With increase in global containerised trade, terminals for handling container traffic have sprouted all across the world. Many of the larger container ports of the world have more than one container terminal. In India, Mundra Port and Chennai Port have two container terminals each while Jawaharlal Nehru Port (JNP) has three terminals with plans for a fourth terminal. Similarly, other ports in the world are having multiple container terminals which are patronized by different shipping lines. As shipping lines have multiple services operating through different terminals, the importance of having an efficient 'inter-terminal trucking' (ITT) system becomes paramount to prevent any misconnections or failures to connect resulting in shut-out of containers.  With more and more cargo getting containerised, and more and more ships making port calls into different terminals, the nonefficiency of ITT is now becoming a problem for the trade as it is exposing the shipping lines to higher costs by way of 'shut-out charges', additional ground rent and 're-nomination' charges. However, container terminals, per force, have different priorities and probably rightly so. In their list of priorities, they first concentrate upon loading and discharging the ship that is alongside. By doing so, their equipment comprising of trailers, prime movers, top-lifters, reach-stackers are all used for ship operations. Thereafter, secondly, some equipment is used for clearing the import containers that are lying and using up the space inside the terminal. The third priority is given to receiving and stacking export containers for the coming vessels. The inter-terminal trucking is given last priority. To make matters worse, and in India particularly, the rail services being provided cannot afford to bring in container rakes for a specific terminal. (A rake is train comprising of 90 TEUs kept on specially-designed rail wagons. A TEU or Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit is a measure of containerised traffic that relates to a standard ISO box of 20 feet length). Though all attempts are made to bring in dedicated rakes, this cannot be effected very efficiently and so more 'mixed' rakes flow into multiple-terminal ports rather than 'dedicated' rakes. Thus the need to have an extremely efficient ITT system, which will go a long way in increasing the throughput of a port and also help in reducing costs for the trade.  JNPT handles 4.1 million TEUs out of India's containerised throughput (both import and export) of about 7.4 million TEUs through its three terminals. While JNPCT (Jawaharlal Nehru Port Container Terminal) has a capacity of 1.1 million TEUs, NSICT (Nhava Sheva International Container Terminal) has 1.2 million TEUs and GTI (Gateway Terminals India) has 1.8 million TEUs, it becomes important for the port and the railways to look deeper into the ITT problems of a port that effectively handle 55% of India's container throughput.  It is a fact that privatisation of terminals, rakes etc has helped and gone a long way in adding capacity to the port infrastructure, but now a time has come to look more deeply into the design aspects of the ITT system that was probably good at a time when the capacity was less. With more and more terminals coming up in the area (the fourth container terminal at JNP) and Indira Container Terminal at Mumbai, the focus on ITTs should not be lost at this crucial stage.  Capt Gautama, Consultant - Projects and Legal" for Sea Consortium Shipping India, is perhaps the most qualified shipping executive in India. The string of qualifications to his credit are: MA(AU), MA(BU), M Sc, LLB (Bom), LLM (Bom), Dip TD, DEM, FIISA, FICA, FNMIS, FIII, MIMarTech., MIMA., etc. He is also a faculty with many management institutes. (The views expressed are purely personal) |
