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The Merseyside's Royal Seaforth Container Terminal has started a scheme to begin the working week earlier for the delivery and collection of containers by road haulage in a bid to overcome dockside congestion, the Liverpool Daily Post reported.
Instead of starting the week's operation at 6am on Monday, the landside activities will now begin at 10pm on Sunday to tackle the dawn peak on the first day of the working week. With the new start, the Liverpool terminal offers a continuous landside operation from 10pm on Sunday through to 3pm the following Saturday.
The report said the changes are part of a GBP4 million (US$7.98 million) investment that has also seen the recent acquisition of three new straddle carriers and the placing of an order for another three, to give the terminal a total fleet of 35 machines and the creation of an extra eight truck bays.
In addition, terminal operator Peel Ports has ordered a new ship-to-shore gantry crane, to enable the handling of deepsea as well as shortsea vessels.
The company has also won a Harbour Revision Order to build a GBP90 million post-panamax container terminal on the River Mersey, doubling the port's container capacity to nearly 1.5 million units. A detailed planning study is now under way, the report said.
Last year, the facility attracted three new North Atlantic container services and will host the first independent feeder service linking Liverpool with the north European hubs of major lines. Liverpool container throughput in 2006 increased by 20,000 TEU to 645,000 TEU, said the company.
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