Trucks that arrive when the boxes do

Daan has four trucks that collect containers from the terminals at Maasvlakte, in the port of Rotterdam. His drivers are booked to collect boxes off ships that are often hours late. They queue at the gate for a ship still out at sea, and he pays them for every hour of sitting. Some days a truck waits so long it misses its next job. With xMap Flows, Daan built Tidewatch. Every fifteen minutes, over the Maasvlakte terminals, Tidewatch listens for the container ships nearby, notices the moment one moors at the terminal, checks it is carrying his clients' boxes, waits three hours while the cranes unload, and tells the driver to set off. On Wednesday the ship his drivers need is six hours late. Tidewatch stays quiet until it moors at half past one, then sends the first driver at half past four. He is in and out in forty minutes. That week the trucks wait eleven hours less. Daan stopped paying for waiting. His trucks now arrive when the boxes do.

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