AI becomes the heart of a new flow management system
One of the major issues for companies and authorities in goods supply is the traffic fluidity within the ports.
Authorities are constantly trying to innovate and improve it such as the smart border system mentioned in our issue 13 of Trade Observer and installed after Brexit to facilitate the movement of goods and the flow of trucks. The port of Ancona has adopted a system called Smart C to cope with a 5% annual increase in port traffic. This system is based on artificial intelligence to facilitate the circulation of heavy goods vehicles.
Its purpose is to improve the quality of ferry transport services, boarding and disembarking, security controls and customs clearance procedures and the deployment of a solution that meets the need, taking into account environmental sustainability.
This solution can thus control and manage vehicle flows without using on-board units. This is made possible thanks to new technologies based on the coordination and fusion of simultaneous information from several sensors placed in a 3D space to control and manage vehicle flows along the road.
In this “virtual tunnel”, OCR (Optical Character Recognition) cameras ensure the identification and recognition of containers and plates. In case of a deviation from the lane assigned to the trucks, the customs police are instantly informed without the need of direct and constant staff monitoring.
Smart C therefore avoids stopping trucks at disembarking, ensures the implementation of automation, tracking and classification procedures, and speeds up operations in the port area and the security of goods without vehicles being stopped at disembarking.
How does it work? The automation process is used to manage the identification of plates within the determined “controlled area” and to authorize transit or not according to the level of authorization. Smart C therefore allows the virtual environment to be reproduced with a 3D avatar in correspondence with each vehicle framed by the ROC, reflecting the built situation in real time.
These innovations deliver positive impacts on the environment, safety, but also operational efficiency and compatibility with third-party systems, thanks to the digitization of information flows.
