All vessel notifications to Port of Rotterdam Authority via port-wide Port Community System Rotterdam-This week, Port infolink has introduced the new Internet services Notification dangerous goods, Notification waste disposal and Statement harbor dues. From now on, shipping companies and cargo handling agents can consequently use the port-wide Port Community System to send the Port of Rotterdam Authority their notifications pertaining to the more than 37,000 sea-going vessels calling at the port. This puts an end to the usage of two systems alongside one another as well as overlaps in work; through the reuse of information, companies are able to operate more efficiently. Port infolink expects data traffic to increase by about ten percent.

Of all the mandatory notifications about visiting sea-going vessels aimed at the Port of Rotterdam Authority, the First Notification to the Harbor Master has already been submitted through the Port infolink service Vessel notification for several years now. In addition to this, the notifications pertaining to dangerous goods, waste disposal en harbor dues need to be submitted through the own Web Jonas service of the Port of Rotterdam Authority. For shipping companies and cargo handling agents, this is quite inefficient as the most of the information needs to be entered twice. The Port of Rotterdam Authority and Port infolink have therefore decided to also incorporate the Web Jones service in the Port Community System.

New services
Over the past year, Port infolink has developed the three services Notification dangerous goods, Notification waste disposal and Statement harbor dues to this extent. These new services directly link up with the existing service Vessel notification. From now on, shipping companies and cargo handling agents need to enter vessel information and such only once. Any information about dangerous cargo already present in the Port Community System is also automatically reused. In this way, the Port Community System offers the business community an optimum degree of user-friendliness.

Transition before 1st of June
 In total, 150 shipping companies/cargo handling agents will make use of the new services. The introduction will take place in different phases. Each company will receive a brief training session, after which they can directly start working conform the new method. Before the 1st of June 2008, all shipping companies/cargo agents will have been trained, after which Web Jones will be discontinued.

About Port infolink and the Port Community System
Port infolink was jointly established by the Port of Rotterdam Authority, Customs and Deltalinqs in 2002. Its mission is the development of one single coordinating Port Community System for the port of Rotterdam, enabling all the parties in the port to efficiently exchange information with one another. At present, the Port Community System already comprises 20 different services and has about 3000 users. Each month, they exchange about 1.4 million electronic messages.