PE advances haulage plan to speed in-port productivity

Alan Peaat
RECENT COMPLAINTS about port productivity in Port Elizabeth have not gone unheeded by container terminal manager Danny Reddy.
“We had very strong winds recently and an unfortunate build-up of vessels at the port,” he told FTW.
“This put a lot of pressure on the equipment and a lot of breakdowns added to the strain on the gantry cranes and straddle carriers.”
But Reddy and his terminal management team have held meetings with the PE freight industry to examine the problems, and come up with solutions.
An initial solution is to put container vessels on the combi-terminal at PE with private hauliers underneath the gantry cranes to move the containers.
Another planned move will please the critics who talked to FTW. They complained that the old system of using Foden haulers with trailers to ferry containers to and from the stack - and leaving the straddle carriers to load the unit trains and service road vehicles - was much more effective than using straddles for all the in-terminal container moves.
Reddy agreed that this was a better use of equipment.
“The long distances that the straddle carriers had to travel did not allow them to operate at maximum efficiency,” he told FTW. “And the age of this equipment also led to frequent breakdowns and added pressure on the remaining machines.”
Reddy had plans to officially introduce the hauler system on December 1, but has now advanced the start of the programme.
“This will take a lot of pressure off the straddle carriers and be a much more efficient way of moving containers around in the terminal.”
Reddy has also instituted more management presence on the terminal.
“This will ensure that the system is brought back under control.”