Only 5% of Ports Have Fully Implemented Community Systems, Survey Finds

Only 5% of surveyed port stakeholders say their port has fully implemented a Port Community System (PCS), according to global research from logistics software vendor Kalé Logistics. The figure means that 79% of respondents report their port lacks a fully operational PCS — an electronic platform that manages data distribution between the many stakeholders that make up a port community.

The gap carries direct commercial weight. A PCS connects public and private organisations across a port through a shared digital environment, allowing data to be securely exchanged and reused. Kalé says this cuts paperwork, congestion, delays and duplicated processes, while improving cargo visibility and coordination across the parties that move freight through the gate.

Who is blocking adoption?

The survey, published in Kalé's "State of Port Digital Readiness & Stakeholder Adoption of Port Community Systems" report, points squarely at regulators. Half of respondents — 50% — named customs agencies as the primary barrier to PCS adoption. Another 35% pointed to other government agencies.

Willingness to adopt follows the same pattern. Customs authorities and freight forwarders, despite their central role in cargo clearance and trade facilitation, recorded the lowest willingness to adopt a PCS, at 33% each. In other words, the actors positioned closest to the paperwork are the least eager to digitise it.

The research combined stakeholder surveys from port authorities, shippers, freight forwarders, customs brokers and government officials, giving the findings a cross-community view rather than a single operator's perspective.

What does the skills gap look like?

Beyond regulatory resistance, 22% of respondents flagged digital skills gaps as a barrier to adoption. The report also found that uptake remains particularly weak in low-income countries, where both institutional capacity and training resources tend to be thinner.

For shippers and forwarders trading through those corridors, the practical consequence is familiar: fragmented information flows, slower clearance and weaker end-to-end visibility at exactly the ports least equipped to absorb disruption.

Why the stakes are rising

Kalé argues that wider PCS adoption gives port communities the real-time information and coordination needed to manage disruption, improve cargo flows and build more resilient trade corridors. The report frames the technology not as a standalone fix but as infrastructure that only pays off when every major stakeholder — customs included — participates in the same data environment.

Vineet Malhotra, Co-Founder and Director at Kalé, said the pressures on ports are multiplying faster than their digital responses. "Ports are facing greater supply chain disruption, congestion, labour volatility, and compliance demands, but technology alone cannot solve these pressures while information remains fragmented between organisations and regulatory systems," he said.

His prescription extends beyond software. "The next phase of port digitalisation requires policy, people, and technology to move together, with authorities enabling trusted data exchange and ensuring developing markets are not left behind," Malhotra said.

What comes next

The report's conclusion reads as a policy agenda as much as a technology one. Kalé highlights three levers: regulatory reform to unlock customs and agency participation, improved digital skills to close the 22% skills-gap barrier, and greater collaboration across port communities so that data actually moves between organisations rather than stopping at their boundaries.

With only one port in twenty reporting a fully implemented PCS, and with the least willing adopters sitting at the regulatory choke points of global trade, port digitalisation looks set to advance at the pace of policy reform rather than at the pace of available software.