Port of Tallinn’s Smart Port solution will reduce passengers’ waiting time with a new electronic check-in system

Port of Tallinn has initiated a Smart Port project that concentrates on reducing car and truck passengers’ waiting time by providing holistic and easy to understand service organizing electronic pre-check in, check-in and line management for ports with multiple ferry operators. The project will be developed in cooperation between Estonia and Norway, the advising partner is Port of Kristiansand.

“The need for the Smart Port solution arose because of the problem that several city harbours, including Port of Tallinn’s Old City Harbour, are facing. In recent decades the number of passengers has increased many times, but ports’ territories have remained mostly unchanged, which presents a great challenge to their service quality, capacity and throughput,” explained Hele-Mai Metsal, the leader of the project from Port of Tallinn’s side.

“Port of Tallinn is about to start developing a new electronic universal check-in system both for passenger cars and cargo trucks for all four ferry operators who are operating at Old City Harbor area in Tallinn. The scope of the project includes the whole car and truck travel process, starting from online pre-registration to the automated check-in procedures and fully automatic traffic management which leads cars to the ship” added Mrs Metsal.

Benefits to be received with the solution are both social and environmental. Passengers’ waiting/travel time will be reduced significantly through personal check-in times and electronic check-in procedures. Passengers waiting/travel time is reduced up to 320 000 human hours per year. Shorter waiting time of the passengers and ships loading/unloading also means reduced environmental pollution from running engines.

Smart Port solution will be developed and tested in the Old City Harbour in Port of Tallinn. To ensure the scalability of the solution for other ports, Port of Kristiansand is involved in the project as a partner. Port of Tallinn has an ambition to develop Smart Port solution to a product and enter into the international markets.

The planned duration for the Smart Port project is July 2014-April 2016.