PHOTOGRAPHY: SHUTTERSTOCKSTARTbling lorries with no cabin, transport
the containers to storage facilities,
where they are lifted automatically on
to trucks. RWG says its terminal is run
by no more than 15 people every day.
The Port of Rotterdam Authority is
now looking at automation beyond
the terminals. “Information between
humans by phone or email should, from
2025, be increasingly communicated
directly by smart objects,” says Erwin
Rademaker, a programme manager at
the port. “In the future, we’ll see cranes
talking directly to ships or containers.”
In early 2019, the authority kicked
off the first stage of an internet of
things platform. It’s a building block
in the creation of what the port calls
its “digital twin”, a digital replica of
the port in which all its operations
and resources are tracked. Forty-four
sensors installed on mooring posts,
quay walls, roads and traffic signs
provide data about tides, salinity, wind
and more. The port hopes that these
sensors will one day be able to commu-
nicate directly with other autonomous
systems, including self-driving ships.
In May, a “smart container” made
its first short journey, to Germany and
back. Fitted with sensors that measure
conditions including vibration, slope
and temperature, it will spend two years
travelling the world to collect data that
should give insight into what containers
encounter during their journey.
“Eighty-five per cent of the consumer
goods you see around you were trans-
ported by container,” says Rademaker.
But today’s containers are nothing
more than six sheets of metal welded
together: “Containers are still left
behind on docks, or unloaded in the
wrong port, and nobody notices until
[they] fail to arrive. It’s like your suitcase
getting lost at an airport, except it will
be gone for two months at a seaport.
We want to make containers smart, so
they can talk to the cranes and prevent
things like this from happening.”
Rotterdam wants to be able to host
autonomous ships by 2030. The snag?Self-steering container ships do not yet
exist. The first of its kind, the Norwegian
ship Yara Birkeland, is not expected
to operate fully autonomously before- That is why Rotterdam has
created a “floating lab”: former patrol
vessel RPA3 has been decked out
with cameras and sensors and made
available to startups and students for
autonomous shipping experiments.
Captain AI was the first startup to
test its software on the lab. “This year
we want to give a demo where the
vessel identifies an object and sails
around it. We’re almost there,” says
Wegener. Ultimately, he envisages a
port where patrol ships are unmanned.
Exciting? Yes – unless you happen
to be a docker. In January 2016, the
port of Rotterdam saw its first strike
in 13 years. The cause: the expected
loss of hundreds of jobs to automation.
“You see traditional harbour work
disappearing. People used to work in
big teams. Canteens were full during
mealtimes. Now, small crews remain
and machine operation has become
a one-man job,” says Niek Stam, of
dockers’ union FNV Havens. Stam
believes that Rotterdam’s terminals
are harbingers of a global upset. “In
other ports, the battle over automation
has yet to come,” he says.
In Rotterdam, Rademaker expects
jobs to disappear beyond the terminals
as well. “Autonomous isn’t the same as
unmanned. But if objects are talking
with each other and taking autonomous
decisions, certain jobs will disappear.”
Still, he sees the port’s drive for
automation not as a luxury, but as
the key to its survival: “Right now, we
are world champions at selling black-
and-white TVs. Today’s reality is that
we have to start selling colour TVs.”
Loes Witschge portofrotterdam.com
Left and above: in Rotterdam’s
ultra-advanced terminals, unmanned
cranes lift containers off vessels11-19-STRotterdam.indd 27 23/08/2019 14:14