Port-call optimisation - shipping’s secret weapon against cost and emissions
Driven by data and digitalisation, streamlined port calls can make shipping operations more efficient and sustainable.
The early or late arrival of vessels into port is a major contributor to the cost and carbon intensity of maritime operations, leading to congestion as well as excessive fuel consumption and emissions. Port-call optimisation (PCO) therefore represents a low-hanging fruit in industry-wide efforts to cut costs and decarbonise, with cross-sector associations, regulators, and port authorities increasingly looking to streamline port calls through data and digitalisation.
Enhanced data quality for optimised port calls
As part of the Supply Chain Resilience in Ports initiative, the cross-sector Supply Chain Resilience Taskforce aims to "enhance resilience in just-in-time (JIT) port calls by improving data quality”. Its first study, Port Call Optimization through Data Quality, addresses the "urgent need to implement the IMO Compendium on Facilitation and Electronic Business in the maritime sector” and "harmonise communication and electronic exchange of operational data for port calls”.
Recommendations for ports include adopting international standards and guidelines, setting up pilot projects, identifying relevant data sources, conducting trials and ensuring data accuracy. Ports are also encouraged to maintain and expand stakeholder involvement, to measure and improve performance continuously, and to optimise infrastructure and resources to support sustained operations.
According to the study, successfully implementing a PCO strategy can improve coordination, communication, efficiency, and flexibility in port calls.
JIT arrivals shown to cut carbon emissions
According to the International Maritime Organization’s Just in Time Portal, JIT arrivals can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by allowing vessels to optimise sailing speed - and thus fuel efficiency - and by cutting the time ships spend manoeuvring into port or waiting at anchorage.
Furthermore, research by Denmark-based company Portchain found that a PCO strategy based on high-quality data and digitalisation can reduce bunkers and emissions by 6-14%. This, Portchain says, is achieved by digitalising information that facilities the accurate forecasting of arrival times and using this data to inform whether a vessel should slow down to avoid arriving too early or speed up to take a particular spot and thereby expedite its turnaround.
Corroborating Portchain’s findings is a study commissioned by the Global Industry Alliance to Support Low Carbon Shipping, which concluded that JIT arrivals in container shipping could reduce fuel consumption by an average of 14.6% per voyage.
PCO in practice
In keeping with the above findings, the Maritime Authority of Singapore recently announced plans to use artificial intelligence and digital twins to optimise vessel route planning for JIT arrival and reduced emissions, while the port of Rotterdam has set its sights on PCO based on the improvement and standardisation of nautical, operational, and administrative data.
Elsewhere, Decardis (Decarbonisation through Digitalisation in Shipping), a European Space Agency project bringing together maritime technology providers including Europort 2025 exhibitor ABB, targets the development of technologies that will help ships to adjust their speed to ensure JIT arrival.
Join the conversation on Digitalisation in shipping at Europort 2025, 4-7 November.