INDUSTRY PROFILE:

5.1 PORTS
A port is a location on a coast or shore containing one or more harbors where ships can dock and transfer people or cargo to or from land. Port locations are selected to optimize access to land and navigable water, for commercial demand, and for shelter from wind and waves. Ports with deeper water are rarer, but can handle larger, more economical ships. Since ports throughout history handled every kind of traffic, support and storage facilities vary widely, may extend for miles, and dominate the local economy. Some ports have an important, perhaps exclusively military role.

Ports often have cargo-handling equipment, such as cranes (operated by longshoremen) and forklifts for use in loading ships, which may be provided by private interests or public bodies. Often, canneries or other processing facilities will be located nearby. Some ports feature canals, which allow ships further movement inland. Access to intermodal transportation, such as trains and trucks, are critical to a port, so that passengers and cargo can also move further inland beyond the port area. Ports with international traffic have customs facilities. Harbour pilots and tugboats may maneuver large ships in tight quarters when near docks.
The terms "port" and "seaport" are used for different types of port facilities that handle oceangoing vessels, and river port is used for river traffic, such as barges and other shallow-draft vessels. Some ports on a lake, river, or canal have access to a sea or ocean, and are sometimes called "inland ports".

A seaport is further categorized as a "cruise port" or a "cargo port". Additionally, "cruise ports" are also known as a "home port" or a "port of call". The "cargo port" is also further categorized into a "bulk" or "break bulk port" or as a "container port".

5.1.1 PORT PERFORMANCE INDICATORS The operational performance of a port is generally measured in terms of the speed with which a vessel is despatched, the rate at which cargo is handled and the duration that cargo stays in port prior to shipment or post discharge. However, a progressive port manager would also wish to know how extensively and intensively its assets are being utilized as well as how well the operations perform financially. Indicators to measure these performances are determined generally in relation to the tonnage of shipping calling at the port and of the volume of cargo handled since port services in the main are rendered to ships and cargo. This note discusses the main indicators used by ports, and for ease of reference tabulation is presented at the end of this note, which briefly describes how the indicators are determined. 5.1.2 OPERATIONAL PERFORMANCE INDICATORS Primary measures of vessel performance are the ship turn-round time and the tonnage handled per ship day in port. The ship turn-round time is the duration of the vessel's stay in port and is calculated from the time of arrival to the time of departure. Traditionally expressed in days, it is now common to express turn-round time in hours. The port

authority would normally compile statistics that would provide monthly and annually average turn-round times. The average turn-round time per ship is determined by dividing the total hours by the total number of ships calling at the port. In its basic form, ship turn-round time does not mean much, as the length of stay of a vessel is influenced by (a) the volume of cargo, (b) the facilities made available and (c) the composition of the cargo itself. Thus it becomes necessary for the port to break the basic ship turn-round time down for tankers, bulk carriers, container vessels and general cargo vessels, and even subdividing these into domestic trade, regional trade and ocean going vessels. Since the duration of a vessel's stay in port is influenced by the volume of cargo that it works, a more useful measure of vessel performance is the tonnage handled per day or hour that the vessel is in port. The average tonnage handled per ship day or ship hour would be obtained by dividing the total tonnage of cargo that is loaded and discharged by the total number of hours that all vessels spend in port. In compiling data that would enable the port to determine ship turn-round time or the tonnage handled per ship day (or ship hour), a port would normally split total time in port into time at berth and time off the berth and within each, the opportunity would be taken to record for each service activity the amount of delay (idle time) as well as the reasons for the delay (e.g., waiting for cargo, opening/closing hatches, waiting for gears, rain, waiting for berth, etc). In particular, the ratio between the waiting time for berth and the time spent at berth, known as the waiting rate, is a significant indicator of possible congestion status. While the tonnage handled per ship day (or hour) is a measure of the volume of cargo handled per unit of time of the vessel in port, productivity in ports is generally measured in terms of the tonnage of cargo handled per unit of work station per hour. In the case of

general cargo, the work station is the gang, with containers; it is the crane (or hook). Thus productivity is measured in terms of (a) tons per gang hour for general cargo and (b) TEUs/per crane (or hook) hour. With tons per gang hour, the size of the gang is a material factor, as generally and up to a point, the larger the gang size the greater its output. Hence a more useful indicator of productivity for general cargo is the tonnage handled per man hour. In establishing the size of the gang, it should be noted that some ports have separate stevedoring and wharf gangs while some have an integrated gang that works on board vessels (stevedoring) as well as at the apron (wharfingering). It should also be pointed out that very often the size and nature of the consignment has an influence on gang performance. Generally, the larger and more homogeneous the consignment the greater is the productivity. The assessment of a port's performance from the point of view of the exporter/importer is quite basic in that there is only one indicator of interest, the dwell time of cargo in port measured in terms of the number of days that a ton of cargo remains in port. A high dwell time is generally an indication that all is not well with the port. It does not, however, identify areas where improvements may be sought since, unlike ship time in port, it does not have a breakdown according to the various procedures that have to be gone through before cargo can be shipped or delivered (e.g., customs clearance, waiting for instructions, waiting for ship, waiting for transport, etc.). The importance of dwell time also obviously varies with the nature of cargo. 5.1.3 COMPUTATION OF PORTS PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

