AMSTERDAM--At the Port of Rotterdam, Europe's largest port and industrial area, safety and security could not be accomplished without a partnership between the private and public sector as well as multiple public agencies.

Sjaak Seen, chief of safety and operations with the Rotterdam area Fire Department, discussed the area's "long history of coordination" during a presentation to a group of U.S. trade journalist last week. In 1998, he said, the city started to combine efforts with local agencies because "if we didn't, we'd get in a lot of trouble." Other areas were not so forward thinking, he explained. An explosion at a firework factory in 2000 destroyed a neighborhood and killed 27 people. This served as a "wake-up call. They were asking how do we work together and how should we communicate," he said.

Twenty-five safety areas have been developed to integrate police, fire, medical and emergency personnel. The main objective of developing these groups is to promote multidisciplinary cooperation, and coordinate emergency management on a regional scale. There is also a drive to cooperate with army, power and water companies, and other stakeholders in the fields of crisis and disaster management. Seen said legislation has also been drafted to streamline efforts and create organizational boundaries between these parties (that bill will be debated in May, Seen said, and is expected to be made law).

Private companies are very much involved in this initiative, including many chemical firms in the area. A regional dispatch center funnels information to police, fire and EMS in the event of an incident. Seen said they are working on the project to be able to link video and other sensor data to it. "This is still growing and expanding," he said. "Verifying information is the most critical thing you need. [We are] busy all the time working with these proactive movements."

Safety is a main priority at the port for obvious reasons and others. "If the harbor is not safe enough, economics will drop," he said. "The Netherlands would then suffer from a lack of safety measures."

There are nearly 1.2 million people who live and work in the Rotterdam area and there is a co-existence of housing, industry and transportation infrastructure located close to its perimeters. Because of these facts, J.C. Lems, director/chief harbor master/port security officer for the Port of Rotterdam, said port security is more than the worrying about the terrorism component. It is also focused on small-scale incidents, such as the number of suicide attempts that occur each year.

But the big issue continues to be being aware of what is entering and exiting the port on a regular basis. "The most important thing is who and what is at the terminal. Each terminal conducts an individual risk analysis," he said. There are currently 160 terminals at the Port of Rotterdam.

It currently scans 5 percent to 10 percent of its cargo with fixed portals as well as mobile scanning equipment. Containers are chosen for screening based on a risk analysis conducted by Customs. "Customs used to be heavily focused on goods," Lems said, "but now that has changed to how processes are secured."

In the Harbor Coordination Center, video walls are used to provide officers with situational data. The screens provide the names of each ship that is coming into or leaving the port as well as others anchored offshore. The data is received from the boats themselves, who are required to notify the port of their presence or the vessels are recognized through radar. On the video wall, each boat is coordinated in a selected color to let officers know the risk-status. Red, for example, means dangerous goods are on board, brown dictates explosives, blue indicates a tanker with liquid cargo and green show these vessels carry no dangerous goods. "It is important to know what boats and cargo are in the area," Lems said. "We don't have a contained area. We do all we can to keep it safe."