Singapore yesterday reopened its Port Operations Control Centre (POCC) at PSA Vista in Pasir Panjang after about a year of upgrading works aimed at enhancing navigation safety and the protection of the marine environment in Singapore's port waters and the Singapore Strait.

According to the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA), the new centre is now equipped with state-of-the-art vessel traffic information system, costing about $10 million and first used in the newly commissioned POCC in Changi.

The upgraded system has the ability to handle up to 10,000 vessel tracks at any given time, double the capacity of the one before.

It is said to be able to integrate data from various sources such as radar, automatic identification system, harbour craft transponder system, closed-circuit television system and ship databases.

Apart from the control centres of the Vista and Changi, Singapore's another active control centre in downtown will be decommissioned after the re-opening of the POCC-Vista this time.

The MPA also noted that the two centres will be manned round the clock and are fully integrated to serve as a mutual back-up system to each other.

"In times of an emergency affecting one centre, the other centre can take over the entire operations swiftly and seamlessly." Lucien Wong, Chairman of MPA, said during the re-commissioning ceremony.

Singapore is the world's busiest port by vessel arrival tonnage, with more than 127,000 vessels totalling 2.12 billion gross tons calling at the port in 2011, Wong added.