5.2 OVERVIEW OF THE SHIPPING INDUSTRY TYPES OF SHIPS

i) CONTAINER SHIPS:

Container Ships are the ones which carry most of the world's manufactured goods and products, usually through scheduled liner services. ii) BULK CARRIERS:

Bulk carriers are the work horses of the fleet, transport raw materials such as iron ore and coal, identifiable by the hatches raised above deck level which cover the large cargo holds.

iii)

TANKER VESSELS:

Tankers transport crude oil, chemicals and petroleum products. Tankers can appear similar to bulk carriers, but the deck is flush and covered by oil pipelines and vents. iv) CRUISE VESSELS & FERRIES:

Ferries and Cruise ships: Ferries usually perform short journeys for a mix of passengers, cars and commercial vehicles. Most of these ships are Ro-Ro (roll on - roll off) ferries,

where vehicles can drive straight on and off, making it a speedy and easily accessible way to travel. Demand for cruise ships expanded rapidly during the 1980s, leading to a new generation of large and luxurious 'floating hotels'. v) SPECIALIST SHIPS:

Specialist ships: Such as anchor handling and supply vessels for the offshore oil industry, salvage tugs, ice breakers and research vessels. vi) RO-RO VESSELS:

Roll-on/roll-off (RORO or Ro-Ro) ships are vessels designed to carry wheeled cargo such as automobiles, trucks, semi-trailer trucks, trailers or railroad cars that are driven on and off the ship on their own wheels. This is in contrast to lo-lo (lift on-lift off) vessels which use a crane to load and unload cargo.

5.3 HISTORY OF RO-RO VESSELS: To achieve an increased flexibility of goods transport ships to a certain degree, the Ro-Ro ship was developed, with a weather deck for the transport of particularly containers and with a plurality of tween decks that may be used for the transport of trailers or e.g., cars which may be loaded using stern ramps. At first, wheeled vehicles carried as cargo on oceangoing ships were treated like any other cargo. Automobiles had their fuel tanks emptied and their batteries disconnected before being hoisted into the ships hold, where they were chocked and secured. This process was tedious and difficult, vehicles were subject to damage, and could not be used for routine travel. It was not until the Second World War, however, that the idea of applying the RoRo principle of road transport became practicable - and was used in constructing the tank landing craft used at D-Day and in other battles. The principle was applied to merchant ships in the late 1940s and early 1950s. It proved to be extremely popular, especially on short-sea ferry routes, encouraged by technical developments on land as well as sea, notably the increase in road transport. For the shipper, the RoRo ship offered a number of advantages over traditional ships, notably speed. As the name of the system implies, cars and lorries can drive straight on to a RoRo ship at one port and off at the port on the other side of the sea within a few minutes of the ship docking. During World War II, Landing Ships were also among the first seagoing ships enabling road vehicles to roll directly on and off. Post war, the idea was adopted for merchant

ships and short ferry crossings. The first Ro-Ro service crossing the English Channel began from Dover in 1953. In 1957 the US military issued a contract to the Sun Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company in Chester, PA for the construction of a new type of motorized vehicle carrier. The ship, Comet, had a stern ramp as well as interior ramps which allowed cars to drive directly from the dock, onto the ship, and into place. Loading and unloading was sped up dramatically. Comet also had an adjustable chocking system for locking cars onto the decks, and a ventilation system to remove any exhaust gases that accumulate during vehicle loading. Until the 1950s, anyone wishing to take a motor vehicle across the sea by ship had to load and unload it by crane - a time-consuming, expensive and somewhat risky procedure. At the same time, the growth of motor transport made it imperative that some means of speeding up the process should be found. The solution was the RoRo, a design that may have originated with the tank landing craft configuration which was developed during the Second World War. It was an appealingly simple concept. Simply place a door at either end of the ship, connected by a huge, unrestricted deck area, and you have created what it is in effect a floating bridge. Vehicles drive on at one end and off at the other. The RoRo concept seemed to provide all the answers - until something went wrong. Ro-Ro ships also integrate well with other transport development, such as containers, and the use of Customs-sealed units (first introduced in the late 1950s) has enabled frontiers

