Rotterdam Port to Optimise Its Services with New Standards

The establishment of international standards for nautical port information could witness the introduction of new services, according to the Port of Rotterdam Authority.

“With these standards as a base, we can not only optimise the services to our clients…but also develop new services that make the logistics chain more efficient,” Allard Castelein, President of the Port of Rotterdam Authority, said.

The standards were introduced this week after a long-term international cooperation between various stakeholder organisations, ports and the business community.

In order to plan shipping as effectively as possible, shipping companies need detailed information about, for example, depth, admission policy, and arrival and departure times. Currently, ports communicate this information in various ways, making the process inefficient.

The Port Call Optimisation Task Force, consisting of Shell, Maersk, MSC, CMA CGM and the ports of Algeciras, Busan, Gothenburg, Houston, Rotterdam, Singapore and Ningbo Zhoushan, united forces in 2014 with the International Harbour Masters’ Association, United Kingdom Hydrographic Office and GS1 to bring standards from the nautical and logistics sectors together.

This ensures that the nautical data on board vessels corresponds to the information from a port, as well as the information used in the logistics chains.

The Port of Rotterdam said that the international unambiguity in communication benefits safety. It also means that lower margins can be maintained, which eventually results in vessels calling at ports faster and with more cargo, leading to a reduction in costs and pollution.

The initial calculations amount to up to USD 80,000 in additional revenue and savings of 240 tonnes in CO2 emissions per port visit, depending on where the vessel comes from and at which berth it is located, the port informed.

“The Port of Rotterdam Authority embraces the new standards and has become the first party in the world to use pilots in which they are applied. These are the Avanti and Pronto projects,” according to the port.

Web portal Avanti focuses on ‘master data’ such as depth and admission policy, while Pronto is a communication platform for the port community. The platform assists agents and other operators with a more transparent and efficient planning of services for ships, such as pilotage, use of terminals and bunker services.