Coming up with new strategies to attract business is not easy. But the message is clear – evolve or lose business. The port of Rotterdam is working hard on its new Maasvlakte 2 project, creating more capacity in the port, while neighbouring port of Amsterdam has seen a steady cargo flow in 2011. For Amsterdam, there are some cargo fluctuations within its port region (one port losing cargo to the other) but the major concern is growth within. The new and approved sea-locks should attract more business for the Amsterdam port region but in the meantime it needs to do something. With new regulations laid down by the Dutch Government for coal-fired power stations the way forward for Amsterdam might be concentrating on handling biomass in the future.

In Antwerp, the arrival of one of the largest container vessels in the world might be the start of the revival of the port that has been hit hard by the economic downturn a couple of years ago. But it is not good news for neighbouring ports of Ghent and Zeebrugge. Ghent is working on full capacity and pins its hope on new and larger locks in Terneuzen, while Zeebrugge is desperate to win back container traffic in its battle with Antwerp.

Rotterdam

At the end of last year, the Port of Rotterdam made the announcement that it handled a total of 433.4 million tonnes, a 0.8% growth compared with the year before. In January 2012, it adjusted these figures to a total of 434.6 million tonnes, reflecting a 1.0% increase compared with 2010. Supply grew by 0.8% to 308 million tonnes and distribution by 0.7% to 126 million tonnes. There was a decrease in throughput of iron ore and scrap (-6%), crude oil (-8%) and mineral oil products (-6%). More agribulk (+18%), coal (+12%), other dry bulk (+7%), other liquid bulk (+2%), containers (+10%), roll-on/roll-off (+4%) and other general cargo (+13%) were handled.

“We are recording growth for the ninth time in ten years, in spite of the disappointing economy and the fall in growth of throughput since November in the port. This demonstrates the importance of ongoing investment in capacity and new activities, such as the storage of LNG and the production of bio-ethanol. The largest growth areas were trans-shipment of containers, coal and agri-bulk. Throughput in the port is strongly-connected to developments in relevant world trade and German industrial production. On the basis of this, we expect to maintain the current level next year. In the second half of the year, I expect that we will have put the European confidence crisis behind us. Businesses and the Port Authority will continue investing in such things as Maasvlakte 2, container and tank terminals, because we also expect reasonable growth as from 2013,” said Hans Smits, Port of Rotterdam Authority CEO.

Container handling improved by 10% compared to last year (2010). Growth in units from 20 foot containers was more than 6% to 11.9 million TEU. The difference indicates that fewer empty containers were handled. Rotterdam further expanded its position in the quantitatively largest trade, that between Europe and Asia. On this route increasingly more 10,000 – 15,000 TEU vessels are being used, which are able to enter more easily here than at competitor ports.

At the end of January, Rotterdam municipal executive councillor Jeannette Baljeu (Port, Transport and Regional Economy) laid the last block in the dam forming the hard sea wall of Maasvlakte 2. The dam is made up of 19,558 concrete blocks, each weighing in at over 40,000kg. The blocks have come from the sea wall of the existing Maasvlakte. In order to move them, PUMA, the consortium of which Van Oord is a member, ordered a special crane to be developed: the Blockbuster. Since April 2011, the Blockbuster has been working day and night to place the concrete cubes (2.5mx2.5mx2.5m) in the dam to an accuracy of 15cm. The Blockbuster will continue working on the hard sea wall, laying the heavy armour stone. PUMA expects to hand over the complete hard sea wall to Rotterdam Port Authority this spring, so the construction work on Maasvlakte 2 is still strictly on schedule.

In February, the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment announced it will be expanding the Maasgeul to prevent waiting times for ships entering the port of Rotterdam. This navigation channel to the North Sea is the access route for sea-going ships that have a draught of more than 14.3m. More and more of these ships come to Rotterdam because of the increase in scale and because the load factor of sea-going ships continues to grow. The Maasgeul is 6 miles long and currently 500m to 600m wide. It is being widened by another 240m so that by the summer of 2012, large sea-going ships will be able to pass each other.

Rapiscan Systems also completed the installation and commissioning of a Rapiscan Eagle R60 High Speed rail scanner, on behalf of Dutch Customs, designed for the effective high speed scanning of cargo transported by rail. The high speed rail scanner will efficiently scan around two hundred thousand cargo containers per annum as they travel at speeds of up to sixty kilometers per hour
through the Eagle R60 into the Port of Rotterdam.

