International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Computer Applications, Vol 1, Issue 7,
December 2013, ISSN 2320-6349
New Container Terminal Development for a Proposed Area
Hasini A, Papa Rao G
haasini.a@gmail.com, gprao_74@yahoo.co.in
ABSTRACT:
Container traffic has grown exponentially
since 1980 and has become a reliable and efficient
means of transportation of goods. In addition,
worldwide containerization and the availability of
cheap and frequent container transport to all corners
of the world have had a profound influence on
industrial production, transport and the environment.
All these aspects result in increasing the pressure on
container terminals to provide good service to
shipping companies. It is of crucial importance to
own a simple, cheap and easy to use method to
estimate the dimensions of a container terminal yard
based on different scenarios. The objective of this
study is to develop an easy design method using
some formulae for engineers to prepare concepts of
terminal layout, and estimate the required areas of
those concepts. These concepts can be used in design
of a new container terminal. The container terminal
design method is verified against three formerly
performed projects. The validation showed good
performance with justified differences compared to
actual designed values.
Keywords: Container Terminal, Terminal Elements,
Area, Functional Dimensions, Container
Equipments.
INTRODUCTION:
Container terminal is a facility where cargo
containers are transshipped between different
transport vehicles, for onward transportation. The
transshipment may be between container ships and
land vehicles, for example trains or trucks, in which
case the terminal is described as a maritime container
terminal. Alternatively the transshipment may be
between land vehicles, typically between train and
truck, in which case the terminal is described as
an inland container terminal. Maritime container
terminals tend to be part of a larger port, and the
biggest maritime container terminals can be found
situated around major harbours. Inland container
terminals tend to be located in or near major cities,
with good rail connections to maritime container
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terminals. Both maritime and inland container
terminals usually provide storage facilities for both
loaded and empty containers. Loaded containers are
stored for relatively short periods, while waiting for
onward transportation, while unloaded containers
may be stored for longer periods awaiting their next
use. Containers are normally stacked for storage, and
the resulting stores are known as container stacks
Adequate area is provided on the terminal for:
Efficient container handling
operations with world-class
productivity
Container and equipment storage
Warehousing for stripping/stuffing
operations
Equipment maintenance, and
utilities
Gate operations and security
Truck parking and turnaround areas
Rail yard capable of handling
double stack trains
Administration and commercial
offices
Container ships are cargo ships that
carry their entire load in truck-
size intermodal containers, in a technique
called containerization. They form a
common means of commercial intermodal
freight transport.
There are two main types of dry cargo: bulk
cargo and break bulk cargo.
Bulk cargoes, like grain or coal, are
transported unpackaged in the hull of the
ship, generally in large volume.
Break-bulk cargoes, on the other hand, are
transported in packages, and are generally
manufactured goods.
Shipping containers are usually made of
steel, but other materials like aluminum,
fiberglass or plywood are also used. They are
designed to be entirely transferred to and from
trains, trucks or trailers to and from a ship. There
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 International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Computer Applications, Vol 1, Issue 7,
are several types of containers and they are
categorized according to their size and functions
STANDARD CONTAINERS OPENTOP
CONTAINERS
FLATRACK CONTAINERS
FLATRACK COLLAPSIBLE CONTAINERS
REEFER CONTAINERS HIGH CUBE
CONTAINERS
PLATFORM CONTAINERS
A number of elements are essential to a terminal:
1. Quay wall
2. Apron
3. Storage Area
4. Landside traffic system
5. Buildings
The quays are the interface between a ship
and the land. Container vessels berth along the
quay wall of the container terminal. Quay walls
for container terminals do not necessarily differ
from quay walls for other vessel types.
The apron is an open area adjacent to the
quay wall. The apron supports two functions: (1) an
area for quay cranes to operate on and (2) an internal
traffic circulation area for vehicles moving containers
between the quay cranes and the storage area. The
width of the apron varies from a minimum of about
40m to more than 100m and often depends on the
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December 2013, ISSN 2320-6349
Layout of a Single-Berth Container
Terminal
width of the crane rail track and the type of
horizontal waterside transport.
In the storage yard import, export,
empties and transshipment containers are kept
for a certain period. For reefers and hazardous
containers special areas with special equipment have
to be considered. It also includes a special area for
stripping and stuffing of cargo called Container
Freight Station (CFS).
Landside traffic system enables trucks to bring
and collect containers at container exchange points.
The trucks enter the landside area through the truck
gate where administrative activities such as
inspection and recording the physical condition of
containers are carried out. The trucks then precede to
the exchange points before exiting terminal. Note to
avoid grid lock inside and on public roads outside the
terminal, sufficient queuing space has to be included
in the planning of the truck gate.
Numbers of buildings are provided in a terminal
for repair and maintenance of the equipment.
Although, most of the maintenance activities are
carried out outside the terminals, workshops on the
terminals are unavoidable, since most of the
equipment that operates in a terminal is too large to
be moved to external workshops. In addition, every
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terminal needs office buildings for management, staff
facilities and supporting functions
In addition to essential elements described
above, a number of other elements may exist at a
terminal such as:
Rail Terminals Barge
Terminals
Empty Container Depot Container
Repair and Cleaning Facilities
The landside area consists of three basic
parts as follows:
Gate area
Workshop and Service buildings
Terminal offices
The gate area consists of traffic lanes, parking
area , reception building and terminal gate.
The maintenance and repair works of the equipment
are carried out in workshops and service buildings.
A Reach Stacker is one of the most flexible
handling solutions whether to operate a small
terminal or a medium sized port. Reach stackers are
As most of the container terminals in India are
designed by the outsources, no information was
found on what are the methodologies used for the
design. Therefore some literature survey has done in
order to find some methods for designing a new
container terminal.
Royal Haskoning Maritime Division (RHMD)
proposed a container terminal design in which some
formulae are used to calculate the functional
dimensions. This method comprised of Excel
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December 2013, ISSN 2320-6349
able to transport a container in short distances very
quickly and pile them in various rows depending on
its access. There are also empty stackers that are used
only for handling empty containers (10tonnes)
A Rubber Tyred Gantry crane (RTG crane) is a
mobile gantry crane used for stacking intermodal
containers within the stacking areas of a container
terminal. RTGs are used at container terminals and
container storage yards to straddling multiple lanes of
rail/road and container storage, or when maximum
storage density in the container stack is desired.
Ship to Shore crane systems is located in
ports around the world in order to transport
containers from ship on land or, vice versa, from land
onto the ship. These crane systems are expected to
handle clearly defined quantities within a prescribed
time.
worksheets that based on existing empirical
formulations that defines the dimensions of a
terminal yard. This method of design is used in Hong
Kong. In this project those formulae are used in
calculation and comparison is done with existing
terminals in India. Container terminal parameters, a
journal prepared by Maritime department of
transportation gives on how to decide the area for a
new container terminal by considering the already
existed terminals. In this method existing U.S
terminals are taken and the median of all this
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December 2013, ISSN 2320-6349
terminals acre/berth is calculated which gives the terminal is defined by the i) Length of berth required
area of new terminal. This method is implemented on to service the vessels expected to call at the terminal,
Indian container terminals and the area of new and ii) The area required to handle the cargo
container terminal is calculated. projected for the port.

