Digital twins for cost-effective decarbonization at terminal level

Smart Digital Ports of the Future Europe 2025 returns to Amsterdam on 12–13 November for its 9th edition, a practitioner-led forum where advanced ports compare results, align on standards, and stress-test systems for scalability.
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The conference agenda is framed around four interlocking themes: digital decarbonization, resiliency and agility, PCS and digital tools, and digital transformation. Each theme incorporates the overarching mandate of converting shared architectures and metrics into standardized frameworks or operational blueprints. At the conference, NextPort, in collaboration with the Port Authority of Huelva, will showcase how they've collaborated to turn fragmented information silos into coordinated action across the port call lifecycle.  

The Port of Huelva project illustrates why interoperability matters. A FIWARE-aligned ecosystem and data-sharing culture allows an intelligence layer to seamlessly integrate without displacing incumbent systems, ensuring that insights land in the right workflow in time to change outcomes. Additionally, specific dashboards streamline the path from visibility to action. Some examples would be when arrival vessel draft exceeds the berth availability both on arrival or departure, DWT exceeds berth limits according to the local port compliance, vessel moves out of the port with a visit not properly finished or risk because two big vessels will cross in the navigation channel. Because unplanned disruptions are captured as first-class events, the digital twin learns from how port staff resolve those issues. This closes the loop between prediction and execution, thereby improving performance and making gains that translate directly into better resource utilization and lower operational disruptions.  

Underpinning this capability is a Port Info strategy, which is a coordinated method to consolidate infrastructure data (zones, bathymetry, approach constraints), metocean signals, local regulations, planned services, and operational records into a unified, machine-readable baseline. When grounded in international standards, such as IHO S-100 and recent alignments across IMO FAL, ISO, and Maritime Single Windows, Port Info turns static charts and scatters into interoperable datasets that are directly usable in operations, lowering the barrier to adoption across port facilities. This alignment enables control room operators to spend less time hunting for facts, and more time acting on validated intelligence.

Only with a precise understanding of the port call process based on data, can you be effective in optimizing coordination and planning at arrival and departure. This means being able to build the track-record of each port call based on data that is actually fragmented across multiple systems or simply not in place. That’s why, at NextPort, we put effort into generating data on pilotage, towage and bunkering, ensuring that the information for each vessel, including conditions, is recorded.  

Ángel Martínez Cavero, Product Adoption Manager, Ports, at NextPort

From this standpoint, we see the initial steps towards optimization as:

 (1) Transparency and visibility across stakeholders: this means the shipping line, ship agent and terminal can leverage the Port Authority’s ecosystem. For example, not only having at ETA at PBP, but also deviation on that ETA at specific points of time, distance or service unavailability.

 (2) Actionable awareness: these are issues where each stakeholder can take action, for example restrictions from sea-level and tides and the knock-on implications on draft conditions or berth suitability, or crossing vessels generating agitation hence mooring stress at specific berths.

 (3) Optimize by anticipating disruptions or by learning from past occurrences: at ports, many of the contingency situations are not properly instrumented or registered for learning purposes, for example how to incorporate a congestion or metocean condition into operations.

FIWARE as our reference architecture lets us federate data across stakeholders and allow partners such as NextPort to deliver event-driven insights as well as to add an operational intelligence layer on top of our infrastructure, enhancing situational awareness and enabling proactive port-call coordination.

Manuel Francisco Martínez Torres, Chief Technology Officer at Port Authority of Huelva

Industry consensus is moving towards this way of thinking. As highlighted in the 2025 PCO Plenary discussions, Port Call Optimization (PCO) has progressed from proof of concept to operational reality, but scaling requires shared standards and structured data across ship, shore, and sea. However, a practical maturity path is emerging that allows us to achieve this ambition. First, we must institute common Port Call events to establish shared situational awareness; second, enrich vessel particulars for stronger feasibility checks; and third, integrate real-time and forecasted metocean to improve predictability. The result is next-generation PCO, that fuses Port Info with Digital Twins and AI to deliver proactive recommendations and event-driven coordination across stakeholders.  

These elements map directly to SDP 2025 key topics. For digital decarbonization, the digital twins expose avoidable emissions embedded in waiting time and identify inefficient sequences. For resiliency and agility, short-horizon predictors surface conflict before it happens, such as weather windows, resource clashes, or agitation-driven mooring stress, so plans can pivot without cascading delays. Looking ahead, the goal is to shorten the interval between sensing, deciding, and execution, so that coordination becomes proactive by default. In Amsterdam, we will share insights from Huelva to make the approach more concrete and reusable. For ports pursuing SDP 2025’s themes, an event-centric, standards-aligned digital twin provides the most direct route from data to operational advantage, offering a portable intelligence layer that seamlessly integrates into your port community ecosystem to improve safety and predictability and measurably advance efficiency, sustainability, and resilience.  

At NextPort, our vision is to make ports data-driven by default. We fuse Port Infrastructure, metocean data, vessel state, and marine services into an operational twin, then deliver prescriptive insight to people and systems through governed event streams. Fully interoperable with PCS/TOS/PMS/GIS (incl. FIWARE-aligned interfaces), our platform augments, but does not replace, your stack, which works to improve safety, predictability and efficiency, while laying a measurable path to decarbonization and resilience.

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Digital twins are proving to be a key driver of effective operations, providing users not just with data, but with actionable insights that would previously have gone unseen.

Alongside this, Latin America’s port landscape is expanding quickly, with countries like Brazil, Colombia, and Panama among the highest for year-on-year container growth in 2024, with Brazil up 19.6%. We’ve also seen Chancay Port in Peru come into operation, and Brazil’s STS 10 and Chile’s Puerto Exterior de San Antonio on the horizon.

But progress in the region isn’t without obstacles. Drought at the Panama Canal in 2023 caused major rerouting of maritime traffic. Economic strain in Argentina and drought in the Paraná River—critical for inland container transport—resulted in a container traffic decline of -29.5%, exposing how quickly established trade patterns can shift.

Even as growth rebounds, the mix of rapid expansion and episodic disruption is redefining the needs of the industry landscape. Ports and terminals that can read conditions early and adapt in real-time will be best positioned to capture periods of growth, and best prepared for potential disruptions.

Digital twin technology’s potential for the industry is clear, but its adoption across the Americas has been uneven. Many operators remain cautious, questioning whether their existing digital infrastructure is robust enough to handle the vast quantities of data that digital twins depend on. Others point to the urgent need for stronger cybersecurity measures to protect these new, advanced systems from emerging threats. Along with these concerns, a common question among many in the industry is: how will digital twin technology shape the industry’s future operations?

These are the questions that will define the next stage of digital transformation for ports in the Americas, with real-world examples being central to this discussion. In San Antonio, Chile, NextPort’s deployment at Hanseatic Global Terminals Latin America demonstrates how digital twins are already helping operators improve visibility and decision-making across their operational landscape. NextPort integrates real-time data from across the terminal and generates alerts when disruptions occur, or even when they are likely to occur in the near future. This includes logistics at quay, yard and gate. With access to advanced disruption notification, as well as detailed data on the disruptions themselves, operators can troubleshoot these problems before they become major issues within the port or terminal. Additionally, NextPort records and learns from historical operational data, which provides the foundation for continuous improvement across the system. For our partners, this technology is revolutionizing the way that ports and terminals operate.  

At Hanseatic Global Terminals Latin America, we believe Artificial Intelligence begins with understanding operations. By turning data chaos into intelligent operations, we’re empowering our teams to make faster, smarter decisions grounded in clarity and control.”

— Iván Deosdad, Senior Vice President of Operations, Hanseatic Global Terminals Latin America.

The next step is to further refine the system to filter, prioritize, and summarize these alerts, ensuring that operators receive the most relevant insights first and can focus their attention where it matters most.

TOC Americas 2025 provides an opportunity to move this conversation forward with others in the industry. At its core there is a shared recognition that, if thoughtfully integrated, digital twins can serve as both a driver of efficiency and resilience by positioning ports and terminals for long term growth amidst an evolving landscape. From forecasting demand to managing disruptions, this technology has the power to reshape how terminals operate, but the challenge lies in how quickly industry can put this into practice.

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We’re pleased to announce the release of NextPort’s NXP Terminals v1.5, which includes a targeted set of improvements that streamline how users interact with the platform. These updates are aimed at making terminal operations more intuitive, insightful, and responsive. From real-time 3D visualization to enhanced alarm management, this release reflects our ongoing commitment to providing our users with innovative new ways of managing terminal operations.

Some of the new features included in the update are:

TopView — 3D Visualization

3D Visualization is now available in our TopView application, offering real-time, interactive, and spatially accurate views of terminal operations. Users are now able to visualize equipment and vessels in motion with enhanced detail and scale accuracy.

Key Benefits:

• Real-time, 3D monitoring of terminal equipment.

• Interactive features like click and hover for CHEs, and follow modes for TTs.

FlowOps — Alarm filtering by role and type

FlowOps’s historical alarms tab now better aligns with user roles, only displaying alarms that are relevant to each user. Additionally, users now have the ability to filter by alarm type as well as by name.

Key Benefits:

• Cleaner and more relevant alarm views for each user.

• Improved usability and faster access to critical alerts.

• Enhanced filtering for better operational visibility.

LeanIQ — New Live Performance Dashboard

Updates to the LeanIQ application now include a set of new dashboards as well as performance improvements. These dashboards are fully integrated with Power BI pipelines and dataflows.

Key Benefits:

• Dashboards are now aligned with shift times for improved workflow visibility.

• New versions of the “Performance” and “Alarms” live dashboards are now available.

NextPort Terminals v1.5 is another step forward in building a more integrated, data-driven terminal environment. These updates are designed to provide greater clarity for users, increase system responsiveness, and support smoother terminal operations.

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