“The need for full global industry collaboration has not been achieved.” Rotem Hershko, head of Business Platforms at A.P. Moller - Maersk, said it in the 29 November 2022 release that ended TradeLens. Two years earlier, a SeaRates list of transportation trends had called blockchain “one of those extraordinary innovation trends in the transportation industry.”
That list, published on 10 September 2020, ran from electric vans to logbooks. Its transportation trends can now be set against what companies and agencies actually published.
Electric vans and congestion pricing
The 2020 text said Amazon “has already bought about a hundred thousand electric delivery vans.” In 2019 Amazon had announced a plan for 100,000 of them. The fleet came later. Rivian’s Q4 2025 earnings letter, quoted by Electrek on 18 February 2026, counts “over 30,000” custom-built Rivian vans, the Amazon-spec model, delivering packages across the US. Volume production began in 2022, so those 30,000 took more than three years, and Electrek’s own reading is that the 100,000 target for 2030 looks unlikely. The fleet did grow by more than 50 percent in 2025 alone.
New York’s story ran on a longer clock. The list predicted the city would “turn into the first United States city to execute congestion fines.” Charging began on 5 January 2025, per the MTA, and the numbers came in fast. By 9 September 2025 the governor’s office counted 12 percent fewer vehicles entering the zone, 87,000 fewer every day, 17.6 million fewer than a year earlier. All of this comes from the governor’s office and the MTA, which are the program’s own sponsors. The MTA’s six-month release, from July 2025, put Holland Tunnel rush-hour delays down 65 percent. The September release measures something else: Holland Tunnel morning-peak travel times, 36 percent faster than a year earlier, the largest gain of the eight crossings it lists.
Blockchain
TradeLens was announced in 2018 and built jointly by IBM and GTD Solution, a Maersk division, as a blockchain-enabled shipping platform. The 2020 list promised fewer forgeries and fewer bottlenecks from the technology.
Maersk says it built a viable platform (“we successfully developed a viable platform”). What it lacked was the rest of the industry. TradeLens “has not reached the level of commercial viability necessary to continue work and meet the financial expectations as an independent business,” the release says, and the plan was to take it offline by the end of the first quarter of 2023.
Navo’s container tracking page lists 240+ carriers a container number can be checked against.
Driverless trucks, logbooks and stolen cargo
On self-driving trucks the 2020 list was cautious: the technology was “still under the process of development” and had to learn heavy urban traffic. The first commercial runs are intercity, not urban. On 1 May 2025 Aurora announced regular driverless deliveries between Dallas and Houston, with over 1,200 driverless miles to date, according to the release. By its 23 September 2026 investor day the company reported above 500,000 miles and said it was fully allocated to end the year with 200 driverless trucks. Hirschbach intends to own and operate 500, with trucks to be delivered to it from 2027. These are Aurora’s own figures, not an audit.
The same list told carriers to watch for “guidelines with respect to electronic logbooks.” In the US the rule was already law. FMCSA’s timeline lists the final rule on 15 December 2015, the compliance date on 18 December 2017, and mandatory use of ELDs from 16 December 2019, almost nine months before the article appeared.
The “anti-theft GPS” the list called really popular is harder to score: the CargoNet release says nothing about trackers. CargoNet recorded 3,594 supply chain crime events in the US and Canada in 2025 against 3,607 a year earlier, a flat line. Confirmed cargo thefts rose 18 percent, from 2,243 to 2,646. The National Insurance Crime Bureau says its agents have confirmed confiscations of GPS jammers in cargo theft cases and that thieves frequently disable trackers that are not concealed well.
CargoNet estimated 2025 losses near $725 million, up 60 percent, and put the average theft at $273,990, against $202,364 in 2024, up 36 percent.
Frequently asked questions
Who has to use an electronic logging device?
According to FMCSA's ELD fact sheet, the rule applies to motor carriers and drivers who are required to keep records of duty service. FMCSA lists exceptions, among them driveaway-towaway drivers and vehicles built before model year 2000. The device records driving time and other hours-of-service data automatically.
How do cargo thieves use VoIP?
The National Insurance Crime Bureau says VoIP apps let thieves spoof legitimate carrier contact details and stay anonymous. NICB adds that these apps let customers choose a phone number with any valid area code.
How much money was New York's congestion pricing expected to raise in 2025?
The MTA said in July 2025 that revenue was on track to reach the forecast $500 million for the year, which lets the MTA advance $15 billion in capital improvements to the region's mass transit.