Ports are taking significant strides with digital transformation and starting to declare themselves as “smart”. Processes are digitalized, communities within the port are connected, and impressive gains in operational efficiency, regulatory compliance, and customer satisfaction are emerging.

Smart ports, as important nodes in the global supply chain, have the opportunity to establish themselves as logistics information exchange hubs serving their regional transport ecosystem. As ports digitalize their processes, they also establish a platform for providing benefits to other participants in the cargo, freight, and passenger ecosystems. In a society where bandwidth and connectivity are growing, more data will be generated along with new services and many new opportunities.

A landscape of new revenue-generating information services enabling carriers, shippers, and other players to significantly improve their operational predictability, efficiency, visibility, and capacity utilization is now opening.

“The port has traditionally been a transshipment hub. Now there is the opportunity for the port to become an information hub, providing services to diverse existing and new clients.”

The current situation and the main inputs are:

• Ports and supply chains involve thousands of independent companies and individuals depending on each other’s policies, plans, and actions to effectively make the right business decisions and run operations. The smart port uses digital data streams to boost collaboration, align activities, and make decisions that improve vital processes across their operations.
• Numerous initiatives are now building upon the emerging principles of digital collaboration and standardized data sharing. The PortCDM concept, the UN/CEFACT Smart Container project, and Port Call Optimization, are all examples.
• The port’s system will be a microservices data oriented layer invoking different services via standard APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) and exposing a rich set of services to the whole ecosystem.
• The creation of a standard data model of all the exchanged data within the port will enable development of standardized APIs.  The Digital Container Shipping Association (DCSA) is a proof that shipping companies are willing to collaborate and they need standards APIs to be able to collaborate. 

In case of implementing this kind of solutions the expected benefits will be:

• The new technology foundation of smart ports, smart ships, digital rail, smart containers, smart contracts, and many other intelligent systems connected through a port’s digital information hub, will unlock huge gains in value.
• With standard APIs available to the industry, stakeholders will benefit from an explosion of new capabilities for connecting and integrating data across the intermodal supply chain ecosystem.
• The common goal of the different initiatives that are emerging is to improve the speed and predictability of operations by applying just-in-time thinking and door-to-door visibility of the trip execution. 
• New business models and powerful analysis capabilities provide can enable transparency into the status of goods, infrastructure, and resources which is high on the agenda for the maritime transport sector. 
• Instant visibility into shipping and cargo enables customers to make decisions faster and with more confidence. In this journey, smart ports, as evolving intelligent, highly sophisticated information hubs, are needed to revolutionize the global transport system. 

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