Individual freight haulers in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and 63 other major Chinese cities can get up-to-the-minute information about deliveries through a national freight information network which started trial operations on November 8.

The network was set up to facilitate the communication between shippers and carriers, according to the Beijing A&B Freight Information Co., which operates the system.

The idea was jointly developed by the State Information Center and the China Communication and Transportation Association.

Reports are on the rise of trucks being sent back from deliveries empty or with insufficient goods, said Wang Derong, vice-president of the association.

Most of the individual haulers do not know how to get timely information on shipping orders, and yet they own 1.9 million trucks, accounting for 30 percent of the total in the country's freight sector in 1998, he added.

The network offers paging services, as pagers are popular with Chinese and the Internet is inconvenient for drivers traveling around the country, said Wang Jinsheng, general manager of Beijing A&B Freight Information Co.

The company has promoted a paging hotline -- 126 -- with Guoxin Telecom, China's largest paging business. Through this number, the paging station will transmit messages from shippers to haulers registered with the service.

A national Internet-based data exchange system will also be set up in the near future and the services will be expanded from highway freight to railroad, waterway and air cargo, Wang Jinsheng said. (Xinhua)