BPA praises ESPO’s PORTOPIA project

The event was an opportunity for PORTOPIA’s coordinators and participating ports to reflect on the project’s four-year transition and to consider the next steps for the port performance initiative.

Delegates were presented with details of the findings and achievements behind the EU-funded programme. These included a new data service cloud, digitalised ‘Rapid Exchange System’ port throughput platform, new reports on an environmental performance tool and analysis of port governance trends.

CEO of BPA, Richard Ballantyne, highlighted the contribution that a number of leading European ports, and ESPO itself, had made to the initiative.

 

“For those involved in the PORTOPIA project this has been quite a journey and not an easy task. It has brought a wide variety of ports and associations together to collaborate and explore what in the way of performance benchmarking is possible in a competitive port environment. The challenge will now be to encourage ports to participate and feed into the new ‘digitalised’ ESPO Rapid Exchange System and make use of the new environmental performance tool and governance analysis. We are already looking at how we can support ESPO drive this forward,” Ballantyne explained.

The PORTOPIA project was conceived following calls by the European Commission for greater understanding of the collective performance of the European ports industry.

Read the article online at: https://www.drybulkmagazine.com/ports-terminals/13112017/bpa-praises-espos-portopia-project/