Container IoT company Traxens has announced that it has joined the new European DataPorts project, aimed at creating a common digital platform for future ‘smart’ ports to support better data sharing, automation of operations and greater efficiency across the supply chain.
The three-year project, launched in January 2020 and coordinated by the Technological Institute of Informatics (ITI) in Spain, has a total budget of €6.7 million, with €5.7 million to be provided by the European Union.
DataPorts aims to leverage existing digital platforms and tools already implemented at international ports to establish an industrial data platform where data coming from different stakeholders and external sources can be combined and processed.
The group says that it aims to apply technologies like artificial intelligence and blockchain to allow data from different sources to be collected, sorted and shared among stakeholders across the whole supply chain, to support real-time tracking, waste reduction, higher security and potentially faster border clearance.
“Even today, when seaports have achieved a mature state in terms of digitalisation, there is a clear gap in taking full advantage of digital data assets,” said Santiago Cáceres, DataPorts Coordinator at ITI.
“A secure and trustworthy platform, able to grant data sharing and trading, opens up many business opportunities. Obviously, it also brings a number of challenges, but DataPorts was designed to provide the means and tools to overcome these, paving the way to creating new business models using its results.”
DataPorts includes 13 partners from five nations:
- Spain: ITI (project leader), Everis Spain SL, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Fundación ValenciaPort, Prodevelop SL
- France: Traxens
- Greece: Hellenic Telecommunications Organisation S.A., Institute of Communications and Computer Systems (ICCS), Centre for Research and Technology Hellas, Thessaloniki Port Authority S.A.
- Germany: University of Duisburg-Essen (Paluno), Fraunhofer-Institute for Software and Systems Engineering ISST
- Israel: IBM Israel
