Introduction

This publication TIC4.0 2021.002 contains the Semantics, Data Set Roadmap, Data Model and Definitions on the topics of Move and Cycle. Move and Cycle are words widely used in the cargo and terminal industry. However, the words Move and Cycle have different meanings and interpretations depending on the users' background and the context in which these words are used.

The basic Cycle, viewed from an equipment point of view, is a process completed by an equipment (CHE = the subject) designed to move cargo, which always has a Start (beginning) and an End. It can generate an action “Move” (concept “move”), if during the Cycle a payload has been displaced to another location. During one Cycle, several units of equipment can “Move” the cargo (container) through the Terminal to achieve the moving task. In another context, when we are referring to a vessel “move”, this can include several equipment cycles making “moves” in parallel or serial. So, without specifying the specific subject, Move and Cycle have multiple meanings as these can refer to a unit of equipment, a process or a business, and as such can likely be misinterpreted.

This publication focuses on the words “Cycle” and “Move”, as they are 2 of the most fundamental concepts used in the (container) handling Industry. Their importance justifies including them in a single publication to allow the Industry and stakeholders to understand and digest the proposed definitions. The TIC4.0 community has worked through many sessions to formulate and agree on the structure and definitions for Cycle and Move, allowing the resulting messages to be precise and unambiguous.

Cycle and Move have such broad applications that all cannot be captured in one publication. The definitions and scope in this publication focuses on the equipment (CHE) cycle process executing the move. These are the basic building blocks. With these blocks it is possible to describe any subject cycle or move, such as ‘Vessel Move’, ‘Terminal Move’ or ‘Transshipment Move’ as an aggregation of cycles and moves of other “granular” subjects (CHE like STS, RTG, RMG…). In the following publication 2021.003, the definitions for Cycle and Move at a more aggregated (Terminal, Vessel, Yard….) high level are covered.

This publication explains the context for the application of the Definitions, the Semantics, Data Set Roadmap and the Data Model. To improve the readability of this document and reduce its size, only high-level information providing a full overview of the subject is included. However, the reader can choose to go deeper in analysing the information by using the hyperlinks that are in this document. The detailed information accessible through the links is extensive and provides the reader (depending on his needs as a manager, engineer or developer) varying levels of detailed information, on the TIC4.0 standards for the cargo handling industry.

These definitions are part of TIC4.0’s ongoing work to develop a common vocabulary for the cargo handling industry and will be followed by future releases, as defined by the TIC4.0 Dataset roadmap. The current list of definitions being worked on can be accessed on the digital platform of TIC4.0. This publication release provides the actual definitions and includes them in the TIC4.0 templates with the general approach on how to use this in data models, schemas, JSON formats and provides high-level scenarios as examples.

1 TIC 4.0 scope

The purpose of TIC4.0 is to define a common language that can be represented in an understandable format, including data and information elements suitable for digitalization.

With the definitions and language, any reality (equipment or process) in a port terminal environment can be uniquely described. The vocabulary needs to work for any equipment, process and protocol (digital or human) in any port terminal in any location. The typical elements that make up the port terminal activities are cargo handling equipment (any kind of machine within the terminal that performs a job or task), external vehicles (trucks, vessels, trains), terminal infrastructure (berth, yard, gate), or auxiliary elements (energy, light, refueling…).

For data-driven terminal operations the subject of standardization concerns the data and information elements linking the digital solutions to the physical equipment and hardware.

To achieve the above goal TIC4.0 have developed a Semantic set of rules based on human language which helps in the creation process of the definitions/vocabulary. The definitions/vocabulary can be considered as the building bricks and together with the TIC4.0 semantic rules, allow the user to define any reality in a specific, unambiguous way, irrespective of the level of technology used in a terminal.

The vocabulary is managed in a Data Set, which is basically a one-dimensional database list. This list is not static but will grow exponentially when TIC4.0 continues to work on more and more segments and areas of a terminal.

The work of TIC4.0 is to define the individual entries of the Data Set/Dictionary, focusing on a logical group or theme. In the Data Set/Dictionary the user can see the status of each entry and which entries are published and a link to the definition is provided.

To apply the words in each entry in several digital protocols, a Data Schema is needed. TIC 4.0 will propose Data Schema for each of the most common protocols, but the Data Schema can be used for any protocol. For the examples, TIC 4.0 usually uses JSON as it is very user friendly and easy to read.

2 Semantic

The semantic combines six basic elements: HEADER, SUBJECT, CONCEPT, OBSERVED PROPERTY, POINT OF MEASUREMENT and VALUE to represent a unique reality.

HEADER identifies the message in origin, (destination), time of reference for the message and unique reference.

SUBJECT (who) is the entity that is doing or being the CONCEPT.

CONCEPT (what is-does) refers always to a particular subject (or subject-subsystem) specifying what the subject is (status) or does (action-event)

OBSERVED PROPERTY (how much) is the magnitude of the concept (status, pieces, length, volume, weight, energy, time, speed, power, duration, acceleration…) represented in the value.

POINT OF MEASUREMENT (where) defines where in place and time (past, present, future) the value representing the concept observed property of the subject is measured and represented.

VALUE is the actual measured result for a specific combination of time of measurement + subject + concept + observed property + point of measurement. The same value can be represented in several units.

The combination of a SUBJECT with multiple combinations of CONCEPTs, OBSERVED PROPERTies and POINT OF MEASUREMENTs give us a unique meaning of a VALUE.

TIC 4.0 aims to define each of these elements.

An extensive detailed explanation of this semantic can be found in https://tic40.atlassian.net/l/c/YPZE7BSy

3 Data set

The Data Set is just the database that contains the well-defined by TIC 4.0 list of data (a piece of reality). We represent this data as a combination of subject+concept+observed property, indicating what possible point of measurements and units are valid.

