Ports plan online slot booking for trucks

SLOW TRUCK turnaround time, bane of the lives of many in the freight industry, is to be addressed at Cape Town Container Terminal with the introduction of a computerised slot booking system. Oscar Borchards, business unit executive at the terminal, is hopeful the new system, to be implemented at all commercial ports next year, will go some way toward alleviating what has to be one of the most frequently aired complaints. The terminal will allocate collection availability in line with its capacity, enabling transport companies to prebook a pickup time. If the particular slot is already full, they will have to specify a different time. “If you do not book online it means you are out of the system and will have to wait for an extended period because we will have a commitment to service those people who have confirmed their booking.” Borchards says the current waiting time for trucks to enter and leave the terminal is “roughly 30 minutes” on average. “The new system will eliminate the current long queues we experience and we can probably then do the whole thing (in and out of the terminal) in 20 to 25 minutes because we are actually prepared for truckers, so it will work both ways.” Along with oft-questionable productivity, slow truck turnaround has been a longstanding problem at the terminal, freight forwarders at odds with Borchards over the actual length of delays. Hans Duncker and Luigi Maree, partners at CTC Worldwide Logistics in Cape Town, are among the dissenting voices. “The port has got to do something about the slow turnaround of trucks, often an hour or more when it should be 30 minutes at most,” says Duncker. Lance Leo, Cape Town branch manager of Cargo Movers Kazerne Container Depot, says of the new system there could be initial teething problems but believes the terminal will no doubt work it through, to the benefit of the port. Leo, who has access to around 20 sub-contracted trucks each day, says: “At the moment you can easily wait two to three hours to get into the port.” Neil Robertson, operations director of Robertson Freight, which outsources all its transport requirements, believes “it will be a good thing because if trucking companies legitimately book themselves in, one will have much better placement.” To be implemented toward the end of next year, at a cost still to be specified, the system will be a ‘first’ at all ports.