Once visibility isn't enough, Ava tells you when the plan no longer holds.
VSR shows what changed at the terminal. Ava evaluates whether that change affects your specific booking, and tells you whether it is safe to act.
Seeing what changed is not the same as knowing what to do.
VSR by Terminal shows you that the ERD at Garden City shifted +2 days this morning. That is the visibility layer doing its job. The next question is the one that decides whether the booking holds: commit the container dropoff, or hold a day?
Is this booking still safe to commit?
The answer depends on whether this terminal typically drifts once and locks, or drifts three more times before the window settles. On the carrier and terminal still publishing the same window. On how much time is left before the dropoff decision compounds into a per-diem clock. A daily report does not carry that history. Ava does, and it returns a buffer to plan around, before the commitment is irreversible.
This is what Ava produces.
One booking. One recommendation. Not a dashboard to interpret.
This is not a dashboard. This is a decision.
Two outputs, two moments.
The same engine. Two decisions. One for exporters, one for drayage.
For Exporters
Ava evaluates whether a booking is safe to commit to execution, before drayage is dispatched, containers are stuffed, and documentation is filed. When it is not safe, Ava tells you the recommended buffer and the specific pattern driving the risk.
- Booking-level evaluation, not portfolio averages
- Terminal volatility pattern analysis
- Recommended buffer before commitment
- Late-stage monitoring alert when 72-hour window compresses
- with a record of what you knew when you decided
For Drayage Providers
Ava evaluates whether it is safe to dispatch a truck to the terminal right now, before a failed gate attempt, a waiting driver, or a wasted move.
- Terminal-verified ERD confirmation before dispatch
- Appointment-aware: reconciles T-1 dispatch clock with T-3 appointment clock
- Bunched-vessel risk flag when ERD drift collapses gate throughput
- Re-dispatch trigger if the window shifts after initial clearance
- with timestamped terminal-source evidence retained for per-diem defense
How Ava evaluates a decision
Three steps from signal to verdict. No black box. No claims without the work behind them.
Detect the change
VSR surfaces the window movement. Ava receives the signal and immediately checks the terminal's historical behavior on this carrier-service combination.
Evaluate the risk
Ava assesses the magnitude of the drift, the terminal's pattern on this service, the current volatility level, and how much planning time remains before the decision is irreversible.
Output the decision
Safe-to-Commit or Not Safe. Safe-to-Gate or Hold. The recommended buffer. The specific pattern driving the posture, with a record of what you knew when you decided. No spreadsheet reconciliation. No manual validation. No second-guessing.
Ava is not a visibility dashboard. It is not a monitoring tool. It is a judgment layer. It determines when a schedule change actually compresses a real decision window, and what to do about it.
Where Ava fits
Visibility -- Signal -- Decision -- Execution. Ava is the decision layer.
Export Intel
What is happening
VSR
What changed
Ava
Is it safe to act
Lexi, Navi, and Verra
Execute correctly
Coming nextFrequently asked questions
Ava is the decision layer. It evaluates whether it is safe to act on a specific shipment, and if not, what the alternative is. There are two outputs: Safe-to-Commit for exporters (is this booking still safe to commit container dropoff against?) and Safe-to-Gate for drayage providers (is this in-gate appointment still safe to honor?). When the answer is no, Ava proposes the alternative: a different origin port, a later vessel, a buffer day, or a hold.
VSR shows what changed. Ava tells you when the plan no longer holds. VSR is the system of record. Ava is the system of decision. VSR alone removes the manual checking pattern of carrier portals, terminal PDFs, and spreadsheets. Ava goes further and removes the static-buffer pattern, the "two extra days just in case" rule that fails because the buffer you actually need changes weekly. Most operators need both, in that order.
A change is decision-relevant when acting on the old information would produce a different outcome than acting on the new information. Most schedule updates do not meet that bar: the terminal moved gate-open from 06:00 to 06:30, the ERD shifted three hours within the same calendar day. None of those change what you do next. A change IS decision-relevant when it crosses a calendar boundary, when the vessel ahead is late enough that the carrier-published cut is physically impossible, when previous-port AIS signals a delay the destination terminal has not picked up, or when a pattern that historically rolls is firing now. Ava classifies the difference and suppresses the noise.
Three sources, blended. Carrier feeds (what the carrier publishes on their portal and EDI). Terminal feeds (what the terminal publishes on their portal and gate-system updates -- terminals are authoritative for ERD, carriers for CY Cut). Vessel-position data (AIS) and historical service patterns at the carrier-port-pair level. Ava reconciles all three, and when they disagree, it flags which source historically holds for that specific carrier-port-pair.
Safe-to-Commit answers the exporter's planning question: is this booking still safe to commit to execution before drayage is dispatched, containers are stuffed, and documentation is filed? When it is not safe, Ava tells you the recommended buffer and the specific pattern driving the risk. Safe-to-Gate answers the drayage dispatcher's question: is it safe to send a truck to the terminal right now? Same engine, two decisions: one for exporters, one for drayage, with a record of what you knew when you decided.
Detection accuracy (did we catch the change in the source data) is high and improving. Outcome accuracy (did the recommendation prevent the bad outcome) is mixed and honest: for terminals where we have rich historical data, Safe-to-Commit and Safe-to-Gate land correctly the large majority of the time. For new terminals or new lanes where we are still calibrating, the system is more conservative and surfaces the uncertainty rather than hiding it. Every recommendation comes with the evidence and the alternative, so if it turns out wrong, you have the trail to learn from.
Project44, FourKites, Vizion, Gnosis -- most visibility tools were built for import shipments. Their data model is container-centric: where is my box, when does it land. That data is not useful for the export decision because the export decision happens before the container is ever picked up. Ava was built for the export window: ERD, CY Cut, terminal capacity, vessel readiness. Different unit of analysis, different decision, different data sources. Project44 can tell you when your import container will arrive in Long Beach. Ava tells you whether to dispatch your export container to Long Beach today.
Know before the window closes.
Ava gives exporters and drayage teams the one answer that matters. Whether it is safe to act, right now, on this booking.
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