1. Data: represented in a flat format

2. Subject: including subject and sub-subjects

3. Concept: represented by the concept id

4. Observed Property (Obs Property)

5. Point of Measurement (PoM)

6. Value: possible units to be used for the data representation

7. Link to the definition: hyperlink to the definition template for each component of the data.

8. Workflow status (status): what is the status within the TIC 4.0 workflow

9. Version: expressed in “year.version”

10. Release: date of realising in “yyyymmdd” format

11. Short Description: to help provide a high-level understanding of the data. This short description is not enough to fully understand the data.

For this reason we have divided the data by main subjects (CHE, TOS, Terminals…) and topics to make surfing easier. Also, the Digi-book has a very powerful tool to search for keywords.

The data set can be found in https://tic40.atlassian.net/l/c/ePY0vPhi

Dataset Roadmap

The Data Set includes the road map and it is increasing in size very quickly as the representation of the reality is complex. The Data Set contains not only the published data definition (status = published) but also the data in draft status to allow developers to have as much visibility as possible in order to program and to prepare the systems in advance.

The Data Set will always match the Data Model, each one is just a different representation of the same data (flat vs. structured).

2021.002 Dataset

Within the 2021.002 release, TIC 4.0 has focused its effort on one topic of the Dataset for che.cycle. This Data Set contains the most relevant information to describe the CHE cycle process and allows to easily measure the “move” action performed by the CHE.

The fast link to these topics can be found below:

https://tic40.atlassian.net/l/c/B0MBfDqN

4 Data model

For the digital formatting of the semantic and Data Set we need a data model to structure the data and a Data Schema to define the details of the content such as the validity of the format, the type of data (boolean, entire, real etc.), which data is mandatory or could be omitted etc.

The 2021.001 data model has been upgraded for the 2021.002 release by adding all the relevant TIC 4.0 members contributions, most of the new content has been added to the TIC 4.0 DataSet roadmap.

The dataset has been defined based on the RDF Resource Description Framework using the subject->predicate->object schema.

Following the semantic web standard (subject: object) the model has 3 main components: header, asset description and measurement.

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SUBJECT creates the hierarchy tree structure (we have sub-subjects) that helps to identify the boundary of the value. The hierarchy is fixed by TIC 4.0 for each kind of subject (CHE, TOS, Terminal) and can mix any type of subjects (e.g. machine.process = che.move). The subjects conform to an array defined by the (concept) metadata so many subjects identical but with different metadata (id or name or location or…) can be sent in the same message. (one message with several CHEs or one CHE with several spreaders).

The CONCEPT's metadata defines “what is” and the CONCEPT “what does”. Both are flat (no hierarchy, no arrays) and we can use as many as necessary. Also, two concepts can be combined with “and” or “or” creating a new concept that in fact is the condition that makes both true. For e.g. “hoisting_and_trolleying” that represents the action of hoisting and trolleying at the same time (both statuses must be true).

OBSERVED PROPERTies define the “magnitude” of the CONCEPT, are flat (no hierarchy) and can be used as many times as necessary per CONCEPT.

For each OBSERVED PROPERTies an array created by the combination of the different POINT OF MEASUREMENTs in time (actual, estimated, etc), place (input, iinput, ioutput, output), timestamps and the differents Units will give an array (a list) of VALUEs. The array could be as long as necessary per each message. The length will depend on the relation between the data frequency and the message frequency and also the amount of different POINT OF MEASUREMENTs that need to be represented.

Below is one example of one message with 3 subjects (1 subject and 2 sub-subjects), 3 metadata per subject, 2 different concepts that apply to several subjects and 3 observed properties that affect all the subjects.

A detailed definition of the data model can be found in https://tic40.atlassian.net/l/c/XBT1vEBA

The Data Schema will be provided as part of the 2021.003 release and it will define the rules that the Data Model will follow, and will allow the translation from a hierarchy format to a flat format.

The Data Set is the content of the Data Model, a flat version without hierarchy or rules. The Data Set is used by humans but machines need the Data Model and the Data Schema to translate it to a digital format.

2021.002 Data Model example

Based on the 2021.002 Data Set road map two extensive JSON examples have been completed for “CHE” and “TOS” with all possible data that can be used following the standards. This JSON will be extended as soon as it would be required to represent new subjects, concepts or observed properties.

TIC4.0 Data Model Example

For a better understanding of the Data Model a very simple example has been developed in our TIC4.0 Terminal using the flat version to facilitate the human reading.

https://tic40.atlassian.net/l/c/v8h1ud7R

5 Definitions

The blocks that constitute the Data Set are made by individual elements that are defined by TIC 4.0 following a template. The below is an example of the TIC4.0 concept template.

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Subjects

The subject definitions are referring to the TIC4.0 semantic: SUBJECT (who) is the entity (physical or process) that is doing or being the CONCEPT.

In this 2021.002 we have defined the most important “process” of our industry, the process subject Cycle is in charge of moving the cargo which is the basic business unit of the terminal industry. With the 2021.002 release, the available Data Set is quite limited but it will be extended as it becomes necessary with future releases.

https://tic40.atlassian.net/l/c/B0MBfDqN

Please find the definition for Cycle through the link below:

Concepts

The 2021.002 release includes the most used concept for a Cycle: Move. We invite you to have a look at the https://tic40.atlassian.net/l/c/B0MBfDqN or if you prefer at the CHE Data Model 2021.002 or TOS Data Model 2021.002 that includes the road map developed during 2021 for any CHE and TOS.

Besides these detailed examples, the Move concept is also used in our TIC4.0 Terminal Example 2021.002 from a more global perspective of a terminal.

Please find the definition for Move through the link below: