Singapore reopens port operations center
Singapore has reopened its port operations control centre (POCC) at PSA Vista in Pasir Panjang after a year of upgrading works aimed at enhancing navigation safety and the protection of the marine environment in its port waters and the Singapore Strait, Reuters reports.
The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) said the new centre is now equipped with state-of-the-art vessel traffic information system, costing about $10 million and first used in the newly commissioned POCC in Changi.
The upgraded system has the ability to handle up to 10,000 vessel tracks at any given time, double the capacity of the one before. It would be able to integrate data from various sources such as radar, automatic identification system, harbor craft transponder system, closed-circuit television system and ship databases.
Apart from the control centers of the Vista and Changi, Singapore’s another active control centre in downtown will be decommissioned after the re-opening of the POCC-Vista this time.
The MPA also noted that the two centers will be manned round the clock and are fully integrated to serve as a mutual back-up system to each other.
“In times of an emergency affecting one centre, the other centre can take over the entire operations swiftly and seamlessly,” Lucien Wong, Chairman of MPA, said during the re-commissioning ceremony. Singapore is the world’s busiest port by vessel arrival tonnage, with more than 127,000 vessels totaling 2.12 billion gross tons calling at the port in 2011, Wong added.