Baltic Open Port Communication -
The first step towards a trans-European Logistical Network

A project of the European Commission's 4th Framework Programme

The BOPCom project - with total costs of 5 Mio. ECU and a Community Contribution of 2.5 Mio. ECU - is one of the biggest projects in volume in maritime transport in the European Commission's 4th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development.

BOPCom's main objective is to raise the efficiency of sea transport in Europe. Steps towards this aim are the development of port communication applications, such as

  • booking,
  • dangerous goods information handling,
  • berth management,
  • hinterland connection,
  • localisation of units,
  • statistics
with a common user interface on one hand and the development of an innovative open telematics architecture on the other hand to enable existing and new port application systems to exchange information in an efficient way. All applications will be designed along common guidelines in order to make the results to be portable and transferrable to other ports.



The BOPCom project is embedded into the cooperation agreement TEDIM between the Finnish, German and Russian Governments.



The managers of the BOPCom project - involving 30 partners from 10 countries - are TZL Technologie-Zentrum Lübeck for the administration and ISL Institute of Shipping Economics and Logistics for the technical management.

Main partners besides TZL and ISL are telecommunication service providers: Oy EDI Management from Finland, Seehafen-Communication Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (SECOM) and TRADAV Travemünder Datenverbund from Germany. In addition are a huge number of users (industry, freight carriers, port operators, authorities, shipowners, forwarders) are involved in the project. In order to ensure the full European approach, the ports of Piraeus (Greece), Barcelona (Spain), Leixoes (Portugal), Brest (France), St. Petersburg (Russia), Triest and Venice (Italy) will be involved actively in the project. Starting with the ports and participants in the Baltic area (mainly based on the existing port communication systems TRADAV and Portnet) the applications will be designed and developed in such a way that they could be transfered to other small and medium-sized ports in whole Europe. Therefore, the non-Baltic ports will be involved in the definition of their communication and data processing requirements.

The link and upgrading of the existing communication systems as well as the development of new applications will ease the integration of the transport industry into trans-European transport networks. Innovative telematic applications and services will form the basis for the required inter-connectivity and inter-operability of applications.

It is expected that BOPCom will form a significant step for integrating short-sea shipping into a trans-European logistical net-work. BOPCom will support the shift of traffic from road to sea as well as the increase of the competitiveness of the European industry.

BOPCom started at January 1st, 1996 and will last for three years.

TZL Contact Information:

Technik-Zentrum Lübeck, Dr. Raimund Mildner, Seelandstraße, D-23569 Lübeck, Tel: ++49-451-3909-100, Fax: ++49-451-3909-499, E-Mail: tzl@tzl.de, WWW: http://www.tzl.de

Institute of Shipping Economics and Logistics, Prof. Dr. Volker Speidel, Universitätsallee GW1 Block A, D-28359 Bremen, Tel: ++49-421-22096-17, Fax: ++49-421-22096-55, E-Mail: speidel@isl.uni-bremen.de, WWW: http://www.isl.uni-bremen.de