Sustainable container terminals: A design approach

Abstract

The future will bring increasing demands from society for a better quality of life and for more sustainable designs also in port handling facilities. Moreover, scarcity of land forces port authorities to realize higher area utilizations. Terminal operators have equal objectives, but on top of that they are looking for cost reductions through decreased life cycle cost (energy consumption, maintenance, life-time, etc.). Many of these topics have their impact on the design of terminal (stack) handling systems and for that reason both the terminal operators (in their systems specs and equipment specs) and the system (equipment) suppliers are in the process of installing more sustainable, environmentally friendly and cost-effective handling systems. In this chapter the authors present a design approach and directives to be applied for stacking systems and connected transportation systems in container terminals. Covered topics are: performance issues stack configurations, strategies to realize more sustainable designs and measures to increase cost-efficiency and to reduce energy use and eco-impact. The chapter shows the challenge how to balance service requirements, costs and demands for sustainability. © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011.