Container Tracking API, Vizion Milestones, ETAs and Positions

Read the live status, ETA and every milestone of the ocean containers your Vizion account tracks, through the Vizion API with your own API key, as one clean dataset row per container, milestone, position, sailing, risk brief or port metric.

Vizion is a container tracking and ocean freight visibility platform. Its API standardizes container milestone events from ocean carriers, terminals, AIS and Class I railroads into one payload per container. This actor wraps its read only endpoints on prod.vizionapi.com (and the demo environment): give it container numbers such as MRKU3252720, master bills of lading, booking numbers or Vizion reference IDs and get origin and destination ports, carrier ETA and ETD, the Vizion predictive ETA, actual arrival, the latest milestone, the vessel and voyage, and the full milestone history, ready to download as JSON, CSV or Excel, schedule, or feed into a TMS, ERP, Google Sheets, BI dashboards and AI agents. Bring your own API key.

BYOK, not live tested: every path, parameter and enum comes from the OpenAPI definition Vizion publishes at docs.vizionapi.com/openapi/endpoints.json, and every route was confirmed live by probing it on 2026-10-24. The actor has not been run against a live Vizion key.

What it does

• Container shipment status: one row per container with origin and destination ports (UN/LOCODE and name), inland origin and destination, carrier ETD and ETA, the Vizion predictive ETA, actual departure and arrival, the latest actual milestone with its time, place and transport mode, vessel name, IMO and voyage, container ISO type, demurrage and detention charges when the carrier reports them, tags, and the whole milestone list.
• Container milestone events: one row per milestone (gate out, gate in, loaded, vessel departure, vessel arrival, discharge, rail loading, available for pickup and the rest) with time, standardized and raw description, planned or actual, source (carrier, terminal, AIS, rail or Vizion), DCSA event type and classifier, POL or POD role, location with coordinates, vessel and voyage.
• Bill of lading and booking tracking: a master bill of lading or booking number leads to every container reference under it.
• Reference lifecycle events: creation, deactivation, extraction attempts, new updates and estimated departure and arrival changes, filtered by type and date.
• Container vessel trace (Vizion Pro tier): the vessel positions behind a container's journey, with speed, heading and optional projected points.
• Last known container positions (Vizion Pro tier): the latest position of every container in your account, with live AIS coordinates when it is on a vessel.
• Tracked references: the references your account tracks, filtered by active or inactive, carrier, last update status (such as no data or invalid container), created or updated date and tag.
• Point to point transit schedules: upcoming sailings between two ports with every leg, transshipment port, service and voyage, for CMA CGM, COSCO, Hapag-Lloyd, HMM, Maersk, Matson, MSC, ONE, OOCL, Evergreen and ZIM.
• Supply chain risk briefs: Vizion analyst briefs on the lanes you ship (severity, categories, Markdown summary and sources), and the shipments of yours each one affects.
• Port and location performance: import and export dwell, berth time, arrival to berth, import and export TEU and average delay for a port, country, continent or region, as one figure or a weekly or monthly series with a comparison.
• Supported carriers: every carrier Vizion tracks with its carrier code.
• Read only and safe: every call is a GET. The actor never creates, edits, tags, unsubscribes or deletes a reference, so it never adds a billable reference to your Vizion account.
• Pay only for results: containers with no reference or no update yet, and lookups the provider refuses, are recorded as a free row that says why, never charged.

How to use it

1. Get a Vizion API key. Vizion issues keys to its customers through its sales team (vizionapi.com); existing customers get one from Vizion support. A demo environment key (demo.vizionapi.com, up to 50 active references and 15,000 calls a month) works too: set the environment to Demo.
2. Paste the key into the API key field, or set the DATA_API_KEY environment secret. The key is sent only to the Vizion API in the X-API-Key header and is removed from everything the actor logs.
3. Pick a mode, enter your container numbers, bills of lading, bookings, lanes or locations, and run. Containers must already be tracked in your Vizion account (created there, or through your own integration).
4. Download the dataset or connect it to your workflow through the Apify API, webhooks or integrations.

