THE HANDS-FREE BOX TERMINAL

Automation was once the preserve of only the very largest box terminal operators: the likes of Singapore and Rotterdam that could afford the risks of building specialised infrastructure and equipment into new terminal developments from the ground up.

But on a trial terminal at Brisbane's Fisherman Islands, Australian stevedore Patrick Corp and Finland's Kalmar have been turning that equation on its head. Starting with experiments at Sydney University in 1996, the two companies developed a driverless navigation system which allows converted but otherwise conventional straddle carriers to drive independently - nobody at the wheel - around an otherwise almost regular terminal. The protoype Autostrads follow job orders from the main terminal operating system but pick up, drop off, corner, stop, and keep out of each others' way by themselves.

Putting the automation into each machine, rather than into an expensive infrastructure of in-ground wires and transponders, means that smaller terminals in the 300,000-TEU class and upwards can automate incrementally, based on traffic and income growth, and without huge upfront investment.

In 2001, the experiments were promising enough for Patrick chief Chris Corrigan to buy CSX World Terminals' struggling Brisbane berth 7 facility to use as a full-scale Autostrad-equipped trial terminal.

There, five retrofitted Kalmar CSC straddles have worked the weekly Brisbane call of Cosco's Sino service between Australia and east Asia since the middle of 2002.

The move from individual experimental vehicles to practical working in a multi-machine environment in Brisbane was a huge step with average productivity at 22 moves an hour on the test terminal limited only by the low hoist height of the quay cranes rather than any issue with the straddles. The trial site has even managed to turn an operating profit during the experiment.

The final vindication came last October, when Patrick ordered from Kalmar 14 new diesel-electric ESC model Autostrads, to be built for the first time without cabs for manned operations. These new machines will operate on Patrick's relocated Brisbane facility incorporating the berth 7 trial terminal with berths 8 and 9 now under construction next door, to create a fully automated operation with a potential capacity of 850,000TEUs.The new terminal will be progressively brought into service this year and next.

Volume growth in Brisbane means most jobs would still be needed, despite the automation, said Corrigan. And he added that younger wharf workers saw the automation project as a change of role for them, away from traditional wharf work and into a more tech-orientated career.

Corrigan said that the savings on Autostrads are worth a net (US)$15.50 per container move through a terminal, recovering the higher price of the machines in around 18 months and then going straight to the bottom line.

Patrick's Port Botany terminal handled 430,000 container moves in the financial year to June 2003, so that the Autostrads could in theory have shaved up to $6.65m in operating costs from that activity. If the same results were applied to Patrick's largest facility in Melbourne, as well as Brisbane and Sydney, then there could be a significant impact on profit in the terminals division, which for the company's full year to September 2002 year totalled $60m.

Patrick will market the technology overseas through its Patrick Technology and Systems (PTS) subsidiary, in which Kalmar has a 15% stake.

If Corrigan has any plans to use his new technology edge to enter the overseas terminal market on Patrick's own account - perhaps setting up a very competitive transhipment hub somewhere - then he is not saying. "Not in my time, " he suggested, emphasising the main focus is on getting the technology to work in Australia. "We have not gone looking for projects and our primary focus is on Australia."

The navigation system on the Autostrads uses a combination of GPS, millimetre wave radars of the kind used in anti-tank missiles, and lasers to guide themselves to and from stack and ship and past each other.

Kalmar's contribution is the machine control systems which move, brake, and steer the Autostrads and the automatic pick and place systems.

NO PERSONNEL ALLOWED The machines operate in a sealed-off yard where no personnel are allowed to enter. Transfer on and off trucks is still partially manual by joystick control. But even there the technology has improved in the past year with positioning over the truck and box pick-up now automated and only dropping on is controlled manually. Patrick uses Navis Sparcs modules to produce the ship plan and the sequence of work for the terminal, just as in a manned operation.

But from there on, Patrick's own equipment control and optimisation systems nominate the straddles to be used. The automation technology steps in as the terminal management system looks at where the work and the straddles are located and allocates travel paths to each straddle in real time as the job progresses. The terminal management system effectively acts as the "driver".

Howard Wren, principal consultant at PTS, says that based on the Brisbane trial the machines cut terminal labour costs by 20% and fuel bills by 30%. The Autostrads are also available around the clock in an industry where rostering staff to match actual ship arrivals is a longstanding problem. They also allow more precise resource management, with fewer machines needed to stand by to make up for late movements.

But many of the other cost gains seen on the Brisbane trial are not so obvious. Straddles take a heavy toll on expensive terminal paving. A completely electronic operation allows the stacks to be shuffled easily to avoid wear in the same places. A terminal viewed only electronically does not need line marking either.

Smoother electronically controlled driving means lower maintenance costs on the machines themselves. Kalmar says that the diesel electric drives on the new machines will give 10% better availability and therefore there will be fewer straddles in the terminal fleet.

BOTANY BAY TOO?

The Autostrads have potential for a role in Patrick's Port Botany redevelopment in Sydney, although they are not central to what is already a very ambitious re-design.

The concept plan at Port Botany, still to be fully approved, will boost capacity from 640,000TEUs to 1.6mTEUs and will allow Patrick to absorb forecast demand for its Sydney facilities for the next 17 years. The redesign will see a large truck rank system near the centre of the terminal area replaced by a long interchange between yard, rail, and road running down the side of the terminal along Penrhyn Road, which will become part of the Patrick lease area in 2006. The interchange will be serviced by five large rail-mounted gantries (RMGs), with straddles operating between the RMGs and stacks.

This new road/rail access and interchange area will eliminate a number of weaknesses in the existing terminal layout. The rail spur crosses over a main road into the terminal and there is mutual conflict. There is also only one road entrance into the yard. The existing truck rank takes up a lot of potential yard storage area, but is still too small to do its job in future, and will be well replaced by the new exchange. As well as the main interchange, a second direct yard/road interchange at another end of the terminal will deal with peak period overflows, without having to strain the main interchange facility.

The key to the new design however is the intermediate stacking area underneath the RMGs. Wren said this will allow the terminal to better match import and export container movements and greatly improve straddle productivity.

The Vehicle Booking System gives advance warning of the import boxes required, which can then be moved from the stack to the intermediate area in the sequence of choice. This move can be combined with the return move of export boxes, which can be put down near the imports being worked, so that these two key transfers can be done with far fewer empty straddle journeys. The intermediate stack also creates a buffer when there are periods of heavy demand for straddles on both shipside and shoreside, and having an overstretched straddle fleet trying to feed the cranes hand-to-mouth is very unwelcome. Instead, the straddle and RMG operations are "decoupled" from direct dependence on each other through the buffer stack.