Durban’s truck booking system panned

The plans by Transnet Port Terminals (TPT) to institute a truck booking system for the Durban container terminal (DCT) Pier 2 has met with disapproval from harbour carriers. Due to be implemented next month, TPT has postponed its introduction until further notice. Truckers told FTW that they doubted that this was any sort of management rethink on the viability of the scheme but rather them getting their Navis port management system ducks in a row. The system, where truckers are allocated a one-and-a-half hour period in which to be at the DCT, will improve the scheduling of road cargo and general productivity in the logistics chain, Hector Danisa, DCT terminal executive, told FTW. “This would enable TPT and transport companies to deploy resources more efficiently and effectively, and could also minimise truck congestion on Bayhead Road,” he added. “But it’s like inflicting the dinosaur age on us again,” said Kevin Martin, MD of Freightliner Transport and chairman if the Durban Harbour Carriers’ Association (DHCA), “especially after it proved so grossly wrong at the Durban multi-purpose terminal (MPT) where the transporters persuaded TPT to move away from a booking system which just wasn’t working.” And that move has proved itself, according to Carl Webb, MD of Project Logistics Management and representative of the SA Association of Freight Forwarders (Saaff) at the recent series of meetings between the ro-ro terminal users and the TPT management team who finally accepted the recommended change. “There has been a TPTmeasured 45% improvement in productivity at the MPT,” he told FTW, “after the introduction of the firstcome, first-served system. “After many years of complaint, we’ve finally proved to the TPT that the booking system is counterproductive. Now they want to introduce that same unworkable system at the DCT. It defies logic.” Martin is not against the concept of a booking system, but said: “A lot of blocks need to be put in place before they contemplate a booking system. “Last Friday’s third shift (the night shift) at DCT took 252 minutes for each truck move, because there were 27 rows of trucks waiting to go to the stack for berth 205 – the prime berth at Pier 2. The question has to be asked: How’s a booking system with a one-and-a-half hour (90- mins) allocated time going to help that? “They’ve got to learn to spread their loads more evenly, and use A-check as the planning board.” Raj Maistry, MD of transport brokers JVC Freight Carriers, was equally dismissive of the proposed booking system. “I don’t know how transporters are going to meet set-time bookings at DCT,” he said to FTW. “This is especially true for the guys coming from Johannesburg who are often held up by traffic congestion and such things as late container loading in Johannesburg. “And what about these truckers getting a late booking time, when they have to get back to Johannesburg at a set time, and where they might have a loading team standing-by waiting for them to arrive at the offloading point.” He saw a similar problem for the smaller, local hauliers, who only have a limited number of trailers to work with. “There’s a problem of equipment allocation for them,” he added. “They can’t always have a trailer ready to go to the terminal at the booked time, and they can’t afford to buy extra units which will just sit around waiting for that to happen. There are definitely going to be problems.”