Feature, Freight News, IT, Sea

All-water alternative to container trucking in Hamburg

[ October 17, 2022   //   Chris Lewis ]

Sortsea operator Unifeeder has partnered with Hamburg port community system operator DAKOSY to offer an alternative to truck transfers between terminals at the German gateway.

The venture involves the CTA, CTT, CTB and Eurogate terminals and while south-west terminal will also be included shortly.

Unifeeder hopes to ultimately switch 50% of its transhipment operations from trucks to feeder carriers. During a three-month pilot phase, the carrier transferred about 50 containers per month. The move will not only cut carbon emissions but help reduce the impact of the truck driver shortage.

IT to operate the service is based on a new module incorporated into the port community system operated by DAKOSY.

DAKOSY project manager Franz Schwanke added that the application could be used by other feeder carriers from November.

The partners have also created a digital process that includes customs handling. The main challenge was that normally, an export customs procedure must be initiated as soon as a container is loaded onto a feeder ship. In consultation with the customs office, the partners created an integration function in both the import platform and the export platform that can be used to handle transhipments properly from a customs point of view,” Schwanke added.

All-water alternative to container trucking in Hamburg

Sortsea operator Unifeeder has partnered with Hamburg port community system operator DAKOSY to offer an alternative to truck transfers between terminals at the German gateway.

The venture involves the CTA, CTT, CTB and Eurogate terminals and while south-west terminal will also be included shortly.

Unifeeder hopes to ultimately switch 50% of its transhipment operations from trucks to feeder carriers. During a three-month pilot phase, the carrier transferred about 50 containers per month. The move will not only cut carbon emissions but help reduce the impact of the truck driver shortage.

IT to operate the service is based on a new module incorporated into the port community system operated by DAKOSY.

DAKOSY project manager Franz Schwanke added that the application could be used by other feeder carriers from November.

The partners have also created a digital process that includes customs handling. The main challenge was that normally, an export customs procedure must be initiated as soon as a container is loaded onto a feeder ship. In consultation with the customs office, the partners created an integration function in both the import platform and the export platform that can be used to handle transhipments properly from a customs point of view,” Schwanke added.