Intelligent Transportation System architecture to address challenges of traditional shipping operations (PELRA)

Less developed remote areas have few things in common, namely small scale economy and low connectivity. Those areas, particularly in Indonesia, rely very much upon the traditional shipping service provided by wooden ships, labeled as PELRA standing for Pelayaran Rakyat, meaning People's Shipping. The challenges of PELRA are huge and fundamental, namely outdated ships, old-fashioned business processes, no insurance coverage, low human resource qualifications and low productivity. As a low-cost shipping service provider, they are often the only connector of the above remote areas. Thus, they play a vital role of remote area's economy, especially, small islands in an archipelagic country. Conventional approaches to address PELRA'S challenges are usually in the following areas, i.e., improvement of port infrastructure and cargo handling performance or provision of nearly free port charges, fail. A breakthrough towards adopting Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) seems to be very promising. Its benefit cost ratio in the next 5 years shows that, the benefit of using ITS for PELRA goes far beyond its investment and operation costs.