in Port News

18/04/2025

Digital Container Shipping Association (DCSA), a neutral, non-profit organisation driving standardisation and digital innovation in container shipping, today announced the Port of Rotterdam has become the first major port to include the DCSA’s industry-leading Track & Trace (T&T) Standard in its Port Community System (Portbase), significantly enhancing container tracking and visibility at one of the world’s busiest ports, and the main gateway to Europe.

This success is the result of a unique collaboration between the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure, Portbase (the port community system for Dutch ports) and DCSA – as part of the Digital Infrastructure Logistics (DIL) Programme of the Netherlands. The standard allows cargo owners to know the whereabouts and status of their goods from door to door, regardless of the IT systems or logistics service providers they use. It is expected that a future full-scale integration of the DCSA T&T standard in Portbase will ensure export processes are more efficient, reliable and transparent for companies moving their goods through one of the busiest ports in the world.

Already widely used by DCSA’s members, the standard supports more than 180 million monthly container tracking events globally, covering 75% of global container shipping volume. The inclusion of the standard in the Port of Rotterdam confirms the status of DCSA’s standard as the de facto T&T standard for the global container shipping ecosystem. The collaboration will continue as the parties are currently considering implementing DCSA standards in a new Track and Trace service.

A Portbase spokesperson said:

“Integrating the DCSA standards was relatively easy because of the well documented specifications and the use of modern technology, such as API instead of EDI messages. Collaboration with the DCSA team was successful.”

Adriaan Zeillemaker, Deputy Director of Maritime Affairs (and Head of Multimodal Freight Transport and Pipelines) at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, said:

“This partnership between DCSA, Portbase and the Dutch ‘Data In Logistics’ innovation program illustrates how public-private cooperation functions in the context of digital infrastructure: each party leverages its strengths, and together we build a resilient system.”

Thomas Bagge, CEO of DCSA, said:

“We are proud and honoured that our standards are recognised and being used as a basis for supply chain efficiency and visibility in one of the world’s main trading nations and biggest ports. We look forward to deepening our collaboration with the government and ports in the Netherlands and other markets to increase the widespread adoption of digital standards in the global supply chain.”

Source: Digital Container Shipping Association (DCSA)