But anyone, on giving it even a cursory glance, has had to realise that there are so many angles to cover it\u2019s a tangled web. This means, as Richard Morton of Haven Gateway explains, knowledge flow is just as crucial as the actual cargo flow itself.<\/p>\n
He says, \u201cFor example, one of the key challenges for ports and their hinterland connections is policy, but how do find out about policy? You get hundreds of people trying to get the information by looking at the relevant EU regulation web page, and the result is almost the same number of interpretations of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Mr Morton, sharing knowledge and experience is the key.<\/p>\n
This is where the Port Integration project, which has 13 port and political partners spread across ten EU countries and Russia, comes in. It has been set up to consider ways of making the most of sustainable maritime and hinterland transport structures. While ports work, often individually, on their \u2018green virtues\u2019, the project is deliberately not planning any direct environmental action.<\/p>\n
The project covers many levels: while one issue is the lack of awareness of the ecologically sound seagoing alternatives, another is the bumpy ride that information gets as it tries to facilitate the carriage of goods. Yet another covers the challenges and opportunities afforded by the hefty policy changes that are now taking place.<\/p>\n
A working group has been set up for each of the two key issues \u2013 electronic data interchange and hinterland connectivity \u2013 and a programme of workshops, visits and conferences is being organised. The first event was specifically aimed at helping ports get a handle on EU policy and what it takes to engage with funding opportunities like the Motorways of the Sea or the Marco Polo grant.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was an important update for all the partners in terms of what new initiatives and rules are coming through and what the picture will be like in the future,\u201d says Richard Morton of Haven Gateway. \u201cIt ties in with a key reason for setting up Port Integration \u2013 making sure that the information and knowledge is flowing through to the people who need to know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Processes, like the funding opportunities, can be opaque \u2013 and this is where the project can be very useful. As Mr Morton says, \u201cThere is a very real danger that if you are trying to do this in isolation you will get worried and frustrated. Eventually you might simply become too cynical to engage properly: the problem with this is that if you don\u2019t use the funding, your competitors probably will.\u201d<\/p>\n
The answer is put the time into getting together to share not just knowledge but experiences. \u201cAlthough you have to keep receipts and files for 25 years \u2013 which can mean a daunting amount of shelf space,\u201d he admits.<\/p>\n
Further Integration events are planned. One \u2018Port Logistic and Environmental Sustainability\u2019, workshop session is to consider the Green Corridors approach and SuperGreen project, and a \u2018Port and City \u2013 interconnections in a regional perspective\u2019 workshop will feature important contributions from a number of the partners.<\/p>\n
\u201cA key task at this workshop will be discussing and developing a questionnaire on EDI, to be sent to the ports,\u201d says Mr Stange. \u201cThis will be followed by a study into how interaction and communication exchange between the ports can be improved. Better links can make the use of ports more attractive because information can be better shared and also provided to the sender and receiver of the goods \u2013 so that there is relevant information available at all modal stages and changes.\u201d<\/p>\n
But there’s a completely different level to this need for information flow. Mr Morton explains that if we don\u2019t take on the challenge of sharing intelligence, there’s a very real danger that we will simply end up reinventing the wheel over and over. And this is on an individual as well as national or even global level.<\/p>\n
He points out that beyond the crossways sharing of data, the information flow is needed for the evolution of good governance. \u201cFor example, funding often looks at new innovation. Once the funding disappears, if it hasn\u2019t built a sector foundation to continue, the project tends to stop. \u201cThen ten years later the same things gets done again\u201d, he says. Which is a waste of our precious resources.<\/p>\n
It’s easy to see how it can happen. The EU distributes its funds via a number of its \u2018arms\u2019 like Interreg, which then passes the money through to other public initiatives, so it is very hard to track all of the results that come in.<\/p>\n
Therefore projects like Port Integration have a much needed role: they both share information with other bodies, and at the same time pull information back up the chain, supporting practical, useful future policy.<\/p>\n
There are many areas of potential crossover. The European Port Community Systems Association is currently working on electronic business-to-business and business-to-government interfaces, covering areas like customs standardisation and multi-modality documentation. Despite the fact that the EU is building toward a single-window system to facilitate cargo flows itself, so far it has very limited contact with the association \u2013 although this is probably about to change.<\/p>\n
And itself the Port Integration project ties in neatly with the European Union\u2019s e-Maritime initiative, which is aimed at fostering the use of advanced information technologies.<\/p>\n
To look at it long term, the answer is to spend a little of your precious resources in engaging \u2013 it’s not just worth it on an individual level, though that is probably reason enough. It\u2019s also necessary for the future, so that ports and their associates aren\u2019t unnecessarily burdened by the impact of a raft of regulation-related problems that could have been avoided.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Transport flows through and within Europe have increased dramatically in recent years, leading to imbalances in the usage of different transport modes. It\u2019s a reality many environmental initiatives aim to counter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":4619,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-4618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-projects-initiatives-greenport"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4618"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4620,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4618\/revisions\/4620"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4618"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=4618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}