Port Call Optimisation

Port call optimisation is a concept which is rapidly gaining ground within the maritime industry. By maximising the efficiency of vessel calls at shore-based terminals worldwide, participants in the ocean supply chain can improve safety and reduce costs.

More efficient port calls also mean reduced fuel burn from ships and less CO2 emissions. This is a key consideration given the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) commitment to at least halving the industry’s carbon footprint, from 2008 levels, by 2050. While employing new technologies takes time to implement, improved efficiency of ships and ports produces immediate results.

That’s why an International Port Call Optimisation Taskforce has been set up to study the subject since 2014, and delivered its second report on progress to date at an Industry Input Workshop held in Rotterdam in late November 2018.

“The Port Call process has been defined after four years of work,” commented taskforce chairman Capt. Ben van Scherpenzeel, also director at the Harbour Master’s Division of the Nautical Developments, Policy and Plans at Port of Rotterdam. “As a next step, all participants agreed that there is a need to digitise, simplify and optimise our maritime industry by having standardised digital data available, allowing for real time updates in the port call process.”

Such data would record and share event information on a port call, including vessel-berth compatibility, port safety updates, and availability of berth, fairway, nautical and vessel services. Data should be based on ISO standards already used in the nautical and logistics sectors, it was recommended, to ensure commonality between ship, port and logistics chain users and maximum future-proofing.

The workshop also agreed that the taskforce should now study the interoperability of different platforms, as well as begin an awareness-building programme among ports and terminals across the world on applying the data standards. Further to feedback from the International Hydrographic Organization and other parties, it was also decided to establish a clear guidance and eventual training program for ports and terminals across the world in applying the standards.

Procedural measures aside, it seems the momentum behind port call optimisation is unstoppable for environmental reasons. A joint study by research institute TNO and Port of Rotterdam analysed all container vessel traffic to Rotterdam in 2017, and found that advising approaching ships 12 hours before arrival on ‘just-in-time’ sailing schedules for berth availability could save 4% or 134,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions a year.

Improving efficiency of the actual port calls themselves could yield even greater savings, the study found, especially in the case of bulk vessels that sometimes-spent days at anchor awaiting contractual instructions. If this waiting time was an average 12 hours shorter, emissions in port would be reduced by a massive 35% or 188,000 tonnes of C02 and 1,000 tonnes of nitrous oxides a year.

‘Last year we asked the Wuppertal Institute to look into how the transport and logistical sectors could operate virtually CO2 emission-free by 2050,’ commented Port of Rotterdam Authority CEO Allard Castelstein. ‘They said that our first step should be to take efficiency measures. The TNO study shows that those measures are within reach.’

History of the Taskforce

The International Port Call Optimisation Taskforce was initially set up by Maersk, Shell and Port of Rotterdam. It soon added additional shipowners MSC and CMA CGM, and the ports of Algeciras, Busan, Gothenburg, Houston, Singapore and Ningbo Zhoushan. These members were subsequently joined by the International Harbour Masters’ Association (IHMA), United Kingdom Hydrographic Office (UKHO) and global standards body GS1.

Incorporated into the taskforce’s work have been the findings of several parallel projects on vessel traffic control that have been carried out in recent years including the Sea Traffic Management (STM) system of the Swedish Maritime Administration, the joint Singaporean/Norwegian SESAME Straits test bed project and the SMART e-Navigation programme of IALA (the International Association of Marine Aids to Navigation and Lighthouse Authorities).

E-Navigation as defined by the IMO is “the harmonized collection, integration, exchange, presentation and analysis of marine information on board and ashore by electronic means to enhance berth to berth navigation and related services”, and therefore integral to port call optimisation.

Technology solution providers Wärtsilä and Kongsberg, leading proponents of digitisation and automation in shipping, also made important contributions to the STM and SESAME Straits programmes. Both companies attended the Rotterdam workshop, echoing the call for globally agreed port call data standards to “allow machines to understand each other”.

Port of Rotterdam itself claims to be the first port in the world to have developed commercial products in which the common data standards agreed by the taskforce are used.

The port has launched an application called Pronto whereby as soon as a vessel’s Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) is known it is assigned its own timeline in the app displaying all activities during the port call, including arrival, stay and departure times. The progress and status of these are continually updated, allowing users to monitor these on their dashboards and thereby plan their own actions more efficiently.

“Pronto is a good example of how the port authority can manage the processes in the port more efficiently with new digital applications,” says Paul Smits, Port of Rotterdam Authority CFO, also responsible for its implementation of digitisation. “Pronto was extensively tested over the past year during the development phase. We will now be making it available to members of the port community – either in exchange for data or for a fee.”

IMHA and UKHO have also launched a joint Avanti software programme to help harbour masters manage their nautical port information so that it is always available, up-to-date and accessible to all port users.

Other attendees of the Rotterdam workshop included international shipping association BIMCO, which reported that it was studying adoption of a STM clause in charter parties that would incentivise charterers and shipowners to make use of traffic management systems by awarding them a share of the port’s commercial benefit from optimised port calls. In time such benefits could also be shared with others along the supply chain, it suggested.

Also present in Rotterdam was the International Association of Ports and Harbours (IAPH), which welcomed the workshop’s proceedings as a demonstration of “the willingness of all players involved in shipping and ports…to use standards and technology for common benefit in improving port call efficiency”.

IAPH managing director Patrick Verhoeven pointed out that reducing emissions was a key cornerstone of the association’s World Ports Sustainability Program and promised that IAPH would become a “key facilitator” in implementing port call optimization amongst its membership.

Singapore’s SESAME Straits project

The SESAME Straits e-Navigation project of 2014-17 was a joint Norwegian/Singaporean project led by the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA), which helped pave the way for port call optimisation.

It aimed to revolutionise traditional shore-based VTS (Vessel Traffic Services) by developing an ‘intelligent’ Ship Traffic Management System (STMS) based on shared situation awareness and cooperative decision-making between a ship’s bridge team and shore personnel.

Targeting traffic in the Malacca Straits, the testbed service provided ships with ‘just in time’ arrival advice several days in advance, including optimal transit speeds to reduce bunkers and greenhouse gas emissions.

In this way it was intended to ensure more efficient traffic flow through narrow and restricted-draught waterways, as well as better utilisation of port resources such as anchorages, berths, and pilots.

The project proved innovative in creating an integrated ship/shore system that combines real-time and non-real-time data, to not only detect but also predict traffic hot spots.

It also served to improve the sharing on situational data to allow joint ship/shore decision-making on vessel passage plans, as well as enhancing ship/shore communications by employing new data standards linked to the e-Navigation Common Maritime Data Structure.

Published On: 28 January, 2019