How PortMiami is pushing the tech envelope
By J.P. Faber
On a Tuesday morning in June, a cargo truck pulls up to the entry gate of PortMiami’s cargo yards. A few years ago, the driver would have had to submit a sheaf of paperwork, after which he would park and wait for his container to be located. Today, his RFID tag is scanned electronically, and he is directed to the cargo’s location where a crane will already have unloaded the container. In a matter of minutes, his truck is laden with its cargo, and he is on his way to his destination.
When it comes to the business of loading and unloading vessels in any seaport, time is of the essence. The longer a ship spends dockside, the more it costs. So, any equipment – any technology– that can speed things along is vital. At PortMiami, that idea has been embraced.
“Technology is a significant part of all the infrastructure that goes into the port, and there’s a good amount of funding that goes towards that,” says Hydi Webb, director and CEO of PortMiami.
“It’s extremely important because the faster we can move product on and off the port, the more efficient we are… whether it’s cargo containers or cruise passengers. The goal is to move them as efficiently and as quickly as possible.”
In the past several years, PortMiami has dramatically upped its high-tech ante, employing state-of-the-art devices and software to accelerate the movement of people and products.
On the cargo side, the port is now reaping the rewards of its RFID tag system, with almost 5,000 smart RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags distributed to trucks that deliver containers to, and remove containers from, dockside.
“We are really at the point where we will start getting great use out of [RFID],” says Deputy Port Director and CFO Andy Hecker. “The reader can tell you what truck, who’s driving it, the license plate – all that kind of information. Then you can assign the container to that truck. We plan to extend this to the tunnel. The system has the capability to determine that truck ‘1234’ is here to pick up container ‘ABCD.’” As the system becomes more intelligent, it will be able to direct crane operators in real time to pluck a container from its location to the point of the vehicle’s arrival.
The result so far? “Typically, most ports can unload 25 boxes [containers] in an hour. We run in the high 30s,” says Hecker. That number is critically important when you consider that a given ship may carry between 5,000 and 15,000 containers.
Even the gantry cranes that place and remove the containers have high-tech elements. At PortMiami, they use the SPYDER software system, which employs sensors to monitor things like location and operating temperatures. “The system constantly measures the performance of all the cranes to keep them maintained and running,” says Hecker. The cranes themselves are now also electrically powered, rather than diesel driven, to reduce emissions at the port. This meets another goal of the port’s new technologies: sustainability.
“It’s all about saving time in a sustainable manner,” says Webb. “The RFID, for example, really speeds up the processing of the trucks, which saves the idling time sitting here on the port, which saves time being processed through the yard, so emissions are being reduced.” This falls in line with the priorities of Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, whose goal is to reduce county carbon emissions by 30 percent by 2050.
Another initiative to accelerate sustainability and resiliency is shore power. Mayor Cava has signed an MOU with the port’s six leading cruise lines as well as FPL to initiate a system where the ships use power from electric hookups rather than burning fuel to run their onboard generators. FPL is building the infrastructure – an expanded substation at the port – while the cruise lines are outfitting their vessels to accommodate the hookup. By year’s end, the port will have plugins at four terminals, with a fifth – at the new MSC terminal – ready next year. “Right now, when the cruise ships come in, they’re burning their generators right on the ship. So, this is literally like plugging in, where they’re going to connect to our electrical grid. A cruise ship is like a floating city, so you’re plugging in that floating city – three of them at one time – into our electric grid,” says Webb. “It’s a really big win for the entire community.” The port also has the ability to service vessels powered by LNG (Liquified Natural Gas), which reduces emissions; Carnival on the cruise side and Seaboard Marine on the cargo side already have vessels that use LNG.
Another high-tech initiative on the cruise line side is facial recognition equipment, implemented in conjunction with U.S. Customs and Border Protection. When passengers disembark after a voyage, they are technically coming from outside the country, so “they need to be processed,” says Webb, “and this cuts down time.” A passenger vessel with 6,000 passengers can now be unloaded in the same time it used to take with a 3,000 passenger vessel. The new cruise terminals being built at the port are also required to be LEED certified, which means they are built to save energy.
Perhaps no other infrastructure advance at PortMiami can, however, match the scope, size, and impact of the Port of Miami Tunnel, a $1 billion project completed in 2014. That tunnel, which was bored under Biscayne Bay, allows trucks to bypass the (then) snarling traffic in Downtown Miami by traveling directly from the MacArthur Causeway to the port.
The tunnel is actually split into two roads, going to and from the port, which are connected by a series of passageways should one need to be evacuated. “We dug separate escape routes into the other tunnel,” says Chris Hodgkins, chairman of the board of Miami Tunnel, which operates the facility for the Florida Department of Transportation. “We have vibration sensors, carbon sensors, infrared sensors, [and] more than 100 cameras that keep our eye on everything that happens in the tunnel.” Should there be a breakdown, the tunnel authority’s vehicles – including a huge Peterbilt capable of pulling an 18-wheeler – can clear the tunnel in short order. Miami Tunnel is, in fact, contracted they are built to save energy.
Perhaps no other infrastructure advance at PortMiami can, however, match the scope, size, and impact of the Port of Miami Tunnel, a $1 billion project completed in 2014. That tunnel, which was bored under Biscayne Bay, allows trucks to bypass the (then) snarling traffic in Downtown Miami by traveling directly from the MacArthur Causeway to the port.
The tunnel is actually split into two roads, going to and from the port, which are connected by a series of passageways should one need to be evacuated. “We dug separate escape routes into the other tunnel,” says Chris Hodgkins, chairman of the board of Miami Tunnel, which operates the facility for the Florida Department of Transportation. “We have vibration sensors, carbon sensors, infrared sensors, [and] more than 100 cameras that keep our eye on everything that happens in the tunnel.” Should there be a breakdown, the tunnel authority’s vehicles – including a huge Peterbilt capable of pulling an 18-wheeler – can clear the tunnel in short order. Miami Tunnel is, in fact, contracted to clear any vehicle within 25 minutes or face huge fines. “We are paid to keep that tunnel open,” says Hodgkins.
The tunnel is also designed to deal with the worst two disasters it might face: fire and flooding. Should a fire break out, it has a closed water extinguishing system, along with 44 fans the size of jet engines that can clear the smoke. “We don’t have a sprinkler system, we have a deluge system, where the water comes down so intensely that it suffocates the fire,” says Hodgkins. The water drains into a cistern and then gets pumped back into containers above the tunnel, sealed from the Bay.
For floods, the tunnel is protected by 55-ton gates with gaskets, which are lowered to seal the tunnel tight. “Last year we lowered the gate six separate times, every time we faced a hurricane,” says Hodgkins. “Our assets are underground, so they have to be protected.”
Like other advances in the port’s technology and infrastructure, the tunnel is all about speed, as well as safety. “In the state of Florida, there are no ships out at sea [waiting to be serviced],” says Webb. “It’s all about making our supply chain successful. It’s on and off port. It’s from the time a ship is out at sea, pulls along our dock, gets processed at our facilities, and then is on to its final destination. We’re all about speeding that up.”
Adds Hecker: “We are one of the most efficient ports in the country.”