to be crossed with the minimum of delay, thereby further increasing speed and efficiency for the shipper. Ro-Ro ships have also proved extremely popular with holiday makers and private car owners and have significantly contributed to the growth of tourism. Until the early 1950s someone wishing to take his car from one country to another by sea had to get it loaded into the ship's hold by crane, a time-consuming and expensive process. The development of the RoRo car ferry changed all that and many ports boomed as a result. Since 1970, the market for exporting and importing cars has increased dramatically and the number and type of RO/ROs has increased also. In 1973, Japans K Line built the European Highway, the first Pure Car Carrier (PCC), which carried 4,200 automobiles. Todays pure car carriers and their close cousins, the Pure Car/Truck Carrier (PCTC) are distinctive ships with a box-like superstructure running the entire length and breadth of the hull, fully enclosing and protecting the cargo. They typically have a stern ramp and a side ramp for dual loading of many thousands of vehicles, as well as extensive automatic fire control systems. The PCTC has liftable decks to increase vertical clearance as well as heavier decks for "high and heavy" cargo. A 6500 unit car ship with 12 decks can have three decks which can take cargo up to 150 short tons (136 t; 134 long tons) with liftable "panels" to increase clearance from 1.7 to 6.7 meters (5.6 to 22 ft) on some decks. Lifting decks to accommodate higher cargo reduces the total capacity. The growing volume of cars moving by sea and the demands of the car shippers for high quality service led to the design and construction of PCC's, vessels dedicated to the carriage of cars and, at least in intent, optimized for that purpose. One of the most notable

features of the PCC was roll on/roll off loading and discharge. A series of external and internal ramps made it possible to drive the cars onto the ship and to their stowage location, and to discharge by the same method. These roll on/roll off loading and discharge resulted not only in reduced in-port time, but in greatly reduced handling damage to the cars as well. Furthermore, since the PCC was optimized for the carriage of cars, a relatively light cargo, their design could incorporate a much finer hull than the carbulkers, permitting more favorable speed and fuel consumption characteristics. Automobile carriage in PCC's, as compared with carriage in car-bulkers, resulted in faster transit time, less damage, no contamination by residue from previous dirty cargoes and the routing and port selection flexibility available to a primary cargo. The advantages of PCC's over car-bulkers were sufficient to impel many vehicles manufacturers to bar shipment of their product in car-bulkers. With all the advantages the PCC has, however, it remains a highly specialized vessel which is unsuited to other than roll on/roll off (RO/RO) cargoes and which has little opportunity to find backhaul cargoes of this type.

A PCC ship's starboard side showing side ramp They are particularly popular in Europe, and trading patterns reflect this. Whereas pure container ships are to be found in large numbers operating between Europe and North America, Europe and Japan and Japan and North America, Ro-Ro vessels operate primarily between Europe and North America and Europe and the Middle East, although there is an important trade between North America and the Caribbean. Vehicle transport logistics is going through changes worldwide. Major producers have established and keep on establishing factories in their main export countries, to be in close proximity to end-users. The seasonal character of transports is growing and vehicle transport volumes are decreasing. Car parts and components are transported in increasing quantities. The freer market places demands on greater flexibility in handling different bulk or general cargo, better suitability for handling port and customer-specific small batches etc. on the ships of tomorrow. Economical use of ships calls for a better transport efficiency also during the return voyage. This is often a problem in current ship types. Loading and unloading no longer takes place in only two ports; on the contrary, a ship may have to make 5 to 10 port calls. With the building of the Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics's 8000 CEU car carrier Faust, out of Stockholm, in June 2007 the car carriers entered a new era called the LCTC (Large Car & Truck Carrier). The car carrier Auriga Leader, built in 2008 with a capacity of 6200 cars, is the world's first partially solar powered ship.

5.3.1 RO-RO VESSELS AND ITS DESIGN: RORO vessels have built-in ramps which allow the cargo to be efficiently "rolled on" and "rolled off" the vessel when in port. While smaller ferries that operate across rivers and other short distances still often have built-in ramps, the term RORO is generally reserved for larger ocean-going vessels. The ramps and doors may be stern-only, or bow and stern for quick loading. New automobiles that are transported by ship around the world are often moved on a large type of RORO called a Pure Car Carrier (PCC) or Pure Car Truck Carrier (PCTC). Unlike elsewhere in the shipping industry where cargo is normally measured by the metric tonne, RORO cargo will typically be measured in the more convenient unit of lanes in meters (LIMs). This is calculated by multiplying cargo length in meters by the number of decks and by its width in lanes (lane width differs from vessel to vessel and there are a number of industry standards). Aboard PCCs cargo capacity is often measured in RT or RT43 units which are based on a 1966 Toyota or by car equivalent units (CEU). The largest RORO passenger ferry is MS Color Magic, a 75,100 GT cruise ferry that entered service in September 2007 for Color Line. Built in Finland by Aker Finnyards, she is 223.70 m (733 ft 11 in) long, 35 m (114 ft 10 in) wide and can carry 550 cars as well as 1270 lane meters of cargo. The RORO passenger ferry with the greatest car-carrying capacity is the Ulysses (named after a novel by James Joyce) which is owned by Irish Ferries. She entered service on 25 March 2001 and operates between Dublin and Holy head. The 50,938 GT ship is

