Containerterminal

A Container Terminal ( CT ) is a plant, are handled at the container between at least two means of transport (for example, ship < => truck and / or boat < => rail wagon).

Besides Seeschiffterminals there are also inland terminals of channels or rivers. Similarly, there are container terminals, containers between road and rail Fold (eg Euro tunnel = " Chunnel "). In this paper ship terminals are in the foreground. Here containers between container ships, feeder vessels, inland vessels and land transport are transferred ( " folded " ) and also stored for a short ( truck or train). Especially a lot of attention is given to refrigerated containers, which are electrically connected, and whose situation needs to be regularly monitored and documented. A special role is played by the water side empty container terminals that have been established in order to better utilize the capacity of a Seeschiffsterminals.

Container terminals play a special role in the national and international transport chains. They are nodal points of the transport routes (see also hub and spoke ) and are also involved in the mode change (transition ) between seagoing vessels and feeder vessels ( feeders ) or by train and road. These tasks come as the combining of cargo in containers and the storage and distribution of containers.

Development

With the wide use of standard containers as transport containers since the 1960s increasingly ships and ports were equipped for container handling and transport. Using the example of the Port of Hamburg is visible as rapidly this development has taken place:

Mid-1968, the first American full container ship in Hamburg was handled. In the same year was in the neighborhood Waltershof a terminal for container handling, initially with four berths. 1969 60.805 TEU ( abbreviation for the equivalent of a 20 - foot standard container) have been handled that made just a share of the piece and Sackgutverkehr of 3.2%. In subsequent years, the number of handled containers took continuously: in 2004 over seven million TEUs were handled here already. Meanwhile, is well over 90% of the article, which is handled in Hamburg and other major European seaports in containers.

After 35 years of container handling dominates so that the conventional envelope. It is generally expected that this trend will continue.

In 2009, due to the economic crisis in many developed countries, the container terminals have been particularly hard hit in Germany and the USA with envelope to fall by up to 25 %. The Southeast Asian ports showed only moderate reductions.

Envelope

The change takes place mainly in the industrialized countries with land-based equipment, the huge container bridges that vary in size depending on the port and ship width. They usually have capacities of 30 to 40 tons and create about 20 to 30 handling operations per hour. In the deep-water ports is called Panamaxbrücken because the Panamax container ships widths of about 32 meters have to about 50 meters. Container bridges are expensive; smaller ports in emerging countries have, therefore, often not; then takes the envelope with on-board cranes or so-called gantry cranes. Universal small or medium-sized container ships up to 2500 TEU container slots usually have their own handling facilities.

Envelope data of the largest container ports in the world (2002 to 2012)

Buffer and memory function

The different pre-and post-trigger times on the road or the train and the long travel times with the ship require a diverse and balancing distribution of container volumes over time. The container terminals are therefore also provides a buffer memory having sufficiently large storage areas. These are fenced and guarded.

Thus, it is not necessary that the involved transport modes for land and sea transport waiting for each other. The systematic management of terminal areas take into account estimated berthing of ships and the stowage plan on the ship. Efforts are made to minimize the idle times of the ships. This is done computerized system. If the number of loading tracks is a bottleneck factor (ie, when they are scarce ), the operator of the terminal areas, freight trains attempts in the shortest possible time to load and / or unload and meet desired date as possible.

Automation

In some ports, the transport of containers from the crane bridge is carried to the camp with fully automatic driverless vehicles that are controlled autonomously (see Container Terminal Werder, Terminal ECT Rotterdam). The choice of the operational concept for a container terminal is determined by the desired flexibility and the available investment budget. Full automation requires significantly higher investment and is less flexible than a farmed with manually controlled device terminal. Furthermore, in a fully automated terminal for safety reasons no increase in peak power by a mixed mode with manually controlled device is possible.

The containers in inland terminals also be reloaded by crane bridges of light rail vehicles on road vehicles or in smaller systems with the aid of Reach Stackers.

See also: Combined Transport

Projects in Germany

In Germany, there have been several major projects in order to meet the growing container handling meet:

• Expansion of the container terminal in Bremerhaven north of the existing terminal I and II ( Wilhelm- Kaisen - terminal) with the CT III, quay length 800 meters ( opened in 1997 ), the CT IIIa with 400 m of quay, commissioning November 2003 as well as the CT IV (1600 m quay length ), start of construction 2004 completion: end of 2006 section 1, section 2 CT IVa 2007 at the same time deepening and broadening of the Weser fairway as well as the turning point at 600 meters width.. The Container Terminal Bremerhaven has after the completion of the expansion to approximately 5.0 km in length and is already having a floor space of over 2,000,000 square meters, the largest contiguous CT of the world; since 2004 registered in the Guinness Book of World Records. Upon completion of the expansion, the footprint is approx. 3,000,000 m² amount. Since the completion of the CT CT IVa Bremerhaven is the longest CT on a so-called Stromkaje world.

• JadeWeserPort in Wilhelmshaven is still the largest port project in Germany. The function of this container terminal is used in addition to the supply and removal of land transport, especially the envelope in sea-going feeder services for the Baltic Sea and other ports north of the German Bight. 2006 EUR gate was awarded the contract for the operation of JadeWeserPort. With a water depth of 17.6 m and a quay length of first 1000 m, 1725 m later JadeWeserPort is the only deep -water port on the North Sea. The first 1000 m of quay were put into operation on August 5, 2012, the final completion shall take place a year later on August 5, 2013.
• Restructuring of the HHLA container terminals Burchardkai, the largest amount in the envelope terminals in Germany. Here to be doubled to five million TEUs in 2015 to approximately parallel to the ongoing operation, the capacity of over two million in 2008. This is achieved in that the current storage technology ( stacking of containers with straddle carriers ) by a bearing system with stacking cranes (ASC Automatic Stacking Cranes ) is replaced gradually with a complex electronically controlled warehouse optimization. The project was started in 2007 and the first stacking cranes are in use since 2010.

• Renovation of berths 1-3 ( already completed ) and westward expansion in the euro Gate Container Terminal Hamburg towards Bubendey bank until 2016. For the current petroleum harbor is filled in and two new mega-ship berths with a total length of over 1000 m. The total handling capacity of Euro Gate Container Terminal Hamburg is increased by 1.9 million TEUs to 6 million TEUs.
• Construction of a new berth and restructuring at HHLA Container Terminal Tollerort in Hamburg until 2012. Well here about two million TEUs can be handled in the year.
• Construction of a new container terminal with a handling capacity of approximately 3.5 million TEUs in the central area of ​​the Port of Hamburg: " CTS - Container Terminal Steinwerder " to be now used not only for container handling
• The plans for a new container terminal in Hamburg -Moor Castle with a handling capacity of approximately 6 million TEU: " CTM - Container Terminal Moor Castle " were initially deferred.
• Another controversial recess of the bottom and the outer Elbe.