An interim truck staging area intended to address overflow and congestion in the Port of Cape Town has done the exact opposite, resulting in complete chaos and leaving transporters seething.
Operationalised in late December, the facility was supposed to handle trucks only in instances where the operational terminals had reached full capacity and could no longer allow the entry of trucks. The reality, however, is that since December 30 every truck entering the port has been forced to utilise the staging area where a “ticket” is issued by a security guard. Without this signed ticket, trucks cannot enter terminals, regardless of the Transnet Port Terminals truck booking system and the appointments made.
“It is beyond ludicrous,” said one transporter. “We have not met a single booking in the past week as our drivers have been stuck in the staging area queue for hours at a time waiting for a piece of paper with a signature and a date on it that allows them access to the gate that we had a booking for. How this makes sense to anyone is beyond me!”
He said the congestion that had been experienced at A Check in Duncan Road, which the staging area was supposed to address, had simply been moved a few kilometres down the road and increased ten-fold.
“To clear congestion, they have now created even more congestion. The queues are kilometres long. There are hundreds of trucks waiting to get through a staging area constructed to handle 65 trucks. This is the most ill-conceived thing we have ever come across.”
At the time of going to press, the average turnaround time to offload a container at the port was around five hours. This was a significant improvement on previous days where at best one truck could be offloaded per day - and the waiting time was around eight hours at one point.
Earlier on Tuesday a transporter told Freight News that their vehicle had been directed into the staging area queue despite arriving at the port on time for their appointment at 11:00. “We were told that the only way to access the terminal was if we had the ticket issued at the staging area. That queue currently has a waiting time of at least five hours. That means we missed our 11 am slot. We don’t know how long we are going to be in the queue, so we now need someone in the office dedicated to continuously monitoring our truck progress and adjusting our booking with TPT accordingly. At the same time, there are now only a few booking slots left for this afternoon between 4 and 5 pm. All of this costs money.”
Another transporter said they were told they would be accommodated at A Check even if they missed their booking time due to the staging facility queue. “When the driver finally arrived at A Check after hours in the staging area queue, he was told the terminal was closed and not accepting any more containers as it was dealing with the backlog. This is insane considering we had a set booking time and did not need to stage our truck at any given point.
“Bear in mind also, these are reefers we are talking about that stood in the sun all of yesterday only to return today to go through the entire process again. We are breaking the cold chain because someone, somewhere, decided that every single truck entering the Port of Cape Town will go through the staging area and get a ticket. What makes this worse is that there is nothing we can do. This is driving up cost – extra diesel and overtime for our drivers, not to mention the cost of the overall delays to the economy.”
Several transporters said they were in a predicament as they were unable to clear their trucks and were being forced to turn work away. “We are currently in the middle of the grape season and the apple season is weeks away. This is going to cost the fruit industry dearly. Instead of doing several loads, we are lucky if we can get one load done per truck per day. We will never be able to handle the coming volumes at this rate,” said a transporter. “We have had to turn work away this past week because we simply cannot clear our trucks. They are standing in a queue in a staging area.”
The exact reason for the decision to move all vehicles through the staging area remains unknown. “We did not receive any communication about it,” said another transporter. “I was informed by my drivers who said they are not being allowed to move to the terminal gates directly and are being directed by security to go to the staging area.”
The transporter said even after calling and explaining to officials that they were offloading at the Cape Town Combi Terminal and not going to A Check, the company was told that trucks needed the staging area ticket to enter terminals.
“I don’t get to see how this ticket system is working because even after you get it, there is still a queue at A Check. It is just absolute madness.”
Transporters said port officials were claiming there had been wide consultation with the industry before implementing this new system. “I don’t know of a single haulier that was consulted. We are now simply being forced to do a 3.4km round trip within the port to stand in a queue for several hours to pick up a piece of paper, which has resulted in losing your set booking slot that you could have utilised without any wait. There is no logic to this ill-conceived system at all.”
