This Technical Specification specifies the data concepts applicable to the movement of freight and its intermodal transfer. These data concepts include information entities (data elements), aggregated/associated information entities (groups of data elements) and messages that comprise information exchanges at transport interfaces along the chain of participants responsible for the delivery of goods from the point of origin through to the final recipient as presented in Figure 1. This Technical Specification focuses on a single "thread" of the overall end-to-end supply chain.

It includes motor transport data needs within the international supply chain to satisfy the requirements of both businesses and governmental organizations. This Technical Specification is applicable to shipments that originate in one country and terminate in another. It may also be applied to shipments that originate and terminate in a single country. This Technical Specification is applicable to freight movements that interface with other modes and incorporates requirements set for those other modes.

This Technical Specification does not constrain the requirements of customs, regulatory, and safety bodies at border crossings but does include the data elements likely to be required by customsauthorities. The same is true with the requirements of any particular mode of operation.