With pressure on ports to reduce emissions and help safeguard the environment growing all the time, manufacturers of equipment such as ro-ro tractors and terminal tractors are turning their attention to environmentally-friendly designs. Typical of this trend towards more environmentally-friendly ro-ro tractors and terminal tractors is the work that Kalmar is doing currently on a new generation of hybrid terminal tractor.<\/p>\n
Although focussing initially on terminal tractors rather than ro-ro tractors, the development work on which the company has embarked will also have an effect on future ro-ro tractors as well, Karri Keskinen, a project manager responsible for marketing at Kalmar Trailer Handling tells Port Strategy<\/i>.<\/p>\n
In the terminal tractor project which Kalmar is leading on the US East Coast, the company is working to integrate hybrid technology into its terminal tractors (with the aim of doing so later on its ro-ro tractors). The project was prompted by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), working closely with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, APM Terminals, Parker Hannifin Corporation and Port of Rotterdam, the aim being to reduce emissions from terminal tractors and develop the ‘green’ hybrid technology to the point at which is becomes commercially viable.<\/p>\n
As Kalmar’s Stefan Johansson, vice president of trailer handling at Kalmar explains, the new terminal tractors will use a diesel-hydraulic system that combines the cleanest available diesel engine technology with technology that makes use of the concept of hydraulic fluid compression to store energy. The hybrid technology will, it is anticipated, improve the vehicles’ fuel efficiency by 50%-60%, and reduce or eliminate emissions during idling. Another benefit of the hybrid drive is that it will also result in a reduction in wear and tear on a tractor’s brakes, thus extending service intervals, reducing maintenance and providing additional through-life cost benefits.<\/p>\n
As Mr Johansson further explains, the decision to develop hybrid terminal tractor technology on the US East Coast reflects US ports’ commitment to cleaner operations, a commitment which Kalmar says it is keen to respond to with a new generation of environmentally-friendly products.<\/p>\n
The project on the US East Coast is not the only such project in which the company is involved, or the first, and Kalmar is already working on a two-year hybrid terminal tractor project launched at the end of 2006 in association with West Coast Collaborative, an organisation sponsored by the US EPA, and the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Here, three Kalmar terminal tractors will be equipped with either a hybrid-electric system or a hybrid-hydraulic system which, claims Kalmar, will reduce emissions by a staggering 93% – which equates to 19 tons of nitrogen oxide and 200 pounds of particulate matter per annum.<\/p>\n
The hybrid hydraulic drive is, of course, not the only route to a greener, more environmentally-friendly terminal tractor or ro-ro tractor – companies such as Kalmar are understood to be developing a range of commercially viable tractors that will easily meet or even exceed the toughest global standards, including green machines that will burn liquefied natural gas or alternatives such as biodiesel, rather than diesel.<\/p>\n
Environmental initiatives such as the above-mentioned are especially important given the growth in world trade, in shipping and in activity at ports worldwide which, say manufacturers, is fuelling demand for terminal tractors and ro-ro tractors alike.<\/p>\n
Asked what level of demand there is for new ro-ro tractors currently and where this demand is coming from, another well known manufacturer, MAFI in Germany, says that, for a long time, demand for ro-ro tractors has been growing all over Europe, particularly in the UK, northern Europe, in the Baltic region, and in north Africa.<\/p>\n
This growth in demand is evidenced by recent orders MAFI has secured for ro-ro tractors, including three MT 32 units for the Port of Gothenburg in Sweden, these being so-called ‘low rider’ versions of the MT32 configured for operation with trestles; another four MT32 units for Port of Misurata in Libya; and six MT 25 YT units and a pair of MT 32s for the Port of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. In all of the above-mentioned cases, MAFI supplied the tractors, and the trailers were procured independently.<\/p>\n
Asked about what customers want in a ro-ro tractor, MAFI notes that the cost of a machine is, of course, an important issue. “However,” says a spokesperson for the company, “reasonable lifetime is becoming increasingly important, and is being used by ports in order to distinguish between the advantages and disadvantages of different brands.<\/p>\n
“Generally speaking, in the European ro-ro sector,” notes MAFI, “a range of standard features are required, along with options such as a swivel seat for the driver, engine pre-heating, air-suspended rear axle, fifth wheel, gooseneck, and other options.”<\/p>\n
MAFI notes that apart from the features outlined above, customer requirements depend to a large extent on individual applications – such as increased fifth wheel load, to 36 tonnes – or hydraulic facilities for cassette trailers, or exhaust treatment facilities to reduce emissions from conventional engines.<\/p>\n
There is, notes MAFI, also a demand for special tractors such as low riders with additional hydraulic features for trestle operation or tractors with ballast weight for special heavy-duty trailers and\/or for the transportation of Stora Enso Container Units (SECU) boxes.<\/p>\n
Speaking to Port Strategy <\/i>last month, <\/i>Marc Vandenberghe, who is responsible for the ro-ro tractor business at MOL in Belgium said the company had recently made a lot of effort to increase the comfort and lower the noise levels in the spacious cabs it now offers with its ro-ro tractors, but said that, for the time being MOL is not working on hybrid or biodiesel-powered versions of its current product line up, which includes the RM250\/4×4 with rear sliding door, and the FM250\/4×4 with inboard door.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A hybrid option for ro-ro tractors will offer a green gain for ports, as David Foxwell finds out<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":2409,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-2408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-container-cargo-handling"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2408"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=2408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}