Through a partnership between the Research and Innovative Technology Administration's Intelligent Transportation System's Joint Program Office and the Federal Highway Administration's Freight Office, new software is available to help the industry deliver products more efficiently
, while reducing congestion and harmful emissions.

The Electronic Freight Management software, as it's called, is free to use.

The software was designed to maximize cargo visibility and coordinate freight shipments. The tool is meant to improve asset utilization and prevent delays in moving products from the assembly line to the shelf. It's also meant to promote greater coordination among supply chain partners and cost savings for the company and its customers.

Rather than creating large databases for each partner to collect and maintain shipment-related information, the "web services" approach used with EFM allows partners to maintain only the data they "create" and then share that data with other authorized users through a common Web interface.

The prototype software can be downloaded at www.efm.us.com.