Digitalization of Maritime Transport Systems: Open Data and Port Readiness

Keywords: Seaports, Digitalization, Open Data, Maritime Studies, Transport Geography
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

Information system driven port development has become a major agenda in contemporary maritime and transport geographies. The field has experienced a great shift in identifying future scenarios as well as technology spearheads. This research deals with three definitions that are 1) digital raw data, 2) software platforms, and 3) hardware. The open data is publicly available and costless to the end user. It also needs to be machine-readable thus following at least one standard data file formats (e.g., in the US, the OPEN Government Data Act of 14 January 2019). The most prominent feature of open data is that it enables application development for external parties. This paper has two research questions about open data and digitalization is seaports. First: “To what extent is open data part of the goals, strategies and daily operations of ports”; and second: “What are the future expectations and potentials of open data and digital technologies in the studied ports based on the qualitative data?” The paper identifies key-technology domains and their medium-term potentials. It also considers open data as a solution for improving port operations and management. For example, location-based traffic monitoring, IoT solutions, and cloud-services together with easy-to-use mobile applications are examined. The paper proposes future research tasks based on the findings and identifies key-challenges in digitalization, particularly for small and medium sized ports.