209.02 m (685 ft 9 in) long and 31.84 m (104 ft 6 in) wide, and can carry 1342 cars and 4101 lane meters of cargo. 5.3.2 SEAWORTHINESS OF RO-RO VESSELS: The seagoing RORO car ferry, with large external doors close to the waterline and open vehicle decks with few internal bulkheads, has a reputation for being a high risk design (to the point where the acronym is sometimes derisively expanded "Roll On/Roll Over"). An improperly-secured loading door can cause a ship to take on water and sink, as happened for example in 1987 with the MS Herald of Free Enterprise. Water sloshing on the vehicle deck can set up a free surface effect making the ship unstable and causing it to capsize. Free surface water on the vehicle deck was determined by the Court of Inquiry to be the immediate causes of the 1968 capsize of the TEV Wahine in New Zealand. Despite these inherent risks, the very high freeboard raises the seaworthiness of these vessels. For example, the car carrier MV Cougar Ace listed 80 degrees to its port side in 2006, but did not sink, since its high enclosed sides prevented water from entering. 5.3.3 TYPES OF RO-RO VESSELS:
i)

ROPAX

The acronym ROPAX (roll on/roll off passenger) describes a RORO vessel built for freight vehicle transport but also with passenger accommodation. Technically this encompasses all ferries with both a roll on/rolls off car deck and passenger-carrying

capacities, but in practice ships with facilities for more than 500 passengers are often referred to as cruise ferries.
ii)

ConRO

The ConRo vessel is a hybrid between a RORO and a container ship. This type of vessel has a below-decks area used for vehicle storage while stacking containerized freight on the top decks. Examples of ConRo ships such as those in the fleet of Atlantic Container Line can carry a combination of 1,900 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of containers, up to 1,000 TEUs of heavy equipment, as well as project and oversized cargo on three decks and up to 2,000 automobiles on five decks. Separate internal ramp systems within the vessel segregate automobiles from other vehicles, mafi trailers and break bulk cargo. iii) RoLo

A RoLo (roll-on lift-off) vessel is another hybrid vessel type with ramps serving vehicle decks but with other cargo decks accessible only by crane. iv) CAR CARRIERS:

Car Carriers are vessels designed to carry new automobiles at large quantities (4000 8000 CEU). As a result of globalization, automobile manufacturers needed their products to be distributed to the international markets and first car carrier has been built in 1973. PCC (Pure Car Carriers), PCTC (Pure Car and Truck carrier) and LCTC (Large Car and Truck Carrier) are varieties of car carriers. Car carriers can be described as floating auto parks offering ocean passing service for thousands of cars on single sailing.

5.4 LOADING OF RO-RO SHIPS Vehicles are driven inside the ship and secured onto the vessels car deck. Simple, effective, economical and fast. Precisely, thats Ro-Ro vessels handling. These vessels also carry non motorized vehicles like boats on trailers or non roadworthy vehicles like heavy plant and machinery on steel tracks. On Ro-Ro vessels all cargo is shipped under deck secured in the hold, wind and water tight. No packing is required. Cars are driven on at the departure port, invariably Southampton, Bristol or Tilbury, London if you are shipping from the UK. Vehicles are then simply driven off at your destination port. Now we shall take a look at a ship type which is used to carry other models of land transport. Cars, trucks and other modes of road transport are very useful on land but sometimes when these modes of transport have to be transported to long distances, it is not a very good option to drive them all the way (Unless of course you plan some sort of a marathon or cross country race). So they can be effectively transported using ships which are specifically designed for such wheeled cargoes and such ships are known as Ro-Ro vessels or Roll on Roll off vessels. The word Roll signifies that the vehicles can be easily rolled for loading or unloading of the cargo.

It will be better appreciated if it is understood that in the earlier days, even such cargoes were treated like dead matter and hauled up and down the ships like a lump of metal and stowed properly on board after emptying their fuel tanks and disconnecting their batteries.