The term "Chain of Transport" can be defined as involving the intermediate employment of one or more means of transport between the dispatch and reception of transported goods.
A COMMON SCHEME OF CHAIN OF TRANSPORT STRUCTURE IN OVERSEAS TRADING IS REPRESENTED BELOW:
Different means of transport could be employed for pre-and on-carriage activities. Intermediate storage in inland centres might be necessary, or feeder ships could be engaged in the sea transport process. Seaports may be confronted with problems involving challenges relating to the efficiency of a seaport, and secondly, challenges for seaports and their customers resulting from the compulsory "bundling" of different traffic streams.
Specific demands are made by every individual customer on the performance structure of a seaport. The attraction of seaport is essentially dependent when it conforms as closely as possible to the requirements of each and every customer. Shipping companies also desire various facilities from a seaport such as sufficient depth of water to accommodate fully laden ships. Expectations from the ship's viewpoint directly concerning the port operating business can be summarised as:-
-- Technically qualified handling
-- Fastest possible discharging/loading, for cost and timetable reasons: and
-- Uninterrupted flow of cargoes.
Since a container ship must keep to its schedule, there must be no waiting-time in the port. The ship is not prepared to wait for the port. Nowadays the port must wait for the ship. As a rule, productivity and container-move guarantees are important factors. Not every cargo is suitable for consideration. A new kind of container terminal combination must therefore be offered, at which a ship's containers can be loaded or discharged while simultaneously goods of large volume can be rolled in and out of the ship on trailers.
Companies engaged in container handling have been increasing their efforts to reduce turn-round, increase terminal throughput, improve conditions and optimise the employment of machines and staff. While at the beginning of the container age, movements were recorded by card-index or so called stackboards, nowadays more suitable information systems are in use. They have attained an equal degree of importance with the handling itself. Where previously handling systems used to be confined to the terminal area, the modern systems seek to integrate container movement information for inland carriage as well.
EXPORT AND IMPORT BUSINESS SEEK INCREASING FREQUENCY OF SAILINGS:
Comprehensive port performance - it is in this very sector that a very large number of individual demands relating to expertise, flexibility, and reliability in cargo handling are made on the seaport by its clients:
EFFICIENT HINTERLAND CONNECTIONS:
For ships and goods, the choice of a port is not only a matter of qualitative criteria, in regions having a concentration of efficient seaports, the decisive factor in the choice of a seaport will most often be the cost.
FROM THE EXPORTER'S POINT OF VIEW, COST COMPONENTS ARE:
-- Cost of sea transport
-- Cost of hinterland transport
-- Cost of port services
In the total of the chain of transport, the proportion of transport costs to the hinterland have a particular significance. A reduction in the volume rates in many cases could lead to a proportionate increase in transport cost inland. The problem of costs looks similar from the point of view of the shipping company. A decision for or against a port is only partly influenced by the port costs.
It is evident that the demand made on a modern seaport arise from its interface function as well as from the requirements of the ship and goods. In order to keep pace with these demands, it is necessary in the first place to ensure the continual technical development of the port and secondly maintain its price competitiveness.
From the given competitive situation, a permanent stress on the technical and economic competitiveness of the seaport arises. This has led to the positive consequence that a large number of very modern ports have arisen on a coastline only a few hundred kilometers long. It is also noted that in proportion to its cost share within the chain of transport, the seaport is a relatively weak link. A fundamental structural change within the transport economy must be recognised by every seaport as a change for the future.
The transport economy is increasingly coming round to the idea of regarding the whole process of transport from producer ro consignee as one single process which makes particular ports more vulnerable. Within the complete logistical process the port can take over more tasks from its partners than it formerly did.
This corresponds once again to the demands made by customers on the port. The handling centres are increasingly becoming service centres offering complete solutions for the entire chain of transport process from producer to consignee. In this connection seaports will take over more and more distribution tasks - services which may not alter in their outward look but are apt to become increasingly important. By taking on extra tasks the port automatically wins a greater influence on the formation of the chain of transport.
Modern port installations in the conventional general cargo sector have changed considerably in comparison with former times. Further developments in handling-technology have led to ever-shorter turnaround for ships. Parallel to this, considerable storage capacities have been built up at the seaports. A marked tendency in the export industry is to have its owns export stores by sending goods to intermediate storage points at appropriate ports.
This means that in the export sector the seaport is increasingly assuming the function of a kind of buffer storage for industry. For the import sector, it is the prices on the world market which determine the demand for storage capacity. For the seaport this means that vantage points are offered which can eventually be most helpful in gaining stronger influence in the formation of the chain of transport.
The seaports have good opportunities for getting more business by offering distribution services. A port which undertakes distribution tasks for a customer will in this way be much more usefully and closely integrated into the chain of transport. The change of being a competitive port is not likely to be high when the port services are confined to purely cargo handling activities or when only occasional intermediate storage are provided.
(The writer is Ex. Additional Secretary & Director General Ports & Shipping Ex. Chairman Gwadar Port, Member Board Port Qasim Authority, Governor World Maritime University Malmao (Sweden) Member (IMO Secretary General's Panel of Experts, London.)