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Terminal49 tracking is fully event-driven. When a carrier reports a status change, Terminal49 processes it and pushes a webhook notification to your system within minutes. You never need to poll.

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How it works

  1. You create a tracking request with a Bill of Lading (BOL) or container number.
  2. Terminal49 monitors the carrier and destination terminal for changes.
  3. When something changes — an ETA update, a milestone event, a container hold — Terminal49 sends a POST request to your webhook URL with the full event payload.
  4. Your system processes the event and returns a 2xx status code.

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Why webhooks instead of polling

WebhooksPolling
LatencyMinutes after carrier reportsDepends on your poll interval
EfficiencyOnly fires when data changesMost requests return unchanged data
Rate limitsNo API calls consumedEach poll consumes a request
ComplexityHandle incoming POST requestsBuild and maintain a polling loop
RecommendedYesOnly for on-demand data retrieval
Terminal49 exposes over 30 distinct events covering the full container lifecycle — from empty-out at origin to empty-return at destination. Webhooks let you react to each of these in real time.
Polling the API to check for updates is discouraged. It consumes your rate limit, adds latency, and misses the event context that webhooks provide (such as which specific field changed on a container.updated event). Use the List and Get endpoints for on-demand lookups, not status monitoring.

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What you can do with webhooks

Webhooks power most Terminal49 integrations. Common patterns include:
  • ETA monitoring — alert your team when a shipment’s arrival estimate changes
  • LFD and availability alerts — trigger dispatch when a container clears holds and is ready for pickup
  • Milestone tracking — build a complete timeline of a container’s journey from origin to destination
  • Data sync — push every update into your database, ERP, or TMS as it happens
  • Customer notifications — surface tracking updates to your end customers in real time

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Next steps

Set up webhooks

Create your first webhook and subscribe to events.

Event catalog

Browse all available webhook events by category.