The Québec government is providing $ 900,000 in financial assistance to Innovation maritime (IMAR) as part of the development of phase 2 of the Maritime Information System (SIM). The Minister for Transport and Minister responsible the Montreal region, Chantal Rouleau, made the announcement on Monday.

For 10 years, Ottawa no longer compiles information on the movements of ships on the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes.
After two years of negotiations, Chantal Rouleau, extended 900,000 of the $ 1.2 million required for phase two of the project.

The minister told TVA Nouvelles: “It [the federal government] has a role to play in this and I will continue to follow it”, adding that the smart corridor of the St. Lawrence will help economic recovery.
“Not to do it, it is true that it is a brake. Doing so is a plus, it is a necessity for our Québec economy, “she said.

Launched by IMAR and the St. Lawrence Economic Development Council (SODES), the SIM aims to overcome the difficulty experienced by stakeholders in the maritime industry in Québec who wish to access reliable and exhaustive data sources for the taking of decision. The implementation of phase 2 includes the collection, processing and dissemination of information concerning, in particular, the movement of ships and goods on the St. Lawrence.

“This is an opportunity that presented itself to us with the post-pandemic recovery that the government is preparing,” said Mathieu St-Pierre, CEO of SODES. The Maritime Information System will provide real-time information to the managers of the twenty Québec ports. “
“It is a better knowledge of the origin and destination of ships, it is a better knowledge of what is transported on board ships, it is a better knowledge of the spaces used at the quayside and all this data allow the integration of artificial intelligence in order to optimize the entire logistics chain, ”he continued on TVA Nouvelles.

This development phase will make the SIM a benchmark in terms of data and information relating to maritime traffic on the St.Lawrence and the Great Lakes, all by improving the functionalities of the Web interface and expanding the geographic scope of the tool.

“I invite the federal government to participate in the other activities that will be implemented in this smart economic corridor,” concluded Minister Rouleau, since the data from the smart corridor could also be used at ports located on the Great Lakes.

Key facts

The realization of phase 2 of the SIM will allow: to include all the ports in Québec in order to have a more complete and precise picture of the movements of goods on the St. Lawrence; to develop new activity and performance indicators; strengthen analyzes in order to highlight the way in which the Saint-Laurent system is positioned, particularly in terms of competitiveness compared to other economic centers; build bridges with other databases related to land or rail transport to gain a more comprehensive (multimodal) understanding of freight transport; establish new collaborations with research centers specializing in artificial intelligence, including the Data Valorization Institute and the Montreal Computer Research Center, in order to further analyze maritime data.