Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT): A Leading Container Port in India

Abstract

Container ports are complex organizations hosting multiple simultaneous activities, e.g. tugging, pilotage, mending, etc., but container handling is the principal function of a container port, with handling constituting over 80% of the charges faced by a carrier bringing a container vessel to a port for loading and unloading (Tovar, Trujillo and Jara-Diaz, 2004). Because of various activities that take place in a container port, agents involved in container ports are diverse: port authorities, terminal operators, tug boats, freight forwarders, consigners and consignees etc. Container transport within the port can be handled by a port authority, a terminal operator or inland logistics companies. For instance, a port authority’s objective could be to create and maintain the labour capacity, whereas the terminal operator’s objective could be to maximize the profit, and the inland logistics company’s objective could be to improve service reliability. Physically, a container port consists of one or more container terminals. In order to transport containers from ship to shore and within the port, the required facilities include berths for ships to park, area for container stacking and storage, and handling equipment to upload and unload containers. Among those facilities, the container handling equipment differentiates container ports from other ports. There is a vast variety of container handling equipment, but they can be classified into two main groups: quay cranes and yard handling system. On the quayside, containers are transported between ship and shore and container quay cranes are the main equipment used for ship loading and unloading. It can be either mounted on the ship (ship-mounted cranes), or located on the quay, ship-to-shore (STS) cranes; the latter is widely used in container ports and terminals. On the yard side, containers are transferred to land transport modes or are arranged to be loaded on to other ships. Two types of activities occur in the yard area: stacking of container and horizontal transport. The container ports facilities are required to be of the scale matching the container cargo traffic handled by the port. This study is having the objectives of carrying out trend analysis for JNPT port and also to forecast capacity of cargo traffic for the JNPT port.