The scanner has been designed to help detect and identify a wide range of threats and suspect materials including contraband goods such as drugs and cigarettes. Using a high power 6 MeV X-Ray source, a clear and unambiguous x-image of even the densest rail cargo is produced, with a forty foot container x-rayed in 0.8 of a second.

Amsterdam

Despite the disappointing economy, the port region along the North Sea canal has trans-shipped more raw materials and goods thus ensuring a healthy annual result. The ports of Amsterdam, IJmuiden, Beverwijk and Zaanstad have closed the year 2011 with a trans-shipment rise of approximately 2%. Total trans-shipment amounted to over 92 million tonnes according to the interim figures. In the port of Amsterdam trans-shipment increased to approximately 74.8 million tonnes compared to 2010 [import rose by 3.2% to 50.4 million tonnes while export also rose by 2.5% to 24.4 million tonnes]. The port of IJmuiden witnessed a stable trans-shipment level worth approximately 17.5 million tonnes in 2011, while Zaanstad saw a staggering 45% increase to 0.1 million tonnes. Neighbouring Beverwijk witnessed a 10% decline to approximately 0.3 million tonnes.

“Despite the economic crisis the Amsterdam port region has ensured a 2% increase, which is a fine result. The Amsterdam Port even secured a 3% increase. To me, particularly given the current economic circumstances, this is good news. We are the fourth port in Europe after Rotterdam, Antwerp and Hamburg. I am proud of that,” said Port of Amsterdam’s President and CEO, Dertje Meijer.

Last year, sea container trans-shipment dropped by 28% to over 0.6 million tonnes. Nevertheless, the number of inland navigation containers has grown by approximately one quarter compared to the year 2010. Oil trans-shipment increased by 9% to 37.1 million tonnes, while coal trans-shipment too went up by 9% reaching 15.5 million tonnes. Agricultural bulk dropped by 12% to almost 8 million tonnes.

For 2012, the port of Amsterdam will be concentrating on unloading, storing and trans-shipping biomass. The sustainable energy feedstock is shipped onboard sea-going vessels arriving from countries such as Canada, the US and Brazil. Exponential growth of this cargo flow is forecast in the coming years.

Early February, a delegation on behalf of the American Port Erie, Pennsylvania, visited the Port of Amsterdam to study the biomass handling options. Port of Erie is looking for ways to trans-ship and sell biomass into Europe. This mainly involves wood pellets for which a market is being sought.

Managing Director and CEO of the Erie Economic Development Corporation, John Elliot, joined the delegation. “What we need is a market capable of handling 500,000 tonnes of wood pellets. Visiting the port of Amsterdam is an obvious step because the port has a major and specialist energy cluster offering extensive possibilities when it comes to unloading, storing and trans-shipping of biomass. Also, the port of Amsterdam is an international logistics hub with outstanding water connections with the hinterland,’’ Elliot explained.

The port of Amsterdam is an international energy hub with a major cargo share consisting of oil and coal. The Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation plans to obligate biomass co-firing in coal-fired power stations, as has been laid down in the 2011 Energy Report. This means higher demand for biomass. By 2020 the Port of Amsterdam is expecting a trans-shipment level of approximately 6 million tonnes for the Northwest European market.

Antwerp

The Belgium port of Antwerp had a good start of the New Year with the arrival of the largest container ship in the world – the Edith Maersk. The vessel was coming from the Far East via the Suez Canal and Antwerp was the first port of call in Europe
before calling at Bremerhaven.

And three weeks later, Maersk decided to send a sister ship, the m/v Eleonora Maersk, to Antwerp. “The arrival of the Eleonora Maersk demonstrates that the shipping company is satisfied with the success of the first call at Antwerp by such a vessel, and that our port is perfectly accessible to even the largest container carriers in the world, despite its location deep inland,” said Port Authority president Marc Van Peel. “Since the deepening of the Scheldt, the number of calls by Ultra-Large Container Carriers has increased considerably, demonstrating that the large shipping companies have full confidence in our port.”

But it is not only Maersk that has confidence in Antwerp as the latest throughput figures for 2011 show. According to the port never before has a larger container volume (both in TEU and in tonnage) been handled in Antwerp in the space of one year than in 2011.

