14^TH WORLD CONFERENCE CITIES AND PORTS

Plenary Session 4 : Smart Port, Smart City : how to match performance to challenge ?

Smart port cities imply fifty-year environmental projects but also revitalising smaller ports. These were the two themes covered in the morning session on 5 November at the 14th AIVP World Conference Cities and Ports in Durban.
Olaf Merk, the Administrator of the International Transport Forum discussed the false dynamism of a port city that is “fractured” by the lack of communication between the port and city. Singapore, Rotterdam, Hamburg and Venice provide good example of prosperity and density becoming integrated in a social interface.
Bob Nelson, Chairman of the Port of San Diego (USA) presented an ambitious programme that commits to reducing emissions by 10% by 2020, and almost by half within 2060, based on cold ironing, solar and wind energy. The key is creating a community, namely an energy supply round table with companies like Dell and Intel to investigate possible solutions over the next fifty year from now.
Wouter Jacobs from the Erasmus University in Rotterdam outlined a project that would supply residential areas from the recycling of emissions from heavy industries. The port envisages utilising bio-fuels, LNG, the wind and sun. Once again the community plays a key role : the Rotterdam Maritime Business Services Community numbers 35 members, including banks, insurance companies and law firms to plan investments.
The final speaker for the morning, Jacques Ritt, CEO of Soget, explained what the French Company had achieved with the customs agency in the West African country of Benin. Thanks to the single window application (computerising customs), Benin can now handle one container in 10 days, instead of 41. This has resulted in a 21% increase in ship calls and 57% rise in container traffic.