CCTV News: With the opening of the 2025 Spring Festival travel rush, Ningbo Zhoushan Port has also opened a "big channel" for maritime logistics to ensure smooth work in full-time periods. It is expected that the entire Hong Kong will complete a cargo throughput of nearly 150 million tons during the Spring Festival travel rush. In the global shipping industry, it has always been a challenging problem to achieve on-time entry of cargo ships in busy ports. Ningbo Zhoushan Port, a super port with cargo throughput ranked first in the world for 16 consecutive years, how can ships enter the port on time and in an orderly manner? What is the "clearance password" behind it?

Xiazhimen Channel, one of the busiest waterways in the world, has more than 200 ships passing by here every day, approaching Ningbo Zhoushan Port berthing and loading and unloading.

This container ship from Qingdao Port is berthing No. 4 in Meishan Port District, and the ship's field staff are waiting at the dock.

Staff member Jiang Jianqiu introduced that the maritime department had accurately pre-ordered Ningbo's entry plan when the ship left Qingdao, so that the storage time of containers at the dock can be shortened and the fast inlet and out of goods can be promoted. They had already received the incoming information 26 hours ago, and as planned, the ship berthed on time at 7 pm.

In the cab, the reporter met the captain Yu Yongyun, who has 27 years of navigation experience.

Betting on time is still a gratifying moment for the captain with his sailing footprints all over the world. There are no traffic lights at sea. Due to the constraints of complex environments and poor information circulation, waiting is common.

City COSCO Shipping Dujuan Ship Captain Yu Yongyun introduced that in order to enter the port as soon as possible, the ship "going forward at full speed, first come first relying" has always been the default rule. However, many times they have to wait for a long time after sailing at high speed, which causes the waste of various resources such as fuel, anchorage, route turnover time. The ports are connected to the points and activate the "blue engine" to reduce costs on time

The Spring Festival holiday is approaching, and domestic companies are increasing their energy to rush to produce. Foreign cargo owners want to ship goods before the festival. The strong demand for freight has also increased the pressure on port transportation operations. How to ensure traffic, smooth and safe has become the focus of the maritime department and ports.

Before the ship enters the port, a traffic organization area was established in a wide waters. The Zhejiang Maritime Bureau first carried out the pilot work of "Transportation Organization Integration" at Zhoushan Port, Ningbo. However, in the early stage, the staff found that there was a general problem of low communication efficiency between different departments. The ship's entry from "first come first depend" to "appointment and pick up the number"

After integrating information from maritime, pilotage, tugboats, ports and other parties, the transportation organization has also achieved pre-, fast and intelligent arrangements. Each ship is labeled with the port entry serial number data label, and the ship's entry into the port has also shifted from "first come first relying" to "reserve number and orderly entry into the port".

However, everyone feels that for the entire shipping route, the "on-point cost reduction" achieved by one port is not enough. There are still multiple information barriers between ports, between ports and shipping companies, and between land and sea logistics, and there is no information exchange mechanism between each other.

Starting in 2023, under the coordinated planning of the Maritime Bureau of the Ministry of Transport, the Zhejiang Maritime Bureau relies on Ningbo Zhoushan Port to link up with the major domestic trunk container ports, build an information platform, and launch a "on-point cost reduction" plan. At the same time, the application for anchorages, navigation channels and shallow approvals will be fully incorporated into electronic processing.

Cao Damin is a ship dispatcher of a ship company. In his past work, he joined various docking groups, and he needed to manually collect and make tables on ship speed, departure time and other complicated information. Nowadays, with such an information platform, its scheduling efficiency has been greatly improved.

From the consensus between ports, and then to the running-in of data format and data flow, the concentric circle of "on-point cost reduction" is getting bigger and bigger. Information between major hub ports has begun to be connected, and ship entry and exit plans can be formulated and released dozens of hours in advance, or even accurate to minutes.

In November 2024, with the addition of Wenzhou Port, eight container hub ports and 7 shipping companies across the country joined the "container shipping on-time cost reduction" plan, and the punctuality rate of some routes also increased from the original 33% to more than 77%.

Wang Guanyu, deputy director of the Command Center of Zhejiang Maritime Bureau, introduced that the total amount of ships participating in the plan saved more than 6,600 hours of waiting time, more than 24,000 tons of fuel, and 75,000 tons of carbon emissions. They will also increase their international exploration and promotion and contribute Chinese wisdom to the prosperity and development of world maritime trade.