Towage operator Svitzer has partnered with German maritime tech company Navisense to develop a new data analytics system that aims to make port towage services more efficient.
The jointly developed ‘Porttracker’ system combines and analyses the operations of harbour tugs in real time using a variety of data streams, such as position, weather, tidal and engine data to identify opportunities to reduce fuel consumption and emissions.
A smart event logging algorithm automatically detects and displays all operations, identifying and registering individual vessel behaviours by integrating AIS data streams.
“Once set up, our system monitors all events in the area covered and produces fully automatic reports for each assisted movement,” said Carsten Bullemer, Navisense Founder and CEO.
“This generates immense market knowledge and provides support for fuel consumption and CO2 reporting.”
The partners have deployed the system in 21 harbours in Australia and Europe to date, and are currently in discussions to roll-out the system to other locations.
“At Svitzer, we are always looking at the best ways to integrate innovative technologies in both our strategy and our daily operation for the benefit of our people, our customers, and the environment where we operate,” said Evangelos Fragkoulis, Svitzer Chief Technical Officer and the company’s lead in the Porttracker programme.
“Navisense has created a tool that is cost effective and, with its remarkable user friendliness, easy to implement. With Porttracker, we are able to review all operations in our ports and identify areas of improvement specifically during the mob and demob phases of a towage job.”
“Right now, we are in ‘run mode’ and already recording significant reductions in fuel consumption across the board. This is the first step towards achieving full fuel efficiency and improving our environmental performance.”
