Maersk Line to set up a tracing system similar to Hapag-Lloyd¡äs
Hapag-Lloyd and Maersk Line have agreed to cooperate in increasing the safety of Dangerous Goods. In a meeting which was held today in Hamburg Maersk Line showed their interest to implement the Hapag-Lloyd watchdog program into their business processes.
This watchdog together with the Hapag-Lloyd FIS (Freight Information System) is continuously examining cargo data to identify anything suspicious. It has a database of more than 6,000 keywords which is constantly being added to and refined. Dangerous goods that are declared imprecisely, incorrectly or not at all can potentially pose a major risk to crews, ships, the environment and other cargo on board.
¡°By implementing a system similar to Hapag-Lloyd¡¯s watchdog program, we will be able to increase safety on board our 600 vessels and at the terminals we call,¡± says Soren Toft, Chief Operating Officer of Maersk Line. ¡°We will also improve our risk profile and at the same time we will be sending a strong message to the shippers who put safety at risk.¡±
Hapag-Lloyd has been developing the watchdog programme since 2011. With their many years of experience, Hapag-Lloyd¡¯s dangerous goods and IT experts played a key role in creating effective search routines. The dangerous goods department was established almost 50 years ago and was the first in the shipping industry. Since then, Hapag-Lloyd¡¯s internal specifications on dangerous goods have repeatedly formed the basis for statutory regulations and have thus become mandatory for the entire industry.
¡°Experience, know-how and secure processes are crucial for a safe transport of Dangerous Goods¡± says Anthony J. Firmin, Chief Operating Officer of Hapag-Lloyd. ¡°We are very happy that we were approached by other shipping lines to learn more about our watchdog program. The cooperation with Maersk Line is a very important step forward for increased safety and security of our entire industry.¡±
Last year, Hapag-Lloyd discovered 2,620 cases of incorrectly declared dangerous goods that were prevented from being shipped. Dangerous goods experts at Hapag-Lloyd investigated over 162,000 suspicious cases which were recorded using a newly developed watchdog software.
