Digital Media: Long Beach, Philadelphia, San Diego

Long Beach port publications from the late 1950s through the 2000s are now available online. The Philadelphia Regional Port Authority (PRPA) has completed a comprehensive new video production highlighting the port’s facilities, services and future development. The Port of San Diego is now offering a mobile app designed to help travelers plan and coordinate cruises to and from San Diego.

Long Beach port publications from the late 1950s through the 2000s are now available online. The Harbor Highlights and later Interport magazines cover the years 1958-2005, and feature stories on day-to-day port activities, photos – many in color – of important events and guests, and the port's annual reports, which show how trade, cargo and revenue developed during the last half-century.

Early highlights include the opening of the Administration Building (spring 1960), the port's 50th anniversary (winter 1961), the arrival of containerization (summer 1962) and a self-guided tour of the port ("See-Lane Edition," 1964). Later issues focus on trade and infrastructure development, with items on bigger ships coming to Long Beach, the expansion of Pier J, the Alameda Corridor and more. To see the publications, visit http://www.polb.com/about/history/historicalpubs.asp.

Also available on the historical publications page is a history of the port by pier from 1909 to 2002 and a project history from 1970 to 2002. And in the history pages are a decade-by-decade history of the port, biographies of harbor commissioners from 1925 to the present and a link to the port's centennial website. Go to polb.com/history.

The publications are available to view online and to download; each magazine or report is also fully searchable. As the port locates more material it will be added to the site.

The Philadelphia Regional Port Authority (PRPA) has completed a comprehensive new video production on the Port of Philadelphia. The video, to be launched on a variety of platforms, was produced by PRPA’s Marketing Department and will be a central component of the PRPA’s marketing, promotion and educational efforts.

The video runs about six minutes and contains entirely new aerial and ground-level footage of the Port of Philadelphia’s marine terminals and cargo activity. It also spotlights key off-port facilities, such as the PRPA-owned Philadelphia Wholesale Produce Market. Also highlighter are the PRPA’s Packer Avenue Marine Terminal, Tioga Marine Terminal, Pier 82, Pier 84, the Forest Products Distribution Center, and the Automobile Processing Facility, are also highlighted.

One portion of the video is an animated sequence depicting the future Southport Marine Terminal, and its companion facility, Southport West. The sequence marks the location of the future Southport complex, shows how future activity there will look, and how it will interact with the port’s highway and rail infrastructure. The animated sequence also depicts future development at Piers 122 and 124.

A series of companion videos, each about 30 seconds in length, provide additional information about PRPA’s individual facilities and will be used for a variety of purposes.

PRPA will shortly post the video and companion videos on its website, www.philaport.com. PRPA will provide further information when this occurs. It also plans to distribute the new video to area schools and neighborhood groups.

The Port of San Diego is now offering a mobile app designed to help travelers plan and coordinate cruises to and from San Diego.

The "CruiseSchedule Port of San Diego" is a free download from the App Store designed for iPhones and iPads. The app's release coincided with the start of the port's 2013-2014 cruise season.

The app provides updated information on this year's cruise season schedule with full voyage itineraries. It also includes details about:

Scheduled cruise calls
Cruise line information
Cruise ship information
Cruise itineraries
Long-term parking options

The app was developed earlier this year by Neil Kutchera, a Port Everglades employee and a candidate in AAPA’s Professional Port Manager (PPM®) program. Other versions were then made for other ports. He said approximately 1,000 copies of CruiseSchedule are downloaded each month.

"The feedback I have received has been overwhelmingly positive. The favorite features have been the interactive itinerary maps and deck plans," said Mr. Kutchera, who earlier this year completed a residency internship at the Port of San Diego in fulfillment of a PPM® program requirement. "If someone has booked a cruise, they always want to open the deck plans to zoom in and see their cabin."

San Diego kicked off its cruise season on Thursday, September 19, with the arrival of Holland America’s Zaandam. The season runs from September through May. Currently 70 vessels are scheduled to arrive, but, says the port, that number may change as the season progresses.

Princess Cruises’ Sapphire Princess at San Diego’s B Street Cruise Terminal on October 17, 2013.