Page 6 - Port of Hamburg Magazine 1.2020
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 ■ DIGITAL DECADE
 Joint effort to digitalize ports
 Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein, Bremen and Hamburg aim to pull together to expedite digitalization of their ports. In this interview, Christian Pegel, State Minister for Energy, Infrastructure and Digitalization in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, explains what agreements they have already reached.
Port of Hamburg Magazine: Minister Pegel, the transport ministers of the five North German states met in November last year to discuss the subject of digitalization. What was discussed there?
Pegel: The Parliamentary Under-Secretary actually at- tended the conference on my behalf.
In the North German states, we want, and need to dis- cover a joint digitalization strategy in our main fields of energy and transport. That must apply to our net- works and operations. In our ports, we are all some- what jealous when we look at the development under way in Hamburg. Yet we are now running projects in our smaller ports as well. Wismar has gained accept- ance for a far-reaching digitalization strategy. That’s not always very simple, because anxiety about jobs rap- idly surfaces. We accepted that and spoke with our workers. Together, we established that jobs would be underpinned, and efficiency boosted at the same time.
It’s simpler to try out and implement this in smaller ports than to scale it up in larger units.
You mentioned digitalization in the transport field. The opportunity exists of applying digitalization to mutually improve the coordination of ships, trains and trucks as carriers. With its peak traffic situa- tions and vast volumes of freight, this matters in Hamburg. Is it also important for you in Mecklen- burg-Western Pomerania?
Certainly, volumes may be lower with us, but that nev- ertheless plays a big part for forwarders and shipping companies. Last year, Rostock installed a relevant system with a major ferry company in the Sweden trade. In Neustrelitz, we have a DLR research facility that specializes in collecting and evaluating ships’ data. Shipowners and forwarders can draw the appropriate conclusions for traffic control from this data.
06 | Port of Hamburg Magazine | March 2020
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