Methodologies Adopted For Designing A New

Container Terminal:

Estimation of Area Required for a 2-Berth

Container Terminal: The size of a container
Area Requirement:
Survey of 8 Indian Container Terminals
Port Berths Acres(hectares) Acres/Berth (hectares/berth)

VCTPL 2 123.5 (49.9) 61.75 (24.95)

JNPT 3 98.8 (39.9) 32.93 (13.3)

ICTT Cochin 3 284.05 (114.9) 94.68 (38.3)
CCT Chennai 3 88.426 (35.78) 29.47 (11.92)
Mundra international 2 91.39 (36.98) 45.69 (18.49)
container terminal MCIT
Kolkata 2 11.263 (4.55) 5.63 (2.28)
Kandla 2 98.8 (39.9) 49.4 (19.99)
Tuticorin 1 24.7 (10) 24.7 (10)
Median Acres Per Berth 40 acres (16.18)

Estimate of area Required for a 2-Berth Non-Site Specific Container Terminal:

Generic Container Terminal Specifications

Berths 2
Median hectares per Berth 16.18

Alternative hectares per Berth 38.3

Buffer Zone hectares for 2 Berths 14

Total Median Berth area 46.36

Total Alternative Berth area 90.6

Using RHMD Method: Container terminal design is divided into design of waterside and landside areas. The
waterside consists of a quay for serving vessels. The landside consists of a storage yard for stacking containers and a
hinterland area for serving truck and trains

Basic dimensions of workshops and stores

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 International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Computer Applications, Vol 1, Issue 7,
December 2013, ISSN 2320-6349
Buildings Width (m) Length (m) Area (m)
Reception 4 5 20
Customs office 3 4 12
Waiting area 4 5 20
Facilities 3 4 12
The office area depends on the number of personnel. These offices are used for management operations,
vessel planning, and finance and custom administrations. Some assumptions based on David Adler (2008),
consider for each staff member a required office space of 20 m.