The port of Antwerp handled a total of 187,151,714 tonnes of freight last year representing an increase of 5% compared with 2010, when volume was 178.2 million tonnes. These figures exceed the provisional estimates made at the end of December 2011: the records announced before the turn of the year have turned out to be even higher.

In terms of tonnage, container volume was up by 2.5%, to 105,109,107 tonnes. In TEU the increase was 2.3%, to 8,664,243 TEU, a shade higher than the record level of 2008 (when the port handled a total of 8,663,736 TEU).

In its RoRo freight sector it saw a rise of 14% to 4,244,410 tonnes, while its conventional/break-bulk sector was up by 14.1%, to 12,695,805 tonnes. The port explained that these increases were due to the large rise in volume of steel products (up 28.8%). Another large increase was in the liquid bulk sector where an increase of 12.2% was recorded to 46,016,132 tonnes, with volumes of oil derivatives and chemicals increasing to 19.6% and 3.1% respectively, while the amount of crude oil handled was down by 3.5%. The dry bulk sector did less well than 2010, falling by 3.5% to 19,086,260 tonnes. Growth figures were produced by coal (up 4.4%), cement (2.8%) and sand and gravel (8.8%) but declines were noted in ore (down 13.6%), grain (7%), fertilisers (5.1%) and scrap metal (17.3%).

The port of Antwerp has also seen an increase of 3.1% [total of 15,240] of the number of seagoing ships calling in 2011. But a decision made by the Port Authority’s board of directors back in December 2011 to raise its port dues by 2% in 2012 might have an effect on the number of ship calls this coming year. The port has not increased its port dues in both 2010 and 2011 and lowered dues in response to the sharp drop in freight volumes due to the global economic downturn, so this increase was unavoidable. So effectively, this is the first time in three years that the port has adjusted its dues to keep pace with inflation, and then only to a modest degree. According to CEO Eddy Bruyninckx, the moderate dues policy will enable the Port Authority to invest further in among other things efficient, sustainable development of port infrastructure. In this regard the Port Authority aims to continue supporting positive developments in the port, both on the landward side by encouraging improvements to the quality of terminal facilities and on the seaward side by promoting growth in trade by selectively approaching customers.“When it comes to setting the level of dues, the Port Authority remains a very stable partner for port users,” said Bruyninckx. “Offering attractive yet realistic port dues remains the basis of our policy. The rates policy for the port is characterised by continuity, not by day-to-day considerations with sudden increases or decreases.”  In 2012 the port will continue to offer a discount of 10% to ships with an Environmental Ship Index (ESI) of 31 points or more.

Ghent

Neighbouring port of Ghent also reported a good 2011, and in particular has two highlights to boast about: firstly for the second consecutive year, Ghent registered a new handling record and secondly 2011 was the first year in the port’s history that the limit of 50 million tonnes of cargo traffic was exceeded. With 2 million tonnes more trans-shipment the port of Ghent registered a 4.4% growth confirming its position as a growing export port. Moreover, the diversity of Ghent port is a huge asset in order to obtain more traffic. Cargo traffic by sea-going vessels remained on the same level as in 2010 at 27.2 million tonnes. Cargo throughput by inland barges saw a growth of 10.6% from 20.7 million tonnes to 22.8 million tonnes.
In the first nine months of 2011 the port still achieved 5.5 % more trans-shipment than in 2010 but the last 3 months of the year this growth diminished rapidly. The port does continue to see a decrease of sea-going vessels due to the deployment of larger sea-going vessels (85 ships less than 2010) and although this has been compensated with an increase of short sea shipping if the port of Ghent wants to prevent that seaborne cargo traffic comes to a halt then the new large sea-lock in Terneuzen has to be built as soon as possible. Only then will Ghent be able to develop itself further as a port (on the trans-Atlantic trade) and as such secure the present employment (still about 70,000 jobs).

In 2011, Ghent saw Sweden as the most important trade partner while Russia remains second with mainly the trans-shipment of metallurgical products followed by the United States (coal and petroleum coke). Fourth is the previous number one: Brazil. This can be explained by the diminished imports of ores that moreover in the past few years also comes from Canada (sixth), Venezuela (seventh) and Norway (remarkable newcomer at eight). Turkey is the ninth most important trade partner (mainly through scrap exports) and France closes the top ten.

