DigiCargo, a South African start‑up spun out of Pace Online, is replacing paper vehicle tally sheets at roll‑on/roll‑off (RoRo) terminals in Port Elizabeth, East London and Durban with a mobile, offline‑capable platform and an AI‑enabled dashboard that gives supervisors near real‑time visibility.
From paper tallies to a SaaS terminal platform
The company was founded in 2023 by James Zwane and Marlon Murahwa as a spin‑off from software original equipment manufacturer Pace Online. The idea traces back to 2018, when Pace Online presented a mobile tally prototype to SA Cargo Services. After refining a scanner application and prototype, DigiCargo moved into full production in 2024.
Deployment began with the Stevedoring App in Port Elizabeth in January 2024, followed by roll‑outs to East London and Durban. According to the company, the platform has recorded more than 700 000 vehicles across those three ports.
How the system works
The Stevedoring App lets tally clerks on the quay identify vehicles using a vehicle identification number scan, barcode, QR code, camera or manual entry. DigiCargo says a single tally entry takes about three taps and roughly nine seconds, while also capturing the vehicle’s location and the driver.
- Identification methods: VIN scan, barcode, QR code, camera or manual entry
- Speed: roughly nine seconds per tally
- Offline capability: data is stored locally and synchronised when connectivity is available
- Concurrent crews: multiple crews can tally the same vessel simultaneously
- Visibility: results aggregated through an AI‑enabled web dashboard for supervisors
In an e‑mail interview with ITWeb, Murahwa said the initial concept focused on identifying vehicles with scanners, but that digitising the tally alone did not solve broader operational challenges. “That’s what pushed us from a counter to a terminal platform, and eventually to software‑as‑a‑service (SaaS),” he said.
Why offline and concurrent tallying matter
Ports are challenging environments for wireless connectivity; DigiCargo built offline storage and synchronisation into the app to ensure operations continue even when networks are unreliable. Allowing several crews to tally a vessel at once avoids bottlenecks at the quay and ensures a single consolidated record is available through the platform.
The aggregation and presentation of data on an AI‑enabled dashboard aims to give supervisors operational visibility that paper sheets cannot. This includes faster reconciliation between terminals, shipping lines and agencies where multiple parties are involved in vehicle movements.
Roll‑out ambitions and next steps
DigiCargo is positioning the platform for ports across Africa and the Middle East. The move from a device‑centric tally app to a terminal platform and SaaS model suggests the company expects recurring revenue from port operators and service providers rather than one‑off device sales.
| Deployment | Location | Start |
|---|---|---|
| Stevedoring App | Port Elizabeth | January 2024 |
| Stevedoring App | East London | 2024 (post‑Jan) |
| Stevedoring App | Durban | 2024 (post‑East London) |
For South African ports, the promise of digital tallying is straightforward: fewer paper errors, faster vessel processing and better information sharing across the supply chain. Whether those gains translate into measurable improvements in turnaround times and cost reductions will depend on wider adoption by terminals, shipping lines and agencies.
The platform’s ability to operate without reliable network coverage, to reconcile multiple crews’ tallies and to present consolidated data through machine learning‑assisted dashboards addresses practical frictions that have long afflicted RoRo operations. DigiCargo’s next test will be scaling the service beyond the three South African ports where it has already recorded activity and proving that its SaaS model can sustain wider regional deployments.
“Our main client, SA Cargo, approached us with problems they were having in ports, having realised technology could relieve them,” Murahwa said.
For port operators and cargo handlers working on tight margins and with periodic network constraints, a lightweight, offline‑capable tallying app linked to a central dashboard could be an affordable step towards digital transformation. DigiCargo’s recent deployments show how a focused application of mobile scanning, offline sync and dashboarding can tackle a very specific operational problem — and possibly unlock wider efficiencies if adopted across the ecosystem.
