RAY SMUTS TO OSCAR Borchards’ way of thinking, truck congestion at the Cape Town Container Terminal could be greatly alleviated if port users played the game according to the rules. Responding to a barrage of complaints from the Cape Town Harbour Carriers’ Association through chairperson Alison Muller (FTW September 9, 2005), Borchards, the terminal’s business unit manager, makes the point that South African Port Operations allows on average three days for export containers to be brought into the port. This enables the terminal to effect proper planning and prepare containers prior to vessel working, allowing also for collection of import boxes. “The reality is that containers do not arrive evenly over the three-day period. The majority are brought in on the final day, resulting in a build-up of trucks - more outside than we can accommodate at specific times.” Borchards concedes truckers are required to make a certain number of trips a day which can be adversely affected in the event of a truck build-up at the terminal entrances but is also aware there are truckers lacking capacity to cope with the number of containers to be handled. “The operating hours of depots/packhouses/distribution centres are not aligned to the operating hours of the terminal, and furthermore most importers and exporters do not operate after 18h00 in the evening. “We handle between 700 and 800 boxes daily but only around 20 boxes a night so it was clearly not worth our while to remain open,” he added. Peak periods “Thursdays and Fridays are our peak periods for container acceptance by weekend vessel callers. We have found the majority of truckers arrive the last day of the stack window, a few hours before it closes, resulting in a high number of trucks calling at the same time and all expecting to be serviced.” Borchards says Sapo has found it necessary to engage all the role players in order to address the bottlenecks, first of which was the Cape Town Harbour Carriers’ Association. Some changes since effected: l A second gate was opened three months ago to cater for the increase in traffic and truckers advised upfront which gates to use. l Firm stack dates leave Sapo rather than the previous provisional stack dates. l The documentation centre will be moved to A-Check, offering a one-stop service for all documents. l On a national level, Sapo is working toward a “seamless flow” of containers moving between depots and the ports. Borchards says the build-up and “irregular calling” of trucks has necessitated a review of the container delivery and collecting patterns at the terminal “The methodology of a slot system would be to plan the movement of containers with shipping lines and land-based service providers. “The port turnaround time of vessels is key to our business and the total supply chain evolves around it, meaning that windows would be offered and pre-planning done to meet the demand of container moves and the allocation of necessary resources to handle them efficiently on a 24/7 basis.” This, Borchards believes, will result in reliability and predictability from a container perspective and address any short shipment of containers. “There would still be a number of containers entering the terminal on a random basis but a great portion would be based on a pre-arranged slot system,” l Sapo is offering after-hours bulk runs which include Saturdays and Sundays.