Zeebrugge

Until mid-2011 the port of Zeebrugge maintained the handling levels recorded in 2010 but due to the economic slow-down traffic slackened in the second half of the year. According to the port the decrease is to declining container traffic. Zeebrugge container traffic, which is focused on the Europe/Asia trade, was affected by the deteriorating economic situation and the slow-down of the Europe/Asia trade. Various deep-sea services were reshuffled which also affected related container feedering services. As a result, container volume dropped by 11.1% to 2,222,000 TEU – this is just beyond the 2008 result.

According to preliminary figures 2011 was the second best year at the Belgian port with an estimated cargo throughput of 47.3 million tonnes – a decline of -4.5 % compared to 2010. However, on a positive note other port sectors showed an increase. RoRo traffic rose by 5.9% to a volume of 13.1 million tonnes with Finland, Ireland and Spain highlighted as areas of traffic growth. A total of 1,050,000 trucks transited in the port (+3.8 %). Despite the important impact of the Japan tsunami which affected the imports of new cars in Zeebrugge traffic of new cars grew by 10.5 % to a total of 1,777,500 units. Total liquid bulk grew by 6.4% to 8.5 million tonnes, 5.2 million tonnes of which is LNG. Solid bulk fell back by 2.8% to 1.6 million tonnes. 2011 was a record year for cruises for the port. The coastal port welcomed 75 cruise vessels in comparison with 66 in 2010 (up by 13.6%).

In daily life you might not notice the use of optical character recognition (OCR) but it is being used in a wide variety of ways. For example the police force use an OCR system to capture number plates of driving cars, match them with a database (for both road tax and insurance) and within seconds they know if the driver is breaking the law.

For the ports industry the use of OCR systems is somewhat similar – the containers are being scanned (albeit the numbers displayed on the containers) and matched with a database, which is often a Terminal Operating Systems (TOS). Over the last couple of years, the use of OCR systems in ports and terminals around the world has seen a steady increase as the system increases productivity (the containers can travel at a certain speed pass the OCR system as it captures the numbers on the container) and reduces congestion.

Therefore when purchasing an OCR system the return of potential labour savings, streamlining of processes, increase in productivity and many other soft measurements has to be taken in to account. The benefits of automating a gate can be recognised throughout the operation, depending upon how the technology is implemented. For example, if a terminal has an appointment system and chooses to install technology to identify the trucker and his associated appointment, the transaction can be automatically processed once OCR is deployed. Of course there are many variations to the successful implementation of such technology, but terminal operators are realising large returns from relatively small investments.

Although the economic downturn might have caused a dip in the sale of OCR systems, with many projects coming back on-stream, OCR providers across the world report healthy record books and all closed 2011 on a positive note.

Good 2011

According to Willem Dauwen, Junior Business Development Manager at Belgium-based Camco Technologies, 2011 was a very versatile year which brought an array of breakthroughs and exciting new challenges for the company. “Camco welcomed the opportunity to actively steer and mould the design of green-field terminals, such as Container Terminal Wilhelmshaven (CTW) in Germany, Moerdijk Container Terminal (MCT) in the Netherlands and the MSC operated FOS 2XL in Fos-sur-Mer, France,” said Dauwen.

Another OCR provider – Israel-based Hi-Tech Solutions (HTS) – saw an increase in demand for state-of-the-art OCR systems and responded with the launch of some new products. “This past year, HTS introduced the next evolution in our OCR products for gates and cranes. Called ‘SeeGate3’ and ‘SeeCrane3’ respectively, these products utilise IP based cameras and enhanced software engines to provide lower cost installations as well as a streamlined commissioning period. The next generation of systems enhances HTS ability to remotely monitor these systems,” says Meta Rotenberg, VP Marketing and Business Development at Hi-Tech Solutions.

The company has also enhanced their Damage Inspection systems and is developing the first ever damage inspection system on a non-platform quay crane. Furthermore, monitoring and alerting tools were enhanced with the introduction of the OCR performance dashboard. Customers as well as the IT Support staff utilise these tools for day-to-day monitoring and system analysis.

“To meet the challenge of integrating simply to multiple systems, HTS continues to utilise GCS as a ‘middleware’. New RFID, CCTV and PDS systems were integrated with the GCS solution,” Rotenberg added.

“Although Camco has been busy with signing deals we should not forget to mention the efforts that were made by the R&D department in 2011,” said Dauwen. The company is working hard to reveal some new state-of-the-art applications and components that will help their systems increase even more the accuracy and speed of capturing and validating data and according to Dawen, the company  is eager to present their newest technological breakthroughs very soon.

