ABSTRACT: The Hamburg Port Authority (HPA) was about 42 month, between May 2006 and October 2009, the work package leader for the Port ECDIS work package within the integrated European research project named EFFORTS (Effective Operation in Ports). The Port ECDIS team was completed by the company's SevenCs (Germany), CARIS BV (The Netherlands) and the ISSUS Martime Logistics / TUHH (Germany). The HPA was responsible for the development of a proposal for a new Port ENC standard which can be used for navigation in ports on board of vessels, in PPU's (Portable Pilot Units), in VTMI-Systems, in a state of the art marine simulator, for port maintenance and other harbor related tasks. Masters and pilots approaching a seaport usually use an Electronic Chart Display and Information System (ECDIS) to obtain the required navigational information they need. Also the Harbor Master needs the same up-to-date information for the admission process and to organize a safe and ease navigation in the port area. The common ECDIS standard supports navigation in the open sea and coastal areas; the Inland ECDIS standard was developed for navigation on inland waterways. The chart requirements for maneuvering big ships in confined waters like narrow fairways (harbor access channels), turning and harbor basins, for port maintenance (dredging), fairway and channel design and construction work, for TUG operation and for traffic management (VTMIS) are not sufficiently covered by the current ECDIS and Inland ECDIS standard with respect to chart scale, accuracy, chart objects, attributes (?object catalogue?, in future "feature catalogue") and topicality and call for a special Port ENC. Managing bigger vessels, increasing traffic, less harbor space, berth organization, dredging purposes etc. requires accurate and up-to-date high-resolution geographic and bathymetric data to provide all necessary information. The Port ENC it is not just about producing better electronic charts (the Port ENC or PENC) to be shown in the navigation displays of various applications. Port-ECDIS addresses user groups of other domains as well (maintenance, dredging, planning, simulation, engineering, TUG assistance, VTMIS, voyage or route planning). Often they have the need to look at the data not only as a chart but also in 3D. That means additional data representations are required. The Port ENC must be able to interact with other port related data sources for a more beneficial use and to improve the interoperability of harbor related tasks. The Port ENC could also play a fundamental role in the e-Navigation concept!

KEYWORDS: IHO S-57, Berth to Berth Navigation, Port ENC, Port ECDIS, Port of Hamburg, Portable Pilot Unit (PPU), ECDIS (Electronic Chart Display and Information System), Electronic Navigational Chart (ENC)

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