The 212 acre terminal includes a 500m barge quay, 1km deep quay and an on-dock rail terminal with four tracks of 750m. Two barge quay cranes and two rail cranes are part of the landside investment in the 2.7 million TEU annual capacity deep-water terminal.

Rail traffic currently comprises 15% of the overall Port of Rotterdam’s volume. The new facility was specifically designed to increase rail volume through the port with a dedicated on-dock rail-yard. Testing of the on-dock rail terminal has included weekly train service using two dedicated wide-span rail cranes and several Rail-Mounted Gantry cranes (RMGs) in the automated container storage yard. Today, the rail terminal offers three weekly services to interior European markets. In 2015, the frequency of trains will increase to 10+ per week to expand the supply chain capacity.

The terminal also features a dedicated barge terminal to efficiently handle 24-hour barge operations. The barge quay crane operators will operate within the crane cabs, as opposed to the eight, super-Post Panamax Ship-to-Shore (STS) cranes, which will be the world’s first remote-controlled terminal quay cranes. The barge quay features a 10m depth – as compared with the deep-sea quay depth of 20m, capable of accommodating the largest vessels now in service in the global container ship fleet and future generations of ships. With the dedicated barge quay, a more reliable service can be offered to barge operators.

“With this new, advanced terminal design and operating concept, we believe the landside operation is as important to the terminal’s operations as the seaside; efficient, seamless movement across all modalities is a critical success factor for our customers” said APM Terminals Maasvlakte II Managing Director, Frank Tazelaar.

The first main line vessel will arrive in December and the frequency will increase during 2015 with the first regular service commencing February 2015.

In the port of Rotterdam, APM Terminals also operates the APM Terminals Rotterdam Maasvlakte I facility, one of the busiest within the company’s Global Terminal Network, handling 2.28 million TEU in 2013.

BMT is a leading international design, engineering, science and risk management consultancy.

Samalaju Port is being developed by Bintulu Port Holdings Bhd as part of the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy at an investment of approximately US$550 million. Companies involved in silicon, manganese, aluminium, ferroalloy, phosphate and coke processing have been drawn to the area to benefit from the cheap energy available. As the technical advisor, John Parker and the BMT team will be involved in supporting the Main Contractor, Muhibbah Engineering (M) Bhd, in the design, construction and commissioning of the conveyor systems facilities package for the port development.

Phase 1 of the project includes one pipe conveyor approximately 2,000m long dedicated to handling Alumina, 13 conventional conveyors making up three import systems for a range of materials, three stockyards, three stackers and a control centre for the whole plant. BMT will provide technical assistance, auditing of the final design of the plant, and support during the installation and commissioning of all the systems.

Dr. Mark Yong, one of BMT’s Business Development Directors in the Asia-Pacific region commented: “As a native of Sarawak, I’m particularly proud that BMT is involved in this project, a unique combination of BMT’s technical skillsets and value being applied to the economic development of the State. We also view this project as another key milestone in the long-term relationship between BMT and Muhibbah Engineering.”

ITS has over 20 years of experience in deploying TPS and have used that experience in recent developments to bring a system to the market which is both rapid to deploy and affordable. The system is aimed at ensuring the terminal operators see an immediate benefit in their shipside operations. The latest development is for empty chassis detection and allows any shape or design of terminal chassis to be accurately positioned with truck driver indications for slowdown, stop and overshoot.

Richard Lambert, ITS’ Managing Director commented “As well as detection of the actual container on the chassis, our TPS had always had empty chassis detection to advise the truck driver where to stop. However, the new upgrade now brings the empty detection in line with the advanced detection and signalling for the loaded chassis and provides the driver with a slowdown signal as he approaches the correct stopping point. If the driver overshoots, the system also detects this, and signals the driver to reverse.” He went on to say “we worked on this development with an existing client already using our TPS and following very positive feedback from users during beta testing, the upgrade was rolled out into full operations.”

Allan Jones ITS’ Head of Business Development also commented “Increasing productivity at the berth is a challenge many terminals are tackling and our aim with TPS is to provide a quality low cost solution to the bottlenecks caused through trailer positioning. During 2014 we firmly established TPS, having supplied several trailer positioning systems including repeat orders and we used TOC Europe earlier this year to announce deployment prices for TPS starting at around €5,000. The interest following that has been tremendous and this latest enhancement shows our commitment to establishing the ITS TPS system as an easy decision for terminal operators who are looking to improve ship side operational efficienc

Photo shows

• A prime mover receiving a container form an STS crane with an insert showing the driver a stop signal (chassis in the correct location).

The Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners approved the use of 30 acres on Pier S for temporary storage of empty shipping containers. The temporary depot will help put back into circulation more chassis — the wheeled trailer-frames that trucks use to haul cargo containers. Because many terminals are congested due to the current peak in cargo volume and have no room to accept empty cargo containers, more space is needed to temporarily store those empties. The temporary empty container storage depot will provide a location for truckers to deliver empty containers and remove them from a chassis, and then use the chassis to pick up loaded containers and haul them to their destination.

Ports around the U.S. have been experiencing higher cargo volumes as importers prepare for the holiday shopping season. At the local port complex, a new chassis ownership system has at times left terminals and truckers without the equipment they need.

The vacant Pier S site is currently being prepared to handle the incoming empty containers, and will be ready for use in December.