Port of Durban heads for gridlock - One road serves multiple cargo facilities

ALAN PEAT
THE PORT of Durban is heading for gridlock – with harbour facilities rapidly expanding their capacity, and the access road structure already inadequate for the volumes of heavy commercial traffic using it. The Durban freight industry has already declared war on the issue, and has accused Transnet, the department of transport and the Durban city transport authorities of a lack of focus on freight transport. The thinking in the city, according to Paul Rayner, MD of DTB Cartage, is too concentrated on the future movement of people (especially with the World Cup due in 2010) – and with very little attention paid to the movement of goods in-and-out of the Port of Durban. “We’ve been talking to the city and other relevant authorities for years,” he told FTW, “and nothing has yet happened. “It’s all leading to a potential traffic debacle.” No-one denies that the likes of the World Cup will earn the city megabucks in revenue – but they all point out that the future of the city is dependent on the harbour, and it could be completely locked up unless urgent action is taken to upgrade the obsolete transport arteries to-and-from the southern end of the port. And it’s here that all the main cargo facilities of the harbour are located – including the Durban container terminal (DCT), the new Pier 1 (in the process of being vastly upgraded), the future car terminal, and the Island View Storage (IVS) oil terminal. “The main concern is that most of the road traffic servicing these facilities is channelled down only one road (Bayhead Road),” said Kevin Martin, CEO of Freightliner Transport and vice-chairman of the harbour carriers division of the SA Association of Freight Forwarders (Saaff). “Short-term solutions such as the new bridge joining Bayhead Road to Sydney Road – designed to relieve pressure on the South Coast Road, and still two years off completion – the new gate control at DCT and the more streamlined paper flow system from SA Port Operations (Sapo), are just a band-aid.” The Congella bridge, for example, will help to get traffic into Bayhead Road – but the question then, Martin added, is where to from there? “Both DCT and Pier 1 will be servicing larger vessels, with increased numbers of containers flowing both on-and-off vessels – and, even with better stack planning, it will be imperative to keep the stack areas fluid,” he said. “To expect a one-road bottleneck to accomplish this – especially a road that is in poor shape – is just not practical or workable.” The problem with this one-road access is that it is extremely vulnerable. All it needs is one major truck accident, or – like last week – the implementation of a new gate control system at IVS slowing down the movement of tankers carrying liquid bulk, and congestion rapidly results. It can prevent any vehicles getting through to other areas – and, said Martin, a delay of even an hour within the system can take anything up to three-to-six hours to clear. And that’s at the moment. The future could be considerably more gloomy. The whole issue has reached a critical juncture, and is currently occupying a lot of the agenda at meetings of the Durban Port Liaison Committee (DPLC), according to Allister Donald, GM of Grindrod Ship's Agency, who is chairman of the committee, which falls under the auspices of the Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI). “We can’t just sit and wait to see what happens,” he told FTW. Donald is, however, encouraged that the various authorities seem to be giving freight road transport more priority in their thinking – and at reasonably high level. The DPLC has already started a series of meetings with Transnet, the city authorities and the department of transport. “Perception of the problem at city level seems to be moving upward,” said Donald, “although its starting from a very low base. “But the three bodies are accelerating their thinking on the port freight issue.”