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each time), with the aim of identifying suspicious cargo to users for thorough investigation.”

According to Ken Rohlman of Hapag-Lloyd the concept of

HazCheck Detect is not a novel one. In fact, Hapag-Lloyd had developed as far back as 2010. The results were shocking, and they highlighted what is an industry problem. What was dis- covered was an in-house product like Hapag-Lloyd was not widely accepted by competitors. So when National Cargo Bu- reau purchased Exis, carriers such as Hapag-Lloyd support the industry wide available cargo screening tool.

By utilizing a library of keywords the program can identify shipments which may be questionable. The information is then forwarded to the carrier for further investigation. In order to validate the shipment, carriers will proceed to seek further doc- umentation and clari? cation from the shipper. An evaluation of documents and possibly pictures or a container inspection will be requested. Veri? ed mis-declared cargo will be reported back to HazCheck Detect to update the database. According to

Hapag-Lloyd this is where the shipment “disappears.” Once identi? ed, the shipper will often cancel a booking and try to re- book with another carrier. Herein lies an insurmountable safety issue. Carriers are prohibited from sharing information about shippers with other carriers which means that the shipment may then be placed unbeknownst on another vessel due to anti- trust and anti-monopoly laws in Europe. The ? nes that carriers issue on shippers mis-declaring cargo can hardly be enforced.

Therefore there are few repercussions.

The system is currently evolving to include the component of Arti? cial Intelligence. It is using Natural Language Pro- cessing, learning from historical data to further assist the con- tainer lines to improve rule generation and hit quality.

The next step will be to expand the AI capabilities by intro- ducing additional data points, such as container inspections, to increase con? dence of hits to further reduce risk.

As software evolves and carriers feedback is integrated into Hazcheck Detect, the algorithms will be able to pick up even more suspicious bookings. In the future it is hoped that the software will be able to detect inconsistencies in cargo weight versus declared product and other inconsistencies that raise red ? ags. In the meantime, we are glad to have this software available to increase the safety of our ships and for our mariners.

The Author 179,981 members

Bonvento

Matthew Bonvento an Associate Professor of Nautical

Science at the United States Merchant Marine Acad- emy. Previously he served as Senior Manager for

Safety, Security, Regulatory, and Quality Compliance for Vanuatu Maritime Services Ltd.

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