Presentation and control routing – by example

Key Principles

To understand how presentation and routing work, it is important to understand how the solution handles the entire process of goods arriving at the customs area.

For arrival, presentation, routing, and entry, the solution is based on some key principles:

In addition to these key principles, the solution must be able to support exceptions. There are several exceptions that lead to deviations from the basic concept in various scenarios:

1. Automatic detection of arrival and provision of routing not possible.
2. Businesses have received permission, upon application, to present goods at a location other than the border crossing point.
3. In exceptional cases, Norwegian Customs may grant conditional entry pending the completion of document control. The relevant goods should remain untouched and stored at an agreed location.
4. Norwegian Customs decides to physically inspect a consignment at the unloading location or the location of presentation instead of the border crossing point.

Review of a "standard" process based on the key principles

For the modes of transportation covered by the Digitoll solution, namely road, train, and air transportation, the same main process will apply:

1. Businesses submit a complete set of messages covering transport, master consignment(s), and house consignment(s) for a transport that is set to arrive at the customs area. The messages must be submitted in advance, and no later than upon arrival.
2. When the means of transportation arrives at the customs area, the Norwegian Customs will attempt to automatically detect it.
   • For road transport, this is done through ANPR (automatic number plate recognition) at Ørje and Svinesund, camera 1, or other border crossing solutions (currently under development/testing).
   • For air transport, this is achieved by using services from Avinor, or manually by customs officers at airports not operated by Avinor.
   • For train transport, the solution is not yet fully defined, but a similar approach as for air transport is assumed.
3. Once Norwegian Customs has registered the arrival of the means of transportation, on behalf of the sender (in practice, those who have submitted transport, master consignment, and house consignment messages), the goods will be digitally presented.
   • This means that in "normal cases", businesses will not need to perform their own digital presentation.
   • Other variations will be described separately (see Why a separate interface (API) for presentation?).
4. Norwegian Customs will then provide routing for the consignments, allowing businesses to access this information.
   • The routing interface is a "pull" interface, where the business identifies itself and receives all routing information for the consignments relevant to the business.
   • The business that submitted a house consignment message, or is mentioned in the message as the customs representative can retrieve routing for the house consignment(s).
   • The business that submitted a master consignment message or is mentioned in the message as the customs representative can retrieve routing for all house consignments associated with the master consignment.
   • The business that submitted a transport message or is mentioned in the message as the customs representative can retrieve routing for all consignments associated with all master consignments connected to the transport.
5. Norwegian Customs will then, at a time depending on the mode of transportation, allow entry to the customs area and transition to the chosen customs procedure for all consignment listed in the transport.
   • For air and train transports, this occurs immediately after routing is made available.
   • For road transportation, this happens when the transport leaves the customs area (camera 2).

Presentation in Digitoll

As mentioned above, the key principle of presentation is that all goods arriving at the customs area are automatically presented digitally by Norwegian Customs on behalf of the means of transportation's operator. The operator is typically not the one submitting information. In practice, this means that presentation will be carried out, and the results of the presentation will be made available to the operator (where practical) and to those representing the operator. For road transport operators, this means that routing will be made available in the form of a light signal. The details of routing are explained in the following section.

Why is there a separate interface (API) for presentation?

This interface allows a business to voluntarily make digital presentations of consignments. Presentation can be performed by businesses that have not been pre-registered in the messages for transport, master consignments, or house consignments. By presenting consignments digitally, this business can then access routing for the presented consignments.

The idea is to accommodate businesses like "ground handlers" responsible for handling goods arriving by air, where the airline has submitted the Notification and Disclosure of Information data, and the airline itself acts as the customs representative. In such cases, there may be a need for the ground handler to "sign up" for the transport in order to receive information to handle consignments upon arrival.

The general rule is that use of the presentation interface is not required. This is an interface that can be used when needed, without causing issues.

Submitted questions:

1. At what point should presentation be used? Is it based on polling, or is there a specific time when the data becomes available? Who should use it, and are there criteria for when it should be used or not used? Similarly, for routing, is it the case that any party (e.g., the sender of house consignment number 15 on a truck with 100 consignments) should use it and be responsible for the entire transports actions based on the routing information?
   • Answer:
     As mentioned earlier, it is not necessary for businesses to submit presentation. The exception is in very specific cases where the business needs to obtain routing without having been involved in the submission of messages beforehand.
     Regarding routing, it will be necessary for businesses receiving house consignments/master consignments upon arrival to retrieve routing information. This may occur at an airport (typically by a ground handler) or when the business has permission to transport consignments from the arrival point to their sorting facility (e.g., postal services, express companies). Other businesses may wish to retrieve routing information to use it in their logistics flow.

Routing in Digitoll

As mentioned earlier, routing will be made available based on automatic arrival and digital presentation. Routing will not be available until the transportation has been registered as arrived. The routing interface is a "pull" interface, where the business identifies itself and receives all routing instructions for consignments that are relevant to the business. In practice, this means that the interface has only one parameter, a label, so that the business can retrieve all new routing instructions since the last routing was fetched. Consignments are retrieved based on who identifies themselves in Maskinporten (organization number) and the label for the last fetched routing.

