Conceptual Comparison of Port Commmunity System and Blockchain Scenario for Maritime Document Handling

Recent developments in science and technology along with massive digitalization encourage businesses to look into new possibilities for products and services. Certain upcoming innovations are being reinvented from previously established concepts and are now feasible due to technological advances. The purpose of the paper is to study and compare the existing innovative concepts of document handling in maritime shipping, in particular Port Community System and the blockchain scenario for document coordination. The present study builds a conceptual comparison based on mixed-method, incorporating theoretical framework and extensive data from qualitative interviews that were conducted with key actors of the maritime industry in Denmark. Having the overview of both concepts, the results showed that blockchain scenario for shipping document handling has been developed as an exact solution to issues that Port Community System was intended to solve: speed-up of communication, data security, elimination of the role of central gatekeeper, establishing point-to-point communication with transactions visibility and permissioned transparency. The study contributes to research by being first revealing a direct similarity between the two concepts and providing a critical overview of each. Moreover, the case could serve as a basis for further analysis of port network communication.