Formulae:

Quay length: Important factors to determine the required quay length are service time and annual berth working
hours. To calculate the service time, the number and productivity of cranes per berth, parcel size and number of calls
are necessary. The service time can be calculated as follows:

Total service time (hour/vessel) = (Un) loading time + (Un) mooring time

1) The following formula can be used to determine the (Un) loading time (Thorsen, 2010):

(Un) loading time (hrs) = Sp/ (Nc* Qcr* Wct)

Where:
Sp: Parcel Size (TEU)
Nc: Number of cranes per vessel (-)
Qcr: Crane productivity (TEU/hr)
Wct: working crane time due to ship total berthing time varies between .65 and 1

2) Given the downtime factor and total working hours, the berth working hours per week can be
calculated as follows:

Tbw= (1 - D t)*Td*Ndw
Where:

Tbw : Berth working hours per week (hrs/week)

D t : Downtime (%)
Td : Working hours per day
Ndw : Number of working days per week (-)

3) The berth length requirement for loading and unloading a vessel is expressed as:

Lbr = Ts* Nv* Lb

Where: Lbr: Berth length requirement (hrs.m/week)

Ts: Total Service time (hrs/week)
Nv: Vessel arrival (No/week)
Lb: Berth use (Vessel length+ Berthing gap) (m)

4) To determine the sufficient quay length with a given berth occupancy, the following equation is used
(Thorsen, 2010):

Lq = Lbr *P/ (Tb*U berth)

Where:
Lq : Quay length (m)
Lbr: Berth length requirement (hrs.m/week)

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 International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Computer Applications, Vol 1, Issue 7,
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P : Peak factor per week (%)
Tbw: Berth working hours per week

5) The number of berths can then be calculated as follows (Ligteringen,2009):

Nb = (Lq - (Berthing Gap))/ (Lv+ Berthing Gap)* 1.1

Where:
Nb : Number of berths
Lv : Average vessel length (m)
Lq : Quay length (m)

6) Storage yard capacity:

In the presented package, the storage yard is divided into different stacks such as general, reefers and
empty. The following formula is used to calculate the required storage yard capacity.

Cs= (S*td*P)/365

S = Cq (1 - 0.5*)

Where:

S: Stack visits (TEU/yr)

Cq: Quay handling capacity (TEU/yr)
td: Average Dwell time (days)
: Transshipment factor (-)

7) TEU ground slots can be calculated by dividing the storage yard capacity by the maximum stacking
height. The following equation can be used to determine the number of TEU ground slots.

N TGS= Cs/h
Where:
N TGS : Number of TEU ground slots
h: stacking height (m)
Comparison between Existing values and calculated
values of the three terminals (VCTPL, MUNDRA,
RESULTS: MUMBAI)

VCTPL MUNDRA MUMBAI

Existing Calculated Existing Calculated Existing Calculated values

values values values values values

No. of berths 2 2 2 2 2 2

Berth length 450m 476m 632m 643m 712m 718m

No. of ground 2500teu 3095 teu 5880teu 6385teu 2862.5 teu 2968 teu
slots

No. of stacks Laden=4 Laden=5 Laden=5 Laden=5 Laden=6 Laden=6

Empty=4 Empty=4 Empty=4 Empty=4 Empty=4 Empty=4

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 International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Computer Applications, Vol 1, Issue 7,
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No. of QC = 2 QC=2 QC=4 QC=6 QC =10 QC =8

equipment
RTG=4 RTG=4 RTG=18 RTG=18 RTG=40 RTG =40

Storage yard 33000teu 40547.9teu 63200teu 66918.7teu 45000teu 46663teu

capacity

Discussion of Results:

All the inputs required in the References:

formulae are collected and calculation is done for the
three existing container terminals such as 1. Carl Thorsen. A, Port Designer`s
Visakhapatnam container terminal private limited Handbook, Second Edition, January
(VCTPL), Mundra Container Terminal and Mumbai 2010, pp 235-264
Container Terminal. Then the obtained values are
compared with the already existing values to check 2. Cornell, Container Terminal
whether the obtained values are approximately equal Parameters A White Paper Prepared
to the existing values or not. And the validation for: Maine Department of
showed good performance with justified differences Transportation, January 30, 2007
compared to actual designed values.
3. Handbook of container terminal,
CONCLUSIONS: General Considerations on Container
Terminal Planning Institute of Maritime
1. The package is developed as a set of Excel Logistics - Hamburg University of
Technology, October 2010,pp 3-22
worksheets as this platform is accessible, user
friendliness and flexible. 4. Ligteringen, Prof. Ir. H. Ligteringen,
Port and Terminals , January 2009, pp
2. The validation showed a relatively accurate 432-446
comparison between the results of the calculated
5. Royal Haskoning maritime Division,
and the existing values. Guatemala New Container Terminal,
December,2009
3. Existing Berth length of VCTPL is 450m
and Calculated Berth length is 476m

4. The berth length is taken more than the

existing length so that larger vessels more
than 400m can also be used for
transportation and increase the business.

5. No. of Ground slots are taken more than the

existing nos. considering the growth of
container traffic and future needs.

6. Existing No. of ground slots of MUNDRA

container terminal is 5880teu
and Calculated no. of ground slots is
6385teu.

7. Storage yard capacity depends on the stack

visits and quay handling capacity.

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