Who can retrieve what?

In principle, it is the sender of the message and the customs representatives mentioned in the message (if it is a different party) who can retrieve routing for consignments. Additionally, businesses that need to present consignments and thus access routing signals for these can do so.

1. The business that submitted a house consignment message or is mentioned in the message as the customs representative can retrieve routing for that house consignment.
2. The business that submitted a master consignment message or is mentioned in the message as the customs representative can retrieve routing for all house consignments associated with the master consignment.
3. The business that submitted a transport message or is mentioned in the message as the customs representative can retrieve routing for all house consignments associated with all master consignments linked to the transport.

For each consignment, routing will contain a reference to the consignment and a routing signal.

Examples

Example 1

Norsk Transport AS has a truck on the way (transport) with 4 master consignments and four house consignments. Well before crossing the border, Norsk Transport AS has submitted the master consignment, and the freight forwarder Speditør 1 AS has submitted master consignment A and B, while Speditør 2 AS has submitted master consignment C and D. Norsk Transport AS has ensured that references to all four master consignments are included in the transport message.

What do the different parties do next to use these two APIs?

In general, none of these parties should need to submit a presentation message. In principle no parties will be required to retrieve routing, as this is road transport.

1. In a normal case, the driver will receive a green light at the customs office, and all consignments will be transitioned to the selected customs procedure (the one submitted in the consignment message).
2. If one or more consignments or the entire transport have been selected for a physical inspection, the driver will receive a red light and must go to the customs checkpoint. Normally the inspection will be carried out at the customs site. Alternatively, the driver may be instructed to go to another customs site for the inspection.
3. If one or more consignments or the entire transport have deficiencies in the submission of information, the driver will receive a red light and must go to the customs office. Typically, this will need to be resolved before the transport can proceed. In exceptional cases, Norwegian Customs may decide that the transport can proceed to a customs warehouse for submission there.

The relevant parties can, if they wish, request routing through the interface. They will then receive information about any deviations and the status of those transitioned to the desired customs procedure, such as immediate release or warehouse release.

In this example:

• "Norsk Transport AS" can request routing for all consignments that are indicated to arrive on the transport.
• "Speditør 1 AS" can request routing for all consignments that are indicated to arrive on the transport and are linked to master consignments A and B.
• "Speditør 2 AS" can request routing for all consignments that are indicated to arrive on the transport and are linked to master consignments C and D.

Example 2

Express AS has a sorting facility at Helsfyr and receives all cargo on their own flights that land at Gardermoen Airport. As an express cargo operator with air freight, they have obtained prior permission to transport their consignments to their sorting facility at Helsfyr for sorting.
Express AS has submitted a transport message for flight EX0836 with the scheduled landing time at OSL on November 3, 2023, at 06:00.
They have also submitted a master consignment message linked to the transport and 1534 house consignment messages linked to the submitted master consignment.
Flight EX0836 arrives at Gardermoen (OSL) at 06:23 on November 3, 2023.

Norwegian Customs has received and processed information about transport, master consignments, and house consignments, including information about the transition to the next customs procedure for 1533 house consignments. Based on the received data, one house consignment is selected for physical inspection, and one house consignment is selected for document inspection (based on missing customs procedure).

At 06:25, Norwegian Customs retrieves arrival information from Avinor and discovers that flight EX0836, with a scheduled time of 06:00, has arrived. Norwegian Customs has received a message about this transport and carries out a digital presentation on behalf of the operator (in practice, on behalf of Express AS). Routing is immediately made available for 1534 consignments. 1532 consignments are transitioned to the selected customs procedure, in this case, immediate release. One house consignment is directed to physical inspection, and one to document inspection (see note /A/ below).

Express AS uses the routing interface and retrieves routing, thus receiving routing for 1534 house consignments. Express AS's customs department becomes aware that one house consignment lacks submitted information. The routing information is entered into Express AS's sorting facility.

Express AS picks up the consignments at Gardermoen and transports them to their sorting facility at Helsfyr. In the meantime, the customs department at Express AS finds the missing information for the house consignment selected for document inspection and submits the correct customs information. Norwegian Customs receives and processes this information and provides routing for the consignment. Everything is in order, and the consignment is granted entry and transitions to immediate release. Express AS retrieves routing information and now receives the updated information for the release of the consignments that were supposed to undergo document inspection (see note /A/ below). The updated information is loaded into the sorting facility.

The consignments are loaded onto the sorting facility as the transport from OSL arrives at Helsfyr 35 minutes later. 1533 house consignments are sorted for further distribution to Express AS's customers since they have been processed for immediate release. One consignment is sorted for physical inspection, and Express AS transports it to Norwegian Customs for inspection.

Notes:
/A/ Document inspection is not currently implemented in the solution, but it will be added soon. Currently, only the codes TO_ENTRY, TO_CONTROL, and ENTRY_DENIED are active.