Improved load planning of roro vessels by adopting blockchain and internet-of-things

Ports are vital to the global economy, as up to 90% of goods are transferred through seaports. With increasing vessel sizes, cargo volumes and higher demand for supply-chain optimization, seaports are required to be more efficient and competitive. In the present study, a proposed solution incorporating IoT and Blockchain is considered into automating many of the activities in the load planning process, which is then evaluated via simulation. Real data is collected concerning different types of cargo for RoPax vessels with the intended goal of reducing planning time in a seaport. The results contribute as one piece of the mosaic on the avenue towards becoming a “Smart Port”, which deploys various digitalization technologies in order to become a fully automated port. The suggested approach to be integrated, builds upon IoT sensors in combination with the lightweight version of a Blockchain to improve balance indicators on a trim of a vessel. A developed simulation tool was used for evaluating a number of scenarios, with each scenario run set to 2500 times. The simulation results indicate an improvement of 50-160% from the current load planning operations for RoPax vessels.