New IT Platform at Port of Hamburg

PRISE, the Port River Information System Elbe, will soon be officially launched following a one-year trial. The new IT platform will bring together all information on ship arrivals and departures from all of the parties involved in the handling process: the terminals, pilots, shipping companies/brokers, tugs and mooring people as well as the Harbor Master Authority. At the Port of Hamburg and on the Elbe, an increasing number of ever-larger ships require handling within narrow time frames. A more rapid flow of information between all of the involved parties is essential in order to cope with the growing level of complexity for planning and execution. PRISE will improve planning capability of proceeding up the estuary of the river Elbe as well as of shipping movements at the port and thus accelerate the flow of traffic.

The development of PRISE was coordinated by the Hamburg software firm and port community system DAKOSY together with Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA), EUROGATE, the Elbe Pilots Association, the Port of Hamburg Pilots Association and Hamburg Port Authority (HPA). The platform was initiated and financed by the two terminal operators, HHLA and EUROGATE.

“Everyone involved benefits from the transparent flow of information. PRISE provides greater efficiency for our management of the sequencing and arrival of container mega-ships. Our customers and also the port as a whole benefit from this,” said Heinrich Goller, Managing Director of HHLA Container Terminals, underlining HHLA’s commitment to the new platform.

Peter Zielinski, Managing Director of EUROGATE’s Container Terminal Hamburg also praises PRISE: “This central information platform enables us to plan ahead further into the future, react more rapidly to changes at short notice and make more efficient use of our resources.”

Hamburg’s Senator for Economy, Frank Horch, is also very interested in PRISE: “The Port of Hamburg is dependent on innovative IT systems such as PRISE if it is to maintain and consolidate its competitive position as a global port. PRISE improves the flow of traffic at the port and on the river Elbe and will enable faster and smoother handling of ships, particularly container mega-ships.”

PRISE is specially designed for the requirements of the Port of Hamburg. The data compiled by this information platform includes berth planning and registration at the terminals, status information regarding ships’ positions on the river Elbe – from the German Bight up until their mooring lines have been fastened – ship notifications from the Elbe pilots, job assignments for tugs and mooring people and water level forecasts from the German Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH).

According to Harbor Master Jörg Pollmann the platform is already playing a significant role at HPA, which coordinates berth registrations for all of the terminals at the Port of Hamburg: “PRISE enables transparency throughout the port and always offers the latest information on all shipping movements. PRISE is an important unique selling point for us. No other port in the world has a platform of this kind.”

Dieter Spark, Chief Executive Officer of DAKOSY, is delighted with the positive response which PRISE has met during its trial: “As a port community system for the Port of Hamburg, for over 30 years we have offered innovative electronic platforms for port economy, enabling optimization and acceleration of import and export processes. PRISE optimally rounds off our portfolio. We are particularly impressed by the fact that this platform is already well-known far afield from Hamburg.”