We are STM – Jaco Voorspuij, Maritime Expert, GS1

Interview                                                         

The STM Validation project is all about testing the concept of Sea Traffic Management, STM. The idea is to provide vessels with the ability to see each other’s planned routes helping navigators to get a more complete picture of how surrounding vessels will influence their onward voyage. The idea is also to share port planning information, helping ships to arrive more just-in-time and the port actors to optimise their operations. Using this data, other services can produce valuable information and offer advice to vessels on their routes, such as recommendations to avoid congestion in areas with high traffic, avoidance of environmentally sensitive areas, and maritime safety information. The information exchange between vessel and port actors will improve planning and performance regarding arrivals, departures and turnaround times, while also improving the use of the port actor resources.

WHAT IS STM ABOUT FOR YOU, JACO VOORSPUIJ?

Sea Traffic Management for me is exciting because it celebrates the idea of collaboration across a wide range of stakeholders to deliver safer and more secure, more reliable and more efficient voyages and port calls. By taking these steps ultimately maritime operations will become an integral and seamless part of the global end-to-end Supply Chains that are more and more common in today’s world of globalisation.

WHAT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY?

Collaboration is not possible without open global standardisation. GS1 (the organisation I work for) has been involved in such standardisation for some 45 years now and provides likely the most widely adopted system of Supply Chain standards in the world.

The Swedish branch of our organisation has been involved in the STM Validation project as a partner and over the past year I have become involved to coordinate things globally. This includes potential alignment with other global initiatives in the maritime and ports environment (such as the Port Call Optimization Task Force) that pursue objectives that are complementary and sometimes partly overlapping.

The STM Validation project has developed a conceptual model within the project describing past and future events related to port calls that is very powerful, and ahead of anything I have seen in any other mode of transport. This conceptual model is so powerful that it shows a lot of promise in terms of it also being used as the reference model for past and future events in other modes of transport and even warehouse and terminal operations.

This is one of the areas where I am keen to explore the boundaries of the possible with the maritime and ports environment as well as those other modes of transport to leverage STM validation concepts and results.

The STM Validation project also needs to establish a number of globally unambiguous identification keys (e.g. for port calls). Globally unambiguous ID Keys (such as the port call ID) are a challenge that is common to STM Validation and the Port Call Optimization Task Force initiative. Such ID Keys are at the core of GS1 and this is another area of potential synergy between GS1, the STM Validation project and other initiatives in the maritime and ports environment.

GS1 is a neutral, not-for-profit organisation that develops and maintains the most widely used global standards for efficient business communication, best known for the barcode. With Member Organisations in 112 countries, 1.5 million user companies and 6 billion transactions every day –help ensure that GS1 standards create a common language that supports systems and processes across the globe.

Want to learn more about STM? Come to the STM Validation Mid-Term Conference in Venice, Sept 12-13! Register here!

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