Giuliana Napolitano
São Paulo – As from February 16, all information and documents regarding the arrival and departure of cargo and ship docking in the Port of Santos (the largest and busiest port in Brazil, in the southeastern state of São Paulo) will be registered and tracked via Internet. The change is part of the Supervia Eletrônica de Dados (Electronic Data Superhighway – in a free translation) program, developed in a partnership between the University of São Paulo (USP) and by the federal government port authority.
According to one of the project coordinators, professor Eduardo Mario Dias, of the USP Polytechnic School, just with the paper economy, companies using the port should spend 7% less to load and unload products. "Not counting the reduction of bureaucracy," he stated to ANBA.
Before the project, all movement was registered in paper. According to Dias, apart from the costs and bureaucracy, this made the information little precise.
To the government, the largest benefit is greater inspection. "The project helps reduce frauds, as all documents are checked electronically and simultaneously by the various port departments," explained Dias.
The project is already in operation in the Port of Vitória (Espírito Santo state) and is being implemented in Rio de Janeiro, both also in southeastern Brazil. According to the professor, now the federal government wants to take information technology to all ports in Brazil. "The Superhighway will be adopted as the nation wide model," he informed.
The cost to ports, according to Dias, will only be maintenance. "USP does not sell the software as it was developed with federal government investment. It is now only necessary to implant it," he said.
The federal government investment, incidentally, was only US$ 785,000. "If we were to buy a ready made product, internationally, we would spend at least US$ 8 million," estimates the professor. The project took four years to be developed and implemented.
