Brest is the main commercial port of the Brittany region. The port is owned by the Brittany Region and operated/exploited by a shareholding company whose investors are the Region, the City of Brest and the Chamber of Commerce. This engagement of public parties reflects the importance of the port for the import of goods, including energy, and export of regional ones. In 2024, the port has been officially integrated in the core European transport network, a simple recognition of the situation.
As bases of this recognition are the important roles of the port for the provisioning of energy: currently oil and gas, and a strong engagement in energy transition with a new terminal dedicated to offshore wind energy and studies in progress to provide LNG and H2/ e-methanol in the future.
In that background, BrestPort has set innovation as part of its development plan. Digitalisation is one main component of this vision and Overheat a carrier to boost new IT solutions for modelling and e-operating the maritime waters under its responsibility. On the long run our goal is to become a demonstrator site for advanced solutions: S-100 for data, digital twin for applications and IA for optimisation.
Brest Port will contribute to the specifications and test of the digital “SAR-S100” scenario in the port of Brest. “Digital SAR S100” tends for a digital “Search & Rescue” service based on the new S-100 e-navigation standard of the International Maritime Organisation.
In case of incident on board a vessel, several rescue teams can be involved: the coastal surveillance agencies, the rescue vessel and helicopter, teams on board, vessels around the area of interest, and finally the port itself: the firefighters, the harbour master, the maritime pilots and port personnel. The expected added value of the “digital SAR S-100” is to enable a true sharing of the situational picture on board and around the vessel between all concerned actors, each of them being also capable of enriching the situational picture with its own information. When the vessel arrives in the port area the port must transmit key information to the SAR team such as the navigation chart, navigation conditions, the quay of destination…). A continuous data exchange must be established between the vessel and the port actors.
Overheat is a follow up of previous development/test of S-100 data with the French Hydrographical Organisation (Shom) and of digital port portals enabling sharing port information (chart, tides, …).