I work in intermodal. Whenever one of our larger customers wants to give us a load to move, we use X12 EDI. This is standard throughout at least the intermodal industry, though from what I gather that may also be true of over-the-road as well.

An example 204 EDI (Load Tender) looks like this:

    ISA*01*0000000000*01*0000000000*ZZ*ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO*ZZ*123456789012345*101127*1719*U*00400*000003438*0*P*>
    GS*SM*4405197800*999999999*20111219*1747*2100*X*004010
    ST*204*0001
    B2**XXXX**9999955559**PP
    B2A*04
    L11*NONPRIMARY*OK
    MS3*XXXX*B**M
    NTE**FROZEN GOODS SET TO -10d F
    N1*PF*XYZ CORP*9*9995555500000
    N3*31875 SOLON RD
    N4*SOLON*OH*44139
    N7**NONE*********FF****5300
    S5*1*CL*27800*L*2444*CA*1016*E
    L11*9999001947*DO
    L11*9999670098*CR
    L11*9999001866*DO
    L11*9999669887*CR
    G62*69*20111218
    N1*SH*XYZ CORP*9*9991555550000
    N2*TERMINAL FREEZER
    N3*5555 TERMINAL RD
    N4*CLEVELAND*OH*44023
    S5*2*PU*3042*L*312*CA*146*E
    L11*9999001866*DO
    L11*9999595358*PO
    L11*9999669887*CR
    G62*70*20090728
    N1*ST*1 EDI SOURCE*93*9990055555
    N3*31875 SOLON RD
    N4*SOLON*OH*44139
    OID*9999669887*99999595358**PC*312*L*3042*E*146
    L5**FREIGHT
    G61*IC*FEEDBACK*EM*FEEDBACK@1edisource.com
    S5*3*CU*24758*L*2132*CA*870*E
    L11*9999001947*DO
    L11*9999008881*PO
    L11*9999670098*CR
    G62*70*20111218
    N1*ST*1 EDI SOURCE*93*9990055555
    N3*55555 5TH AVE
    N4*MAYFIELD*OH*44244
    OID*9999670098*999608881**PC*2132*L*24758*E*870
    L5**FREIGHT
    G61*IC*FEEDBACK*EM*FEEDBACK@1edisource.com
    L3*27800*G*******1016*E*2444*L
    SE*46*0001
    GE*1*2100
    IEA*1*000002104
  

I haven't proper parsed it, but I believe that's going from Cleveland to Mayfield. One of those L11 segments is probably a reference number. There's no MS1 segment so it's likely over the road? Anyway, it's not exactly descriptive or even human readable...

A reply accepting a load looks like this:

    ISA*01*0000000000*01*0000000000*ZZ*ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO*ZZ*123456789012345*101127*1719*U*00400*000003438*0*P*>
    GS*GF*4405197800*999999999*20111219*1742*000000003*X*004010
    ST*990*000000003
    B1*XXXX*9999919860*20111218*A
    N9*CN*9999919860
    SE*4*000000003
    GE*1*000000003
    IEA*1*000000003

These are commonly exchanged as text files over FTP sites.

Some of our more forward-thinking, larger customers are considering moving to AS2, which I believe is sent over HTTP vs FTP. A cursory Google search doesn't really turn up any clear examples on AS2, which doesn't exactly comfort me, but at least there's an RFC[0] for it, whereas for the X12 spec you have to pay[1] to see certain parts of it.

Not that anyone follows the "spec" anyway. We code special handling for every single one of our customer's EDI transmissions.

I wish everything was REST, or at least JSON. That would be 10x easier. Instead we spend weeks going back and forth on silly things like what a 07 means in the ATS segment, or what character to use for line endings (wish I was kidding -- we've been blocked for two months on the line ending character).

What's more is with the ELDs in all our trucks, customers are increasingly wanting GPS updates. I'd love to offer them a streaming socket with GPS data -- it's completely feasible considering our ELD backend. Instead everyone is wondering how we can send updates in 15 minutes increments over FTP, especially when these transactions are often batched in 5 minute loops on both ends in the first place.

It kills me a little. We could be doing so much more. I can't believe we aren't pushing for real time. I can't believe five to fifteen minute batching loops are acceptable.

[0]: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4130.txt [1]: http://www.x12.org/x12-work-products/x12-edi-standards.cfm