Truck pre-booking set to ramp up CT port efficiency

The Port of Cape Town is set to introduce a pre-booking concept for trucks along the same lines as the slot/window system used by containerships. Think of it as a confirmed appointment – much like with one’s dentist or doctor – this plan by Cape Town Container Terminal boss, Velile Dube, to ensure through a pre-booking system that boxes are collected dead on time in the interest of improved efficiency all round. Miss the appointment, and you are out until the on-timers have been assisted. “What will be good for Cape Town is a fixed EDI booking system where the trucker gives us a time slot so we know exactly when the box will be collected. Currently, collections are ‘pre-elected’. “At present, the truckers will arrive on a Thursday between noon and six so the distribution is haywire.” Although the terminal is open 24/7 throughout the year, Mother City truckers show a distinct preference for certain days to collect containers. Data sourced for FTW between January and March 2010 by Hector Danisa, the terminal’s assistant regional executive, clearly shows a preference for Thursday collections (a monthly total average (TMA) of 5 225), followed by Friday (TMA 5 041) and Wednesday (TMA 5 112). Saturday tails off slightly (TMA 4 016) and Sunday is the least productive (TMA 2 144). Danisa says the average number of trucks handled per day is 4 320. “The standard deviation is 1 064, about 25% of the average, which would make planning for this resourcing a little challenging.” What is certain is that Cape Town is to follow Durban with a TPT-financed “truck staging area”, probably by the end of 2011. By way of example, TPT says: “The terminal is handling 30 trucks an hour and we start getting 90 trucks an hour so we are saying to those 60 ‘get off the road, we will call you when the box is ready for collecting.’ The Durban staging area has been in operation for about two years and “works like a bomb”, says Akash Maharaj, TPT’s national capacity and projects manager, who adds the Cape Town facility will be considerably smaller, probably about 70 trucks initially. “The purpose of a truck staging area is to cut congestion on public roads, but truckers waiting (in the staging area) for their box will not lose their place in the queue.” John Berry, chairman of the Cape Town Harbour Carriers’ Association, welcomes both TPT initiatives. “Truck staging is well overdue and would go a long way to improved all-round efficiencies. “It’s a good idea, something we talked about many years ago at the then Portnet, but whether TPT has the means or the capacity to follow through with it remains to be seen.”