Port Community Systems. Principles, Functionalities and Prospects

International trade plays a strategic role in the development of a country's economic growth, leading to improved and diversified economies that benefit national businesses and jobs.

Seaports play a vital role in global supply chains as logistics hubs for the transit of goods. With a growing trend towards just-in-time delivery, they are becoming increasingly dependent on innovations in transport and communication technologies. This trend has led to increased competition between ports to handle ever-greater volumes of goods at each port of call.

Against this backdrop, ports need to invest to increase their attractiveness to shippers and shipping lines: modernizing port infrastructures and the ability of ports to handle large volumes of goods means shorter lead times and lower costs. In particular, this encourages investors to modernize port facilities to accommodate larger vessels. As a result, some major ports are positioning themselves as logistics hubs for priority international services, which then serve as platforms for rerouting to secondary ports or landlocked territories. The transport of general cargo in containers is a prime example of this phenomenon, and contributes greatly to the industrialization of ports competing to capture these flows.

To support this trend, there are legal instruments designed to foster cooperation between states on the facilitation of international trade, such as the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Agreement on Trade Facilitation (ATF). and the Convention on Facilitation of International Maritime Traffic (FAL) of the International Maritime Organization (IMO). These agreements establish standardized principles for the implementation of digital platforms enabling the automated processing of exchanges between players, thereby optimizing the efficiency, transparency and security of commercial transactions.

The maritime and port sector is facing increasingly complex challenges, including the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption and operational costs, while ensuring the resilience of supply chains. To meet these challenges, a key approach is to enhance the digitization of all information relating to the proper organization of transport and logistics in the port.

Since ports are areas where goods flows are concentrated,...