Over recent 5 years, vessel size is increasing rapidly. In particular, main size of vessel calling Busan Port ranges from 8,000TEU even to 18,000TEU now and big shipping lines forms alliances to survive in very competitive market, requiring a container terminal to provide reliable high productivity.
As a service provider, one of critical issue for a container terminal is how to improve productivity with efficiency and lower operating cost and technology for container terminal has been developed mainly to achieve this goal.
Since ECT started operation as the first automated terminal, more automated terminals including CTA, Gateway were developed in Europe. They adopted vertical layout for full automation which have AGV instead of YT for quay side operation. Main characteristic of vertical layout is separation of quay wall side, yard and are where external truck arrives.
In Asia, the 1st vertical automated terminal was open in 2012 in Busan. While the automated terminals in Europe have AGV, it operates SC replacing YT at quayside.
This study analyzed the status of development of vertical automated container terminals with examples of CTA and BNCT including operation method, terminal layout and equipment.
Under Busan New Port's development plan, BNCT was designed for vertical automation terminal equipped with STS crane with single trolley, SC for transportation between STS crane and yard, and TWIN Automated RMGC.
In order to be a competitive terminal and attract more shipping line, improving productivity is critical for the terminal. In this study, it analyzed BNCT's operation efficiency cases and productivity (GP, NP) so that future terminals can apply the cases for productivity improvement.
First of all, it categorized operation area i.e. quay wall, yard and gate in/out to analyze how BNCT improves operation efficiency in each area.
In quay wall side, it removed lashing platform installed on STS crane with single trolley. Lashing platform is generally adopted for a crane with twin trolley. By removing lashing platform, it saves time for (un)locking cones and shortens distance for STS crane. In addition, it creased WSTP(buffer zone in waterside) capacity up to 400% by changing WSTP layout. To improve gate operation efficiency, it installed an electric display as a pre-gate so that an external truck can be identified before entering gate.
According to analysis result of quarterly productivity of BNCT, GP has increased up to 25.0% and NP increased up to 24.2% over 2012 and 2013. The analysis result of yearly productivity shows that GP increased 26.8% and NP increased 28.6% in 2013 compared to that of 2012.
Finally, this study showed that there was Dig increase of BNCT productivity since measures for operation efficiency was activated.