Hapag-Lloyd and Maersk Line to cooperate on dangerous goods safety

Hapag-Lloyd and Maersk Line have agreed to cooperate in increasing the safety of Dangerous Goods. In a recent meeting in Hamburg, Maersk Line showed their interest in implementing the Hapag-Lloyd watchdog program into their business processes.

This watchdog together with the Hapag-Lloyd FIS (Freight Information System) is continuously examining cargo data to identify anything suspicious. It has a database of more than 6000 keywords which is constantly being added to and refined. Dangerous goods that are declared imprecisely, incorrectly or not at all can potentially pose a major risk to crews, ships, the environment and other cargo on board.

"By implementing a system similar to Hapag-Lloyd's watchdog program, we will be able to increase safety on board our 600 vessels and at the terminals we call," says Soren Toft, Chief Operating Officer of Maersk Line. "We will also improve our risk profile and at the same time we will be sending a strong message to the shippers who put safety at risk."

Hapag-Lloyd has been developing the watchdog program since 2011. With their many years of experience, Hapag-Lloyd's dangerous goods and IT experts played a key role in creating effective search routines.

The dangerous goods department was established almost 50 years ago and was the first in the shipping industry. Since then, Hapag-Lloyd's internal specifications on dangerous goods have repeatedly formed the basis for statutory regulations and have thus become mandatory for the entire industry.

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