A missing or rejected key, or a plan without the chosen endpoint, ends the run cleanly with a status message that explains what to change, and nothing is charged.

Input

Field	Modes	Description
mode	all	shipmentStatus (default), milestoneEvents, lifecycleEvents, containerTrace, listReferences, lastKnownPositions, transitSchedules, riskBriefs, riskBriefShipments, portPerformance or carriers
containerIds, billsOfLading, bookingNumbers, referenceIds	status, milestones, lifecycle, trace	One per line, such as MRKU3252720
searchInactive	status, milestones, lifecycle, trace	Also look among completed references (default on)
includePlanned	milestones	Keep ETAs and ETDs as well as actual events (default on)
eventTypes, eventsFrom, eventsTo, eventOrder	lifecycle	Event filters
includeProjected	trace	Add projected vessel positions
referenceState, carrierCode, lastUpdateStatus, createdFrom, createdTo, updatedFrom, updatedTo, tagNames	tracked references	Reference filters
activeOnly	last known positions	Active references only (default on)
lanes, departureFrom, departureTo, scheduleCarriers	schedules	Lanes such as USHOU;CNSHA, departure window, carriers
briefIds	affected shipments	Risk brief IDs
locationNamespace, locationCodes, metrics, periodStart, periodEnd, grain, compare	performance	Location, metric, period and series options
environment	all	production (default) or demo
maxResults	all	Row ceiling for the run (default 100)
requestsPerMinute	all	Pacing, default 60
apiKey	all	Your Vizion API key (or the DATA_API_KEY secret)

Example: latest status and ETA of two containers and every container on a bill of lading.

{
    "mode": "shipmentStatus",
    "containerIds": ["MRKU3252720", "CMAU2118620"],
    "billsOfLading": ["MEDUMJ799185"]
}

Example: weekly import dwell at Los Angeles with the change from the week before.

{
    "mode": "portPerformance",
    "locationCodes": ["USLAX"],
    "metrics": ["import_dwell"],
    "periodStart": "2026-09-01",
    "periodEnd": "2026-09-30",
    "grain": "week",
    "compare": "prior_period"
}

Example output

An illustrative shipment status row, shaped like the documented update payload (values follow the documentation's example, not live data). The full Vizion update is kept under details.

{
    "mode": "shipmentStatus",
    "modeLabel": "Container shipment status",
    "recordType": "shipmentStatus",
    "query": "MRKU3252720",
    "found": true,
    "referenceId": "69f036d7-b9bc-4209-8cd5-de167978e44f",
    "containerId": "MRKU3252720",
    "billOfLading": null,
    "carrierScac": "MAEU",
    "lastUpdateStatus": "data_received",
    "containerIso": "45G1",
    "originUnlocode": "INMUN",
    "originPort": "Mundra (INMUN)",
    "destinationUnlocode": "USCHS",
    "destinationPort": "Charleston (USCHS)",
    "atd": "2025-07-16T02:53:00.000+05:30",
    "eta": null,
    "predictedEta": null,
    "ata": "2025-08-23T06:02:00.000-04:00",
    "latestEvent": "Gate in empty",
    "eventTime": "2025-09-03T12:31:00.000-05:00",
    "latestEventLocation": "Memphis (USMEM)",
    "transportMode": "Truck",
    "vessel": "MAERSK CHICAGO",
    "milestoneCount": 27,
    "milestones": [{ "timestamp": "2025-07-03T00:17:00.000+05:30", "description": "Gate out from origin port", "planned": false, "source": "carrier", "mode": "Truck", "location": "Mundra (INMUN)" }],
    "note": null,
    "details": { "id": "8515dc93-979d-438c-a5cc-44ad1ec87e78", "status": "data_received", "payload": { "milestones": ["..."] } }
}

