BNSF Railway Company joins blockchain alliance

BNSF Railway Company (BNSF) has become the first Class I railroad to join the Blockchain in Transport Alliance (BiTA).

BiTA has gathered more than 200 freight transportation companies who are working to develop blockchain standards for the logistics industry and the supply chain as a whole.

“Blockchain technology has the potential to change several aspects of the transportation industry and it is important that we come together to align a set of standards,” said Muru Murugappan, BNSF Vice President of technology services and Chief Information Officer. “We are excited to help drive those standards forward as a member of BiTA.”

The members of BiTA, including BNSF, will be working on defining what data goes into the freight transportation blockchain and how the data is formatted and structured. It also needs to be decided in what cases blockchain will be used.

Blockchain functions as a distributed ledger, wherein all members of a particular blockchain have access to the data within it. By housing information with each member, altering the information within a blockchain is difficult and requires 51 per cent of the blockchain’s participants approval.

“BNSF’s embracement of technology standards for the future of the industry will have a profound impact on the future of customer supply chains,” said Craig Fuller, Managing Director, BiTA.