New breakthroughs

Last year was quite exciting for Camco as it was setting up a new office in the Middle East to serve clients in the region better with contracts coming from DP World for a total renewal of the gates of its flag-ship terminal in Jebel Ali, United Arab Emirates, and a contract for the IPS Dammam Gate Automation project.

But applying an OCR system in the Middle East requires a different approach towards both hardware and software. “Camco developed new dust and heat free components for its systems to guarantee the same reliability and endurance,” said Dauwen. HTS’s Rotenberg agrees that accuracy of the technology is of the highest priority. “Providers are often making guarantees for high OCR read rates in order to win customers’ confidence in the product in which they are investing, ” says Rotenberg.

One of the main stumbling blocks is the integration of the OCR system in to the overall port community system. With an ever increasing demand for various third party systems, a significant challenge for ports is perceived as the integration of those technologies.  Although the concept of data messaging is simple – one system tells another system an instruction or update – while the receiving system will send an acknowledgement the message was received and act on it – the programming has to be correct and this is of utmost importance. According to Rotenberg the process of integration for the HTS products has been simplified by using a ‘middleware’ that monitors, processes and records all messaging between sub-systems, integrating with ease to all systems. The system, designed by GCS, also provides robust reporting capabilities for high level statistics as well as detailed transactional reporting for data analysis. Both companies rely on their experience and numerous successful projects in the past. This has not only taught Camco how to design and build its own solutions and systems; it also brought them an extensive knowledge about interfacing with different kinds of TOS packages.

According to Dauwen, choosing for Camco is choosing a vendor that “knows the ropes” about gate process automation in general. All systems, be it truck OCR camera portals, pedestals, train OCR camera portals, crane OCR solutions or the all-connecting Gate Operating System software suite, are designed to increase throughput, handling speed and will lead to a higher return on investment.

Rotenberg points out that often customers are asking for turn-key solutions with varying levels of support requirements based on the level of their own in-house IT services. Solutions are required for streamlining processes, increasing accuracy, reducing cost and managing KPI’s. “Since customers vary in operational business practices, HTS utilises its extensive deployment and integration knowledge base to help new customers take advantage of the systems offered.”

Maybe the following advice from Rotenberg might be worth printing out and pinning on the wall: “When choosing a vendor, price is important, but operators should weigh price against service, performance and proven experience…” She has a point!

Sales in 2011

North America is still an important market for Camco with four new contracts [BNSF Hobbart, BNSF Stockton, Canadian National Chicago and Union Pacific East LA]. The company also consolidated its presence in the Oceania area with a first DP World Australia project in Sydney (5 gate transaction kiosks with an interface with Navis N4).

In Malmo, Sweden, Camco installed an in- and outbound truck OCR camera portal and 4 gate transaction kiosks at CMP, which are managed through their Gate Operating Software (GOS) which is interfacing meticulously with a Tideworks TOS. At the Schwedenkai in Kiel, Germany, an in- and outbound OCR camera portal and 2 gate transaction kiosks were installed, while a similar installation – 1 outbound OCR camera portal interfacing with weighbridge system plus 4 gate transaction kiosks with an interface with Navis Express 2.5 was installed at the DP World Caucedo container terminal in the Dominican Republic.

The Eurogate Container Terminal in Wilhelmshaven, Germany also received a make-over with 1 in and 1 outbound OCR camera portal for trucks, 10 kiosk lanes running under CAMCO’s GOS, interfacing with Navis N4. At the Moerdijk Container Terminal in the Netherlands, a total solution was installed – 1 in and 1 outbound OCR camera for trucks a
nd 8 kiosk lanes.

Rotenberg is careful about revealing their complete activities in 2011, especially as some of their customers do not want to have any publicity on their projects. However, HTS worked closely with Tideworks (a TOS supplier) for a project in Seattle and was awarded a Seegate3 project for both the SSA Terminal T-30 and the BNSF Seattle International Gateway. It also worked in co-operation with Mi-Jack – a supplier of container handling equipment – and replaced a previous OCT vendor system with SeeGate3 at the ITS container terminal in Long Beach, California. Another SeeGate3 project was awarded by SFCT in Miami, Florida and SeeCrane3 was installed on new cranes for the WBCT terminal in Los Angeles.