A milestone row carries eventTime, description, rawDescription, planned, source, transportMode, locationName, locationUnlocode, latitude, longitude, vessel, vesselImo, voyage, shipmentLocationType (POL, POD and so on), dcsaEventType and dcsaEventClassifier. A position row carries latitude, longitude, transportMode, vessel and vesselImo. A schedule row carries carrier, etd, eta, transitTimeDays, transshipmentPorts, services and legs. A risk brief row carries title, severity, categories, publishedAt, summary and sources. A performance row carries metric, unit, periodStart, periodEnd, value, comparisonValue and isPartial.

Pricing

Event	Price	Charged for
shipment-status	0.015 USD	Each container's latest status with the full milestone list
tracking-event	0.005 USD	Each milestone, lifecycle event or trace point
tracking-reference	0.005 USD	Each tracked reference, affected shipment or carrier
container-position	0.01 USD	Each last known container position
transit-offering	0.01 USD	Each scheduled sailing
risk-brief	0.01 USD	Each risk brief
port-performance	0.01 USD	Each performance figure

Refused and empty lookups are never charged. Your Vizion plan is billed separately by Vizion; Vizion bills references you create, not the GET requests this actor makes.

FAQ

What is the Vizion API?

It is the container tracking API of Vizion, Inc. It tracks ocean containers by container number, master bill of lading or booking number with the carrier code or automatic carrier identification, and returns standardized milestone events from ocean carriers, terminals, AIS vessel data and Class I railroads, with DCSA event codes, on prod.vizionapi.com.

How do I get the ETA of a container?

Choose Container shipment status and enter the container number. The eta column is the carrier's planned arrival at the destination port, predictedEta is the Vizion predictive ETA, and ata is the actual arrival once the vessel has arrived.

Does this actor start tracking new containers?

No. It is read only and never creates a reference, so it never adds a billable reference to your Vizion account. Start tracking in Vizion (its API, BoxTrack app, Airtable, Zapier or No Code Workbook integrations), then read the data here.

Can I track by bill of lading or booking number?

Yes, when your account already tracks that bill of lading or booking. The actor finds its parent reference and reads every child container reference under it.

Which carriers are supported?

Vizion's reference filters list carrier codes for Maersk, MSC, CMA CGM, COSCO, Hapag-Lloyd, ONE, Evergreen, Yang Ming, HMM, ZIM, OOCL, PIL, Wan Hai, Matson, Hamburg Sud, APL, ANL, Safmarine, Sealand and more. Run the Supported carriers mode for the live list with each carrier code.

Why does container trace or last known positions end with a plan message?

Both are Vizion Pro tier endpoints, and point to point schedules, Risk Briefs and Performance need their own capability on your account. Without it Vizion answers 401 or 403 and the run ends cleanly with that explanation; ask support@vizionapi.com to enable it.

How many API calls does a run use?

One or two calls to find each container's reference, then one call per container for status and milestones, or one call per page of a list. The run log reports the exact request count. GET requests are not billed by Vizion; demo keys are capped at 15,000 calls a month.

Do I need my own Vizion API key?

Yes. This is a bring your own key actor: it calls Vizion with your key, under your plan and your agreement with Vizion.

Keyword map

Container tracking API, ocean container tracking, shipment tracking API, container ETA API, vessel ETA, predictive ETA, bill of lading tracking, booking number tracking, container milestones, DCSA event codes, intermodal rail tracking, Class I rail container tracking, last known container position, AIS container location, ocean freight visibility, supply chain visibility API, point to point ocean schedules, port dwell time, berth time, port congestion metrics, supply chain risk intelligence, demurrage and detention, Vizion API, BoxTrack.

Licensing and data use

Vizion data is used here under your own Vizion subscription, and Vizion's API contract terms are agreed privately with each customer. Keep the results within the uses your agreement with Vizion allows. This actor is not affiliated with or endorsed by Vizion.