Quaysides, ro-ro decks and container yards put heavy vehicles, visiting drivers and people on foot in the same space, on every tide. The cameras are usually already there. The question is what they are watching for.
HSE's own guidance on workplace transport in docks lists the things port safety managers already know: vehicles reversing near open quay edges, pedestrians and vehicles sharing access on ro-ro bridges and linkspans, plant with restricted visibility such as reach stackers and terminal tractors, and a steady flow of drivers who do not know the site. The Safety in docks Approved Code of Practice (L148) replaced the Docks Regulations in 2014 and puts segregation of people and vehicles at the centre of the duty.
Three things make that harder in a port than in a warehouse.
The layout moves. A container stack is a wall this week and a road next week. A ro-ro discharge turns a quiet quay into a motorway for forty minutes. The traffic plan drawn in the office describes a site that exists some of the time.
Half the drivers are visitors. Hauliers, agency drivers, ship's crew, contractors. They have had the induction, and they have never seen the quay in the dark or at the moment two vessels work at once.
The quay is long and the team is small. A safety lead with a handful of supervisors cannot be on a kilometre of quayside on every shift. Walks and audits sample it. The cameras have been looking at all of it the whole time, for security, with nobody watching for safety.
The cameras have been looking at the whole quay the whole time, for security, with nobody watching for safety.
The same events a good supervisor would stop if they were standing there:
Each event is recorded with camera, time, type and clip, and the picture builds by zone and by shift. The value in a port is rarely the single clip. It is seeing that the same crossing produces a near miss at every ro-ro discharge, or that the night shift's route is not the day shift's.
The Bristol Port Company was an early customer and later an investor. After going live on its existing cameras it reported more than 90% fewer potential safety breaches within three months, a figure published by Cambridge Enterprise. Its chief executive's description of the change is the one we would choose:
"Operatives on the next shift are more alert to keeping themselves and each other safe. I am impressed by how much useful detail we have gained."
David Brown, CEO, The Bristol Port Company
With the Port of Dover, our work won the Safer Logistics award at the SHE Awards 2025. Dover's process improvement manager put the mechanism simply: the biggest advantage has been the H&S conversations started by the clips.
We also work with Peel Ports, Warrenpoint Harbour, Portsmouth International Port, PD Ports, Falmouth Harbour and the Port of Tyne, among others across the UK, Europe and Australia.
What tends to happen is the same in each: the first fortnight produces a handful of clips that start conversations nobody had been able to have, because until then the only evidence was a report form. Behaviour at the covered crossings changes in the first weeks. The useful part is that, months later, it has stayed changed, because the cameras are still there and everyone knows it.
Access to the camera streams you choose to cover, usually a handful on the highest-risk zones to start, typically four to twelve. Footage is processed and stored in the UK and kept only as long as your retention policy requires. Faces can be blurred where you need them to be. We provide an IT overview and our data-handling documents before anything is connected; port IT teams have been through this with us before.
It does not need new cameras in most cases, and it does not watch the whole estate. It watches the zones you choose, properly.
With one zone and a question. The ro-ro linkspan where the near misses cluster. The crossing by the gatehouse. The quay where visiting drivers walk back to their cabs. Two weeks on one camera, with a written report of what it saw, is usually enough to know whether the thing you suspected is the thing that is happening.
In most cases, yes. It connects to existing camera streams; position and image quality matter, and we assess each camera before relying on it. Where a zone has no usable camera we can supply one, including portable units for areas that change.
No. It records what happens around them, including the times when they are not there. Several ports have used the record to show where a marshal is needed and when, rather than to remove one.
The people the port nominates, typically the safety lead and operations managers. Clips are attached to events, not browsed; faces can be blurred; access is logged. Some ports have chosen to use footage in formal processes, and some have chosen not to; that is the port's policy, not ours.
Our work is on the quay and in the terminal: vehicles, people, plant and exclusion zones. Work inside vessels raises different questions of access, consent and connectivity, which we discuss case by case.
Typically one to two weeks from camera access to the first events, on the cameras chosen to start. Our team handles the assessment, configuration and training.
No. It runs on the same cameras but looks for safety events. Security monitoring continues as it did; the safety view is separate and has its own access.
Your port already has cameras on the quay. Two weeks on the one that worries you most will tell you what they have been watching. Safety Mapping: a free two-week trial on one camera.