Frequently asked questions.

Lineup data serves a wide range of use cases across the commodity and maritime industries:

• Commodity trading: Traders use lineup data to track physical commodity flows in real time — knowing which vessels are loading grain in Rouen or discharging coal in Richards Bay directly informs trading decisions.
• Supply chain intelligence: Analysts monitor port congestion, vessel queuing times, and cargo throughput to forecast supply disruptions.
• Freight and chartering: Shipbrokers and charterers use lineups to assess vessel availability and port demand, helping optimize fleet deployment.
• Compliance and risk: Financial institutions and compliance teams cross-reference lineup data with sanctions lists and trade finance documentation.
• Market research: Data platforms and intelligence providers integrate lineup feeds into broader commodity flow models and analytics products.

In short, anyone who needs to understand what is moving through a port — and who is behind it — benefits from lineup data.

PortSignal is the first dedicated marketplace for port lineup data. Before PortSignal, accessing lineup data meant either paying enterprise prices to large aggregators or building your own network of port contacts through individual negotiations — neither scales.

PortSignal changes this by providing:

• A single API key to access lineup feeds from multiple independent data providers worldwide — no need to manage dozens of bilateral relationships.
• Transparent, catalog-based pricing — browse feeds, compare quality ratings, and subscribe instantly. No opaque negotiations or minimum commitments.
• Automated quality ratings — every feed is scored on coverage (how many vessels are tracked), commodity completeness, and commercial detail, so you know exactly what you're buying.
• 2-week free trials on subscription feeds — evaluate the data in your own systems before committing.
• Standardized data format — all feeds are normalized to a common schema, making integration straightforward regardless of the original source.

For data sellers, PortSignal provides a turnkey monetization platform: upload files, forward emails, or manually curate records — set your price, and start earning. PortSignal handles payments, API delivery, and buyer management.

Trust is built into every layer of the platform:

• Automated quality ratings: Every feed is continuously scored across three dimensions — Coverage (what percentage of known port calls are captured), Commodity (how many records include commodity details), and Commercial (how many records include shipper, receiver, or charterer information). These ratings are displayed as colored badges (green, orange, red) so you can assess quality at a glance.
• Free trial period: Every subscription feed offers a 2-week trial. During the trial, you receive the full data feed via API and can evaluate accuracy, completeness, and timeliness against your own benchmarks — before any payment.
• Data preview: Before starting a trial, you can preview sample records from each feed to understand the level of detail provided.
• Methodology transparency: Each quality rating includes a tooltip explaining how it is calculated. Coverage is benchmarked against historical port call averages from independent maritime data sources.
• Multiple sellers per port: For major ports, multiple independent sellers may offer competing feeds. This natural competition incentivizes quality and gives you the ability to compare.

PortSignal takes seller protection seriously. We understand that your data is valuable and that uncontrolled access could harm your business relationships. Here is how we protect you:

• Buyer vetting: Every buyer account is verified and we systematically screen buyer activity — your competitors and suspicious registrations are flagged for manual review by our Partnership Management team.
• Manage who can see your feeds in the Catalog: You control who can see your feeds and can set up exclusion lists based on various criteria.
• Data usage restrictions: All buyers accept Terms & Conditions that restrict data usage to their company and affiliates only. Resale or redistribution of purchased data is strictly prohibited.
• Partnership Manager oversight: Our team reviews flagged buyer applications and can revoke access if any misuse is detected.

PortSignal offers a full anonymous selling option. When you choose to sell without buyers knowing your identity:

• Your feeds appear in the marketplace under a display alias of your choosing (e.g., "SantosInsider" or "MedGrainData") — your real name, company name, and contact details are never shown to buyers.
• PortSignal acts as the intermediary: buyers see "Anonymous Source" and interact only with the platform, not with you directly.
• Your data quality speaks for itself: buyers evaluate your feed based on the automated quality ratings (Coverage, Commodity, Commercial), the data preview, and the free trial — not based on who you are. A high-quality anonymous feed with green ratings across the board is more attractive than a low-quality identified one.
• Behind the scenes, PortSignal still knows your identity (you provide your real name, company, and phone during registration) for compliance and payment purposes — but this information is never shared with buyers.

This approach is particularly valuable for port agents who provide lineup data to their clients as part of their service relationship. By selling anonymously, you can monetize your data without your clients realizing you also sell it on the open market.

PortSignal uses a multi-dimensional scoring system that continuously evaluates every feed using up-to-date real-time port data:

• Coverage rating: Measures the percentage of known vessel calls at the port captured in the seller's data. We benchmark against historical port call and current number of port calls. A green rating means the feed captures the vast majority of port activity; orange means partial coverage; red means significant gaps.
• Commodity rating: Measures how precisely each record identifies the commodity in our standardized Signal taxonomy. Records that resolve to a specific commodity (e.g. "Wheat", "Crude Oil") score the full mark; records that only resolve to a cargo type ("Grains", "Crude") score partially; records that stop at the cargo group or the vessel type ("Dry", "Tanker") are penalized. Records the resolver could not map are ignored.
• Commercial rating: Measures how many records include commercial party details — shipper, receiver, or charterer. This is a valuable enrichment.

These ratings are updated continuously as new data is added. Sellers see their ratings on their dashboard with specific suggestions for improvement (e.g., "Add commodity details to increase your Commodity rating"). Buyers see the ratings in the marketplace catalog and on each feed's detail page, with methodology tooltips explaining exactly how each score is computed. Additionally, all records go through a proprietary normalization pipeline that standardizes vessel names (resolving to IMO numbers), port names (resolving to UN/LOCODE), commodity names (mapping to our 2000+ entry commodity hierarchy), and date formats — ensuring consistency across all feeds regardless of the original data format.