More energy-efficient ship and port operations are crucial if the maritime industry is to succeed in the transition to net zero emissions by 2050!
The numbers speak for themselves – around 15 percent of ships’ greenhouse gas emissions are associated with port operations. In addition, there is untapped potential to reduce emissions at sea by around 20 percent. An important part of the solution is therefore better coordination and interaction between ships and ports.
ITS Norway plays a key role in the EU-funded project DYNAPORT. A number of leading European players are involved, several of whom are Norwegian heavyweights. For DYNAPORT, it is crucial to get rid of one particularly undesirable practice in the industry – internationally best known as “hurry up and wait”. In such cases, ships sail between ports at unnecessarily high speeds and energy consumption, only to end up having to wait for days (sometimes weeks) awaiting cargo and port capacity. This unsustainable practice is driven by, among other things, old and outdated standard contracts, imprecise requirements and procedures in connection with message exchange between ship and port, especially with regard to which players should receive what when, but also a lack of trust among different players – partly provoked by conflicting incentives.
Main goals and expected results
A key objective of the project is therefore the realization of “just-in-time” (JIT) operations, precisely to prevent valuable and cost-driving resources such as energy and time from being wasted. This requires integrated planning and coordinated measures between the different actors.
DYNAPORT will therefore develop new optimization and coordination tools for ports and ships, which both reduce the ship’s fuel consumption and increase port efficiency by at least 10%. Furthermore, to improve port efficiency and safety during port calls, better coordination of planning between ship, port and traffic will be necessary, especially for arrival and departure.
The tools will be built on information sharing through internationally accepted protocol standards and communication systems to ensure that solutions are put into use. ITS Norway is the team leader for the standardization work in the project.

The importance of DYNAPORT for ports and the maritime industry in general
The project will enter its second year in 2025, and will provide an important basis for further work. Interviews, workshops and the collection of numerical data have been carried out and the results documented. Much of the work is openly available, with several key themes being of relevance to ports and other players in the maritime industry.
Blueprint for port calls
The ability to optimize a voyage requires, among other things, that the arrival time at the next port is carefully planned. Not least, that the ship arrives at the port as agreed and that the times are known as early as possible to the relevant actors, preferably before departure from the previous port. This requires better coordination and a standardized process for how port calls are to be carried out. The project has therefore carried out considerable work to establish such a blueprint – currently in the form of a first version that will be revised over time. This potentially holds great value for ports, as in addition to containing descriptions of the actual coordination process between ship and port, proposals for definitions of roles, terms, concepts and related ICT system functionalities are also presented.
Bottlenecks
Critical bottlenecks and barriers to current port call practices have also been identified. A central focus has been to see these in light of how coordination between different actors can be improved in order to enable JIT calls. As an important part of this work, interviews were conducted with actors from both the ship and port sides, where organizational and contractual aspects were also addressed. The information from this process is in itself important for understanding what lies behind current practice, but also constitutes an important contribution towards the design of key performance indicators (KPIs) and new principles for cooperation. The latter is also relevant for further work with the blueprint.
Safety when entering port
With Kongsberg at the forefront, DYNAPORT has also conducted a comprehensive study of maritime accidents, where an important goal has been to shed light on how safety when entering port can be improved through increased data sharing and communication between ships and ports. Here, both the Norwegian Coastal Administration and Space Norway have contributed with their solid expertise in digital communication, a key component for a more integrated transport system. In addition, key risk factors – and how these can be minimized – have been documented. In particular, based on how different actors should cooperate to realize JIT calls.
New standard for message exchange
With regard to message exchange, ITS Norway and SINTEF Ocean have led the work, and been heavily involved in, the development of the new editions of the standards ISO 28005-1 Ed.2 and ISO 28005-3 Ed. 1. The major advantage is that they define a common protocol for message exchange between ship and shore, including support for “maritime single windows”, and other mandatory reporting requirements associated with JIT calls and departures from port. The work has been closely linked to the project throughout the process, and the standards will be tested in practice when the project is to demonstrate JIT calls later in 2025. This is valuable for, among others, NAVTOR, which currently has digital equipment on board more than 9200 vessels, and which collaborates with Simula Research to use artificial intelligence for route optimization and energy efficiency for ships. Participating ship owners such as Grieg Star and NCL will also benefit greatly from this – as it opens up the possibility of realizing JIT voyages through better coordination between ship and port.
DYNAPORT in a global context
In October 2024, DYNAPORT and its EU-funded sister project MISSION organized a workshop in Trondheim that brought together partners from both projects, but also specially invited from Singapore (MPA – Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore and SMI – Singapore Maritime Institute) and Korea (KMOU – Korea Maritime & Ocean University).

The workshop, which ensured broad participation from both industry and academia, revealed both barriers and opportunities for how to realize smoother port calls, and concluded by defining a number of action points to strengthen further cooperation.
In addition, DYNAPORT collaborates with other external initiatives, and here the Port Call Optimisation Network in particular is an important player. Not only because the network works to solve overlapping issues, but also because it contributes to more effective coordination of work in other and related initiatives. Among other things, there will be a new network meeting in Valencia in May 2025, where important work will be done to coordinate various initiatives. At the same time, there are also plans to arrange a working meeting with similar initiatives in the North Atlantic region.
What do we have in store?
Results from the project are expected to have many positive spin-offs – where reduced time at anchorages and more efficient traffic management can reduce the negative societal impacts of the port, such as reduced land use and noise, reduced rush hour traffic, and reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Furthermore, sharing information about the agreed scheduled arrival times with actors throughout the supply chain will enable much better synchronization of onward transport, which will help to further improve transport operations in and around the port.

You can find DYNAPORT’s website here.
You can find DYNAPORT’s LinkedIn here.