Port call optimisation
The port call as a data problem: the standards and master data behind just-in-time arrival, the actors involved, and the contractual barriers to implementation.
Port call optimisation is the coordination of the information exchange between ship, agent, terminal, pilot, towage and port authority so that a ship’s arrival can be matched to the actual availability of the resources it needs. It is the enabling layer beneath just-in-time arrival.
The problem is less about willingness than about data. A ship can only slow to a berth time it has been given, and a berth time is only useful if the fairway and the nautical services are available at the same moment. That requires shared, standardised, timely event data across parties with different systems and different commercial interests. The International Taskforce Port Call Optimization maintains the port and terminal master data standards this depends on, the IMO Expert Group on Data Harmonization agreed to add just-in-time operational data elements to the IMO Reference Data Model, and DCSA published complementary standards for a just-in-time port call in October 2020.
The barriers identified in the 2020 Just In Time Arrival Guide fall into two classes, operational and contractual, and the contractual class is the harder one: the despatch obligation and the laytime and demurrage regime both reward early arrival regardless of whether a berth is free. See just-in-time arrival and slow steaming .