Lines strive to ensure ETA information is accurate,
and Portnet keeps them informed
PAX HAS been called, and the dust has begun to settle, after a bitter battle of words last year between Portnet and the shipping lines.
The congestion of '96 and '97 and the cost of lost working time for ships had set up all sorts of demands from the lines for some form of preferential entry to container quays for regular liner services whose scheduling integrity was being blown to hell-and-gone by jam-ups at the SA ports.
But it seemed, according to Portnet, that any such schemes - and the proposed first planned, first berthed policy was one of these - would depend on the lines being able to submit more accurate information than they actually appeared capable of doing.
This upset the lines, and the argument about accurate - inaccurate went back and forth - with the lines also accusing Portnet of arbitrarily changing stack date timing.
But this, according to Portnet, was due to a serious lack of timing integrity by the lines. Stack dates are allocated according to the berthing of vessels, and not according to the arrival information given by the lines - as this is extremely inaccurate, an anonymous, but senior, voice at the Port of Durban told FTW at that time.
So inaccurate was it, according to Portnet's newly-appointed c.e. Rob Childs, that in March last year he proposed that penalty charges be levied against lines and container operators who supplied late documentation and inaccurate ETA (estimated time of arrival) information.
Said Childs, the accuracy of information supplied to Portnet terminals by the lines and operators had not improved since an initial pilot project was undertaken in August 1997.
And heavy fines would be imposed from June 1, 1998, he told the lines and operators. A penalty system for six months during which the accuracy of discharge, load and restow volumes supplied for each vessel would be closely monitored.
The response from the lines was that any such penalty had to be a two-way deal. If Portnet congestion (or poor productivity or worker strike problems) was the guilty party behind vessels not being able to keep to scheduled ETAs - then the port authorities should also pay a penalty.
But June 1 came-and-went, and the penalty system quietly slipped into oblivion. A result, according to the ASL (Association of Shipping Lines), of a move from confrontation to communication.
We stressed to members that - for the benefit of the port as a whole - we had to work to improve the information we supplied to Portnet to the best possible level of accuracy, said Alan Rolf, operations manager of MSC (Mediterranean Shipping Company) and ASL chairman.
At the same time, Portnet is communicating well, doing its best to keep everyone informed, even at weekends.
This has helped to a large extent.
Maybe there is still room for improvement, Rolf added. But, he said, we now feel that both of us have to have a more positive attitude. Working together, not against each other,
We're moving in that direction now.
By Alan Peat
