Last 28th of October 2014, FUTUREMED provided a practitioners workshop in Olbia to the local stakeholders, entitled “Towards the Maritime Single Window”.
Two years after the beginning of the project, on 28th October 2014 in the Meeting Room of the Maritime Directorate of Olbia, FUTUREMED provided a practitioners workshop to local stakeholders entitled “Towards the Maritime Single Window”. The event was organized in the context of the pilot project on freight and passengers infomobility, where the Port Authority of Northern Sardinia is strongly involved.
The workshop was intended to illustrate the benefits of the Maritime and Customs Single Window and of the Port Community System. An increased competitiveness and a greater accessibility to the ports of the Mediterranean sea, thanks to the introduction of technology and innovation in the management of port operations. All this, in the perspective of creating a more sustainable transport system.
The workshop was opened by the greetings of the North Sardinia Port Authority and of the Maritime Directorate to the assembly, brought respectively by Dr. Giovanni Fabio Sechi – acting as Secretary-General – and by the Commander (Port Authority) Carlo Alberto Nebbia Colomba, Second in Command. Among the speakers, also Dr. Franco Schina representing Lazio Region, in its role of FUTUREMED project leader.
The meeting was chaired by the Commander (Port Authority) Raffaele Esposito – Head of Technical Administrative Department.
The workshop also included a Round Table, chaired by Dr. Andrea Campagna, Scientific Coordinator of FUTUREMED project, with the participation of Dr. Massimo Mura from Moby Lines and Prof. Carlo Marcetti from University of Cagliari.
The starting point of the workshop has been the analysis of the maritime Single Window, which allows a direct communication between the governing bodies (Customs, Harbour Offices, Port Authorities, etc …) and other stakeholders involved in the import/export operations (shipping companies, port operators …), in order to improve the efficiency of the logistics system and significantly reduce both the time required for goods release and the costs for the firms operating in the ports.
Moreover, the gradual and systematic disappearance of paper documents used by ship operators will be ensured by a real electronic conversion of data flows, thanks to a single electronic interface able to capture and communicate in real time all the information required under EU law, the national legislation and local ordinances.
The same simultaneity will be introduced in the exchange of information, thus allowing to know the volume of traffic even before the ship arrives into the port, and to organize, consequently, the whole activity of the port, in order to minimize the waiting time and to increase efficiency.
And this is precisely the objective pursued by the FUTUREMED project partners, and particularly by the Port Authority of North Sardinia that, in order to face a significant movement of vehicles and passengers – especially during the summer (the peak is 12 thousand cars per day) – requires a better organization in the management of traffic flows, with the introduction of an infomobility system.
Thanks to the immediacy in the sharing and knowledge of incoming and departing traffic flows, it will be possible to set up an information system for users and operators, who will be informed of the arrival times of the ship, and of the embarkation and disembarkation operations through electronic panels and other means of communication, thus facilitating the streamlining of traffic inflows or outflows from the port and speeding up port operations. By this way, road traffic will be also reduced.
This process will be made possible and widely supported by the establishment of a more general and homogeneous Check – In system, which will be the first step in the creation of an information exchange system on goods, vehicles and passengers between interfaced ports.
A series of innovations that, once implemented, will allow in each single port, the removal of the barriers to accessibility, a greater integration of the port with the land and the growth of the intermodal transport system.
Finally, in an international perspective, FUTUREMED project will help to harmonize the collected data with those of the other partner ports in order to build – in the spirit of a true Port Community System – an effective information exchange network on administrative compliance, and to establish a greater control and guidance of the activities on the dock, as well as, of course, to encourage the creation of new routes and trade.
