A helping hand towards better processes
At HHM – Port of Hamburg Marketing, our Project Department is engaged in European projects that support further development ...
HPA – Hamburg Port Authority and IT service provider Dakosy are currently creating a digital test platform intended to achieve this and function as a Network of Networks.
Gateway to the World, powerhouse for the city, cradle of prosperity, and international symbol for trade, logistics and industry – just some descriptions of the Port of Hamburg. Ever since being founded – now in 2023 that was 834 years ago – the port as an important centre has been repeatedly expanded and modernized to master the growing requirements of trade and transport. The opening of the first container terminal in 1965 made the Port of Hamburg an important hub for global trade, now ranked as Europe’s third largest container port.
Modernization is making constant progress: Digitalization and hence data are meanwhile the main vehicles for enabling logistics and transport processes to be improved. Hamburg as port and logistics stronghold aims to pioneer and initiate new solutions. The aim is to boost competitiveness, optimize processes in the port and its hinterland, to operate more sustainably and use resources more efficiently. Several digitalization projects in the port have already contributed their share.
Private enterprise logistics and many government agencies – including the river police, Customs and the Veterinary Office – have been linked for many years via the Dakosy application portal with the eponymous Hamburg IT service provider. Yet the situation should improve even more: HPA – Hamburg Port Authority managing the port infrastructure and Dakosy that digitalizes logistics processes in the Port of Hamburg, are currently creating a digital test platform.
Single network as source
Along with the Santana project – or Service and Data Network Port of Hamburg – the aim is to create a joint ‘Network of Networks’. In its wake, digital service ranges, data and information from all the players in transport processes in the port and its hinterland will be made more accessible via a joint marketplace. “The Santana network will be developed as a product open to technology and free of discrimination. It will serve to ensure smooth exchange of data and information,” explains Dr. Phanthian Zuesongdham, Head of HPA’s Digital and Business Transformation Unit. “Everybody involved in the transport chain should profit from this,” adds Evelyn Eggers, a senior manager for Dakosy.
Dakosy has operated the Port Community System, or PCS, in the Port of Hamburg since 1982. More than 2,000 companies and public bodies are now connected. Thanks to the good situation on data, this facilitates rapid and transparent clearance procedures for all companies and public agencies. Detailed status tracking enables follow-up processes to be triggered precisely and automatically.
“The Port of Hamburg as a ‘weekend port’ – in coastal slang this refers to the container shipping companies’ preference for calling the port at weekends – profits enormously here,” says Eggers. Even before a ship’s arrival, for example, movement clerks can prepare Customs declarations that are then automatically activated by Dakosy platforms. “The next parties in the supply chain can be notified accordingly, further transport can follow immediately, and no time is lost,” she stresses.
„Aiming to create
„a joint 'network
of network'“
Dakosy’s depth and breadth of data on import and export processes is the basis for more intensive interlocking of the two networks, i.e. between the logistics involved and HPA, responsible for infrastructure and traffic management. Road transport is one example. At the request of the terminals, Dakosy has set up the Truckgate platform for slot bookings. Some years ago, HPA for its part introduced DIVA – dynamic data on traffic volume – designed to help improve the traffic situation in the port. Enormous data panels along the main roads, and the internet, brief truckers, not only on state of the traffic, but also not only on the current situation on bottlenecks, closures and bridge openings.
The data generated by detectors all combines in HPA’s Port Road Management Center, which analyses traffic flows, sorts these via the video equipment and accordingly switches on the data panels for DIVA. All the data revealed in this way can be fed via interfaces into the truckers’ apps and also into movement clerks’ systems. This aids planning with real-time data. To the extent that when driving past, truckers are in all probability simply unable to absorb all the data displayed, this makes sense.
“Under Santana, we have defined new services, for example data on how many trucks are found where and at what time, to enable HPA to shape traffic flow more efficiently by delaying bridge opening times or using traffic lights,” says Eggers. Increased transparency for truckers on free parking places is one aim, so that in future they will no longer have to cruise around in search of these, which costs valuable time. Projects partners frequently make only minor adjustments that they nevertheless hope will make a major impact.
All this serves to make multimodal processes in the port faster and more transparent. The Santana marketplace, offering players a simple overview of available data and services, should also ensure this transparency, “Open interfaces and simpler access for industry and science should promote development of service and product innovation, tested in realistic conditions and specifically integrated to optimize port operation,” adds Zuesongdham.
With a total budget of around 15 million euros, the project commenced in January 2022. It is 80 percent funded by the Federal government and will run until June 2024. In the first year, the focus was initially on bringing own platforms, networks and services up to scratch, and swapping notes on the applications and services from HPA and Dakosy, the two network suppliers. “As the project continues, this should produce new joint services,” explains Eggers.
Eggers sees the added value of the digital test platform as being that those responsible for the two networks are speaking to one another and discovering their strengths and weaknesses. This clarifies just who tackles which tasks. Or which suppliers which data. “On the other hand, that also means that the networks as such will be strengthened, and cooperation, always excellent and successful, will once again be raised to a new level.”
A further emphasis in digitalization is on highly automated driving. At CTA – Container Terminal Altenwerder, for instance, AGVs – Automated Guided Vehicles have been in operation for years. With the MODI project,
Hamburg is the first city to test autonomous truck transport from the motorway to the terminal area of the port. This forms part of the TAVF – Test Stretch for Automated and Networked Driving. The technology employed is based on standardized IT-G5 technology that has already been tested for several years. HPA is backing the project as an Associate Partner.
Similarly, the port/transport group HHLA – Hafen Hamburg und Logistik AG, with core business of handling containers and transporting these between the port and the hinterland, has also specialized in linking places, businesses and people. The aim is to improve what exists and to become more efficient. For this, HHLA has set up the HHLA Next company as an innovation unit for pursuing digitalization and sustainability in maritime logistics.
The objective is to use ideas to create successful products and business models. That is achieved in the form of own developments, in cooperation with partners, or through investments in innovative companies. Already launched are such products as ‘modility’, for example, a digital placement portal for intermodal transport, or iSAM, a software for process automation in cargo and container handling, as well as Heyport, a platform for notification and coordination of ship calls, or HHLA Sky, a drone control console that can simultaneously manage and remotely control more than 100 drones.
Independent of any shipping companies, the Eurogate container terminal and logistics group Eurogate, also a vital element of processes within the Port of Hamburg, regards digital networking as highly important. Eurogate may not have any digitalization projects of its own but the company invariably joins others in striving to promote progress there. The aim is common to all these companies: Processes in the port need to be speeded up, waiting times reduced, and unnecessary runs avoided. All those involved in the transport chain will gain.
With ImpalaID, Dakosy is currently establishing a unified digital ID card or proof of identity for logistics, assisting those involved in the business such as trucking companies to easily prove their identity at various logistics hubs. This applies not only to registering in an app or IT application, but also to authentication at barriers and gate systems in the port area. Pilot operations have already started.
The TruckGate booking system to arrange delivery and collection slots is already obligatory in the Port of Hamburg at the HHLA and Eurogate Terminals, numerous empty container depots, the Veterinary Office and Customs container inspection unit. This year another port company, HCS empty container terminal will be integrated. For the more than 400 integrated trucking companies, this means unified processes throughout the port.
On their platforms Dakosy and dbh Logistics IT have developed the preconditions for a completely digitalized clearance process, for the major seaports of Hamburg, Bremerhaven and Wilhelmshaven. This service, now being made available in the seaports, facilitates calling up container and vessel information over and above your own location.