignment notes, this is the difference between a blank a human fills and a fabricated party name that gets filed.