Port terminals to be made more efficient
Transnet to become a logistics service provider
THE TRANSNET executive aims to transform the operations efficiency at South Africa’s container terminals to be one of the “top five logistics service provider in the world” within five years, says Nozipho Sithole, the chief executive of Transnet Port Terminals.
Sithole was addressing stakeholders at a business stakeholder engagement session in Cape Town yesterday. She said there was a time when the shift working hours were 46 hours, when it took 10 days to bring in a vessel for berthing and when vessels were lining up at the port, and at a time when the truck turnaround time within the terminal was averaging about 110 minutes against a target of 45 minutes.
She said since then operational times in Durban had improved, which was testified by stakeholders at a transport forum that the turnaround time for truckers and ships had improved from 10 hours to three.
“In July we introduced a truck-booking system and that has assisted in reducing the minutes that we were talking about. We actually want to make this truck-booking system compulsory in the next financial year, come March 2019. That is a discussion still taking place with the truck associations. I don’t see why we can’t introduce it in Cape Town,” she said.
Sithole said when it came to containers it was important to have a single source of information. She said there also needed to be an incentive for truckers to provide a steady stream of containers as opposed to bunching them in the afternoon.
“We are tagging straddle carriers and ship-to-shore cranes as we move from being a pure terminal operator to become a logistics service provider,” she said.