Disparate measures
“Everybody is reporting on boxes on the quay - a very flawed measurement of how a terminal is doing," Heinrich Goller, HHLA
Mr Heinrich Goller of Hamburg's HHLA believes there has to be a better way of comparing operations than the present system.
“Everybody is reporting on boxes on the quay. But I believe that this figure is saying more or less nothing – it is a very flawed measurement of how a terminal is doing.
“For example, if you take a box that has been unloaded on a transhipment terminal, you count one box into the yard, and second to transhipment – when in fact there is only one box, counted twice. However, if a box goes through the train gate, this move isn’t counted at all.” He adds: “It completely ignores the fact that a gateway terminal is often a very much more complex operation than a transhipment operation.”
His remedy is to count the number of boxes that goes through the yard, and ignore the way they go out. “It gives a completely different picture, but it would be more accurate as it abandons the double counting. Obviously a number of terminal operators wouldn’t like it,” he adds.
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