Real time efficiency

The ports of Gävle and Rauma have been using a port activity app for sharing operational key timestamps among port call actors since November 2020, as part of the EfficientFlow project, co-financed by the EU.

Katja Kujala, office manager at the Port of Rauma in Finland, said: “Sharing a good estimate in real-time for ship arrival and cargo completion, makes everybody´s planning easier. Port actors have reduced their idle time and can use all resources more efficiently.”

Optimising port visits

The Port of Gävle in Sweden is using the app as a basis for a Just-in-Time project for tankers, while in Finland, the solution is now being offered to all Finnish commercial ports through a Software as a Service solution provided by FinTraffic.

Pilots and VTS in the archipelagoes between Sweden and Finland have tried a solution that gives a much earlier heads-up for meetings in the narrow fairways. Pilots can adjust speed sooner and optimize the meeting points, choosing places where the fairway is relatively wide.

Håkan Heurlin, project manager at the Swedish Maritime Administration, one of the project partners, said: “We are now discussing how to move the solution into standard operations and analyse in which other areas in Sweden we should use it.”

When information is available, it will be used, but how it is used can’t be predicted beforehand. One innovative way of using the shared information on ship arrival times happened in the Port of Gävle.

Torbjörn Henriksson, project manager, explained: “We have had a diving company doing major work in the harbor area. They set the new Port Activity App to send automatic notifications 30 minutes before ship arrival, which gave them plenty of time to get divers out of the water before having ships maneuvering nearby. Our solution that was designed to improve efficiency has suddenly become a safety device as well.”