ISO/TS 26683-1:2012 provides the context for application interface profiles for the exchange of land transport data using current technologies and existing standards for item identification, package identification, container identification, and international standards and practices regarding freight and its movement. ISO/TS 26683-1:2012 provides the following:

• a context of the relationship between ISO 26683 and other freight and fleet standards and defines the objectives for the ISO 26683 series. The explanation is provided as to how existing International Standards and Technical Specifications can be utilized to agglomerate/aggregate data concepts by using standardized application interface profiles and utilize them within the context of ISO 26683 and how ISO 26683 can be used to provide information/data to cargo management systems;
• descriptions of use cases of providing information to cargo tracking and tracing in end-to-end transport by exploiting identifiers, data carriers, EDI messages and data elements with respect to various types of cargo and transport means within an international intermodal/multimodal cargo movement context;
• an architecture for the collation and transfer of data agglomerated/aggregated from information contained in the transport load to transport operating systems, the objective being to enable efficient handling of truck/trailer identification and on-board cargo information for tracking, tracing and cargo monitoring purposes in a land cargo transport situation.