WORK PROGRESSES TO BUILD THE "PORT FORWARD" PROJECT FOR THE FIVE PORTS OF GENERAL INTEREST OF THE PORT AUTHORITY OF THE BALEARIC ISLANDS

WORK PROGRESSES TO BUILD THE "PORT FORWARD" PROJECT FOR THE FIVE PORTS OF GENERAL INTEREST OF THE PORT AUTHORITY OF THE BALEARIC ISLANDS

Palma

05/10/2018

The Port Authority of the Balearic Islands (APB) is part of a consortium subsidised by the European Commission to launch the "Port Forward" project - within the "Port of the Future" initiative - and today the port of Palma has received visits from some of the consortium members to learn more about the operation and management of new technologies in the APB.

This is the second meeting to take place in order to initialize this project to improve sustainable development in ports of general interest (Palma, Alcudia, Ibiza, la Savina and Mahon) managed by the Port Authority of the Balearic Islands (APB). The first meeting took place in Magdeburg (Germany) last July for the project launch. "Port Forward" brings together renowned technology centres and other ports such as Vigo, and the ports of Livorno, Naples, Kristiansand and Magdemburg. This project has a budget of six million euros and is 100% funded by the European Commission.

In the meeting taking place today and tomorrow we will be visited by Manuel Baeza from Transmediterránea, Fátima Vellisco and José Luis Burón from Acciona, Sergio Martínez and Jordi Ricart representing Leitat, Vincent Bracke and Ben Bellekens representing Imec, and Jorge Martín, Head of Quality, Environment and Innovation at the APB. 

All attendees visited the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) port infrastructure in the port of Palma with Javier Segovia, head of Information Systems of the APB, as well as the port’s control centre and monitoring with Álvaro Rodríguez, responsible for Port Operations of the APB. They also met with Antoni Ginard, Head of Infrastructures of the APB, to discuss systems and procedures of computer-aided maintenance (CMMS).

After the presentations, current systems deployed for management and efficiency were discussed. Finally, the members of the consortium met with several companies that can provide technological solutions that add value to the service provided by the APB.

About the "Port Forward" project

This project will make it possible to improve sustainable development and the management of resources more efficiently. In this sense, the port of the future must meet a series of requirements such as that of being a smart and interconnected port.

For the implementation of these works, the APB relies on projects that have been developing for several years such as air quality monitoring, the creation of meteorological warnings with the SAMOA platform, the AIS system, energy efficiency and heat maps, among others.