Containers are the foundation for a 'unit load' concept and they came into the market in the 50’s for the safe transportation of commodities. There has been a significant spurt in worldwide container transportation in the current decade and this inturn resulted in development of seaport container terminals across the globe. Today the competition among the terminals are remarkably high and all of them are gearing up to meet the challenges of handling mega vessels upto 10,000 to 12,000 TEUs capacity and beyond.
What is in a terminal ?
What is in a terminal ?
1. The Quay ( is a structure on the shore where ships can dock to load &
unload cargo. And this structure can have 1 or more berths (mooring
locations)
2. Yard ( Space to store the containers to be loaded / discharged on to/ from
the ship)
3. Equipments ( both the quay side and yard equipments)
4. Labour ( the admin & field work force).
In other words a typical container terminal consist of a land area with good infrastructures ( road/gate/lights etc) and superstructures (gantry cranes/ yard equipments etc) to carry out the quayside and the yard operations.
Yard management
Terminal Equipments
 |
| Gantry Crane & Straddle Carrier |
Selection of a container terminalBelow given are some vital elements which are considered by the shipping lines while selecting a container terminal to call their ships
- Geographical Location (Hub or not)
- Strategical Position ( Required deviations from international maritime
routes)
routes)
- Economical conditions ( Size of the commercial market, costs, tariffs etc)
- Physical Elements ( Draft, Berth length , access to sea, stack capacity, no.of
gantry cranes, CFS etc)
- Political Environment ( labour unions, strikes, work timings, quality of work
force)
- Environmental Conditions ( Monsoons/ Winter)
- Intermodal facilities (Rail / Road / Water connectivity)
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Great job, Asha, You, in a nutshell, elucidated what a container terminal is. Keep posting shipping knowledge. All the best.
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