2020 State of Port Automation: (Part One) The Challenges

Port automation is the future, but the future is very much founded in the present. Automation is already helping ports around the world increase efficiency, serve more customers and handle more cargo with fewer resources, and increase visibility into the data that drives better decisions.

But there are a number of challenges facing the marine port industry that still need to be surmounted. The EPA clarified these in a recent report. In their estimation, the industry’s largest current hurdles are congestion, container management, environmental sustainability, and climate resilience. 

Each alone is a significant block to progress. Together they represent an appreciable challenge that requires ingenuity, perseverance, and technological savvy to overcome. We’ll examine each of these in detail.

Congestion

Space is a limited resource and the land around major ports is tasked in a variety of ways. This is at once a result of the economic activity that takes place within marine terminals, a support structure for this activity, and a hurdle to its growth. This is no small problem. The National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America (NCBFAA) estimates that at least seven out of the ten busiest ports in the U.S. suffer congestion problems on a regular basis. The businesses and infrastructure that support and benefit from port activity also end up competing with the port for surrounding land. These spatial limitations can confound expansion and modernization efforts. But more immediately they cause congestion both within the port and without.

Externally, industrial expansion by other players in the area can cause congestion in the transportation infrastructure surrounding a port. When this happens, the flow of goods into and out of the terminal is slowed. This becomes the weakest link, damaging the rest of the port’s operations.  Even if the port expands its cargo handling capacity, its ability to process freight is limited by the capacity of the external infrastructure.

The resulting gridlock is a problem that echoes out across the supply chain. According to the NCBFAA:
“Ships are stranded offshore for days, even weeks, waiting to unload. Containers are buried in enormous stacks in clogged terminal yards. Trucks wait in line for hours (up to eight or nine hours in some cases) to pick up a single container. And customers throughout the country experience shipment delays lasting weeks. The congestion and bottlenecks reverberate throughout the supply chain, becoming a significant trade barrier for both exports and imports with a corresponding negative impact on the economy.”

The problem seems intractable, and solutions that attempt to tackle the external congestion directly are difficult to implement in the extreme. The short term solution comes from within and is driven by technology. 

At Tideworks, our marine TOS, Mainsail10, integrates seamlessly both with our data platform, Tideworks Insight, and numerous third-party tools like ERP’s, appointment systems and OCR, LPR and RFID technologies to improve gate traffic and give modern terminals a detailed, real-time view into their operation. With Tideworks Insight, for example, you’re able to anticipate high demand on a single day and allocate resources accordingly. If you run into gate issues, Tideworks Insight allows you to drill down into the data to judge whether it was an issue in your yard, or one beyond your control, like a delayed shipment.

Download our NOT Case Study to explore how Tideworks implemented Mainsail® at New Orleans Terminal to ensure improved yard control and terminal management.

Container Management

This challenge is in some ways related to the previous hurdle. When space is limited, terminal expansion is frequently hampered. When storage needs scale, ports are unable to scale their yards to match. This causes critical container management problems. Due to limited capacity, full containers are often stacked deep, preventing yard operators from efficiently storing and managing them. Compounding the problem are the empty containers that must also be stored until they’re ready to be reused. 

The EPA notes in their report that the related moving and storage costs are frequently higher than the value of the containers. Boston Consulting Group estimates that the costs related to repositioning empty containers hover around $20 billion dollars per year across the entire industry. What’s needed are container optimization strategies that reduce the frequency that individual containers need to be moved. 

Environmental Sustainability

Marine ports and the ships they serve operate on a scale that puts them at odds with the environment. It’s estimated that 20 percent of all marine litter is generated by the shipping industry with 34 percent of ship garbage being ejected into the sea. Ships and terminals discharge other environmental pollutants as well, including waste oil and sewage. The entirety of a port’s operations, including the myriad trucks that line up in wait for goods, contributes to air pollution. The environmental impact of the port industry is clear, and they face numerous difficulties in their efforts to abide by federal and international standards and regulations.

But the industry is rising to the challenge. The EPA’s report stresses the strides ports are making. “Many ports are investing in cleaner technologies and environmentally-friendly operating practices to meet federal and international standards,“ it says. “Many ports have also adopted Environmental Management Systems and Clean Air Programs that guide environmental decision-making. Some ports have also established Clean Air Programs.”

A report published by the Columbia School of Professional Studies demonstrates the potential for clean terminal practices. It states that:
“by offering clean power alternatives, ports can be environmental stewards and protect their near port communities. One such alternative is onshore power supply (OPS), which allows ships to effectively ‘plugin’ to a land-based electrical grid while at port docks. By doing so, ships can use electrical energy, which can be sourced from renewable or clean sources, for dock-side needs.”

Climate Resilience

Climate change is an unfortunate reality, and its effects are varied and far-reaching. According to Copernicus, the European Union’s Earth Observation Programme, coastal areas tend to suffer the heaviest impacts, due to rising sea levels and extreme weather conditions.  These impacts have a direct effect on port operations. Among other challenges, ships can be prevented from docking, and high-risk activities such as crane movements can be restricted by high winds and other extreme weather events.

It’s not accidental that weather tracking technologies are evolving at a rate to match the erratic climatic changes we’re observing. Ships can now navigate using optimized routes based on real-time weather data provided by intelligent weather routing systems. This helps them avoid dangerous weather situations. Ship scheduling within a port can also be optimized using similar technologies. StormGeo offers a product that helps terminals predict weather-related difficulties like high winds so that they can plan incoming vessel slots to better manage risky activities like crane usage.

The Port of Miami was the recent beneficiary of a computer modeling and geospatial analysis study intended to model the risks of various natural disasters in order to build an effective resilience management strategy. These technologies help predict relative risks from multiple sources, allowing mitigation spending to be maximally efficient.

The Industry is Answering the Challenge

The port industry is committed to navigating the challenges it faces, and it’s already making great strides toward that end. In part two of this series, we’ll look at what the industry is facing in the future, the trends it’s following, and how automation and technology will lead the charge.