How Digital Helps Transform Ports and Terminals At Germany’s Port of Hamburg, for example, wide-ranging connected-port initiatives are integral to a plan to double capacity-but not space-by 2025, simultaneously reducing operating costs for operators and logistics costs for cargo owners. Smart-port technologies’ impact can be substantial. In some cases, the multistakeholder platforms also create digital-based services that can be used as new revenue sources. (See Exhibit 1.) These same platforms and services let individual partners expand their businesses without adding substantial new infrastructure or equipment. Instead, they must embrace platforms and services that make it easier for stakeholders to work together to promote the efficiency of the overall ecosystem. To be truly effective, stakeholders have to do more than simply adopt these technologies on their own. Among those disrupters: connected platforms, cloud-based services, mobile devices and apps, sensors and other Internet of Things technologies, augmented reality, autonomous transportation, blockchain technology, and big data.Īt the same time, port environments have become intricate partner networks that include port authorities, terminals, shipping lines, trucking and logistics companies, and off-dock storage providers. Progressive ports are embracing the same digital breakthroughs that are disrupting other industries. Operators that want to maintain a competitive edge must adopt a digital mindset and implement smart-port technologies to stay productive, customer friendly, efficient, and competitive. Ever-increasing vessel sizes and cargo volumes continue to pressure ports and terminals, which must keep innovating just to keep up. Despite the improvements, aspects of port operations remain firmly anchored in the past, dependent on manual and paper-based systems.īut global trade isn’t standing still.

Over the past half century, the shipping industry has reinvented itself time and again, ushering in containerization, larger vessels, and electronic data interchange.

Technology, Media, and Telecommunications.

How to bet smart on ports