DOT Announces New Data Exchange to Strengthen Supply Chain

On Wednesday May 3^rd, the Department of Transportation (DOT) announced a new data exchange initiative to pool information on the movement of goods, container volumes, and available logistics equipment.  The initiative was announced during a meeting of the Freight Logistics Optimization Works (FLOW), a new program that began in 2022.  FLOW and the new data exchange initiative are working to bring the government and private sector together to strengthen the US supply chain.  The DOT seeks to serve as an independent “data steward”, so all participants of FLOW will have full access to the most up-to-date data relating to the supply chain.  The overarching goal of this program is to increase the transparency of supply chain networks and make the US supply chain less brittle, and more able to adapt to anomalies.