The Gioia Tauro marine terminal is the largest container transshipment hub on the Mediterranean Sea and one of the largest in the world (see Table 8.7). Medcenter, the company set up to manage container handling at Gioia Tauro, is owned by Contship SpA, which controls 90% of the equity, and by Maersk, a leading international sea carrier.
The terminal is situated on the western coast of the Calabria region (Southern Italy), along major deep-sea vessel routes. Deep sea vessels are large highly automated container ships capable of transporting up to 6000 containers. They include both
LINKING THEORY TO PRACTICE 309 Table 8.6 Features of the intermodal shuttles provided by Railion
(‘r’ and ‘s’ stand for roundtrip and single trip, respectively).
Frequency TEUs
Origin Destination per week
Rotterdam Antwerp (Belgium) 11r 81/86
Rotterdam Athus (Belgium) 5r 30
Rotterdam Mouscron (Belgium) 5r 43
Rotterdam Muizen (Belgium) 5r 10
Born Antwerp (Belgium) 5r 60
Rotterdam Germersheim (Germany) 6r 81
Rotterdam Mainz (Germany) 3r 68
Rotterdam Mannheim/Munich (Germany) 5r 81
Rotterdam Neuss (Germany) 5r 81
Rotterdam Milan–Melzo (Italy) 9r 74.5
Rotterdam Novara (Italy) 12r 78
Rotterdam Brescia (Italy) 5r 78
Rotterdam Padova (Italy) 6r 74.5
Rotterdam Bettembourg (Luxembourg) 4r 75
Rotterdam Wels (Austria) 2r 77
Rotterdam Malaszewicze (Poland) 3s 80
Rotterdam Poznan/Warsaw (Poland) 3r 78
Rotterdam Prague (Czech Republic) 6r 70 Rotterdam Basel SBB (Switzerland) 5r 75
Rotterdam Zurich (Switzerland) 5r 75
Rotterdam Basel Bad (Switzerland) 2r 75
Table 8.7 The first 20 largest containerized ports in the world.
Traffic in 1999 Traffic in 1999
Port (TEUs) Port (TEUs)
Hong Kong 16 100 000 New York 2 863 000
Singapore 15 900 000 Dubai 2 844 000
Kaohsiung 6 985 000 Felixstowe 2 700 000
Pusan 6 439 000 Tokyo 2 700 000
Rotterdam 6 400 000 Port Klang 2 550 000
Long Beach 4 400 000 Tanjung Priok 2 273 000
Shanghai 4 200 000 Gioia Tauro 2 253 000
Los Angeles 3 828 000 Kobe 2 200 000
Hamburg 3 750 000 Yokohama 2 200 000
Antwerp 3 614 000 Brema 2 180 000
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Figure 8.7 Hub and spoke sea transportation system (bold and dotted lines represent deep-sea vessel and feeder routes, respectively; grey and white vertices are hubs and spokes, respec- tively).
container ships performing around-the-world trips (through the Panama Canal) and Post-Panamax vessels performing North America–Europe, Europe–Asia Pacific and Asia Pacific–North America trips (the Post-Panamax vessel name is due to the fact that they are so large that they cannot traverse the Panama Canal). Because the operating costs of deep-sea vessels are very high, these ships stop at very few transshipment terminals (hubs), where they pick up and deliver traffic originating from or arriving at end-of-line ports (spokes). Then, smaller vessels (feederor short sea vessels) transport goods between hubs and end-of-line ports (hub and spokesystem, Figure 8.7).
The Gioia Tauro hub is linked to nearly 50 end-of-line ports on the Mediterranean Sea. When Gioia Tauro began trading in 1996, its traffic amounted to a modest 570 736 TEUs, followed by a dazzling 1.44 million TEUs in 1997, 2.12 million TEUs in 1998, and 2.25 million TEUs in 1999.
Like other hubs, the Gioia Tauro sea terminal (see Figure 8.8) is made up of
• a harbour, where vessels can wait for an available berth;
• a set of quays, where ships can be tied up and loaded or unloaded;
• a yard, where containers and bulk goods can be stored after being unloaded from incoming vehicles and before being loaded onto outgoing vehicles;
• a railway station, where wagons can be loaded or unloaded and convoys can be formed;
• some docks where trucks can be loaded or unloaded;
• a material handling system.
At the Gioia Tauro port, the yard can store nearly 50 000 TEUs (1100 of them can be refrigerated). The storage area is divided into bays. Each bay is made up of 32 rows, each having 16 slots. In each slot, up to three containers are stacked. Empty containers (which occupy approximately 40% of the storage area) have an 8–10 day
LINKING THEORY TO PRACTICE 311
Trains
Railway station
Harbour
Portainer buffer
Yard
Bay
Quay
Trucks
Straddle carriers
Straddle carriers
Figure 8.8 A sea container terminal layout.
average dwell time (much more than a full container) and are located in the more remote positions.
The railway station has six tracks where 20 convoys are formed every day (400 000 TEUs are handled annually). The Gioia Tauro port is close to the Salerno–Reggio Calabria highway traversing southern Italy from north to south. The material handling system is made up of 14 portainers, three Gottwald cranes, 51 straddle carriers, five multitrailers, six reach stackers, as well as 11 tractors and 60 trailers. Portainers and Gottwald cranes are used for unloading containers from the vessels. Portainers are cranes moving along tracks parallel to the quayside. Each portainer has a buffer where up to six containers can be stored. When the buffer is full, the portainer has to stop. Gottwal cranes are wheeled vehicles also used for moving containers in the yard. Straddle carriers are usually utilized for moving full containers over relatively short distances (less than 500 m) between railroad, yard and berth. These are wheeled vehicles capable of transporting one or two containers at a time. As a rule, for longer container transfers, different vehicles are used, namely multitrailers. Empty containers are stacked and moved five at a time by reach stackers. In addition, reach stackers are used for moving containers from the yard to the railway station and vice versa.
Portainers and straddle carriers are the most important pieces of equipment and can handle seven and 24 containers per hour on average, respectively. Terminal operating cycles consist of a series of container movements, each carried out by several different movers. Once a ship is tied up, sea-side cranes load straddle carriers (or similar movers) that transfer outgoing containers to the terminal yard beside the assigned slot.
Then dedicated yard movers insert containers in the right slot. Alternatively, prime movers can perform board–board, board–train or board–truck movements depending on the stowage plan. Similarly, incoming containers can be picked up from the yard or transferred directly from a train or a truck.
312 LINKING THEORY TO PRACTICE