It was another damaging
time for the Port of Durban
last week as the average
staging time for trucks at
Tower 202 – one of the
three serving the Durban
container terminal (DCT)
at Pier 2 – went out from its
normal 50 minutes to five
hours.
And, to add insult
to injury, said Gert
Viviers of Roadwing and
representative of the SA
Association of Freight
Forwarders (Saaff),
according to information
from a range of different
companies that can be
translated to up to 12
hours in practice. And
this led to serious delays
to truck movement right
back up the line for
the five days up to the
FTW copy deadline on
February 13.
The cause was
construction work that
started last year.
“Our task team’s
original plan was to
create six additional
parking bays at 202, which
were put in on January 2,”
Viviers told FTW.
“But now,
a lack of
equipment and
just too many
containers
being allocated
to 202 have led
to this latest
situation.”
However,
in agreement with the
task team, Transnet Port
Terminals (TPT) is going
to serve only road-hauled
containers at 202, while the
rail-hauled will be allocated
exclusively to
the other two
towers. At the
same time,
they are to
deploy more
machines at
202.
Viviers
hoped that
this would relieve the undue
pressure on the tower and
overcome the problem.
INSERT
5 hours Average staging time for trucks
at Tower 202.
