'Port automation may not always deliver expected results'

© Khunaspix Dreamstime.

Conventional wisdom in the port industry over the past decade has held that automated box terminals are more efficient and, over the course of a terminal’s life, cheaper to run than those operated manually. However, that view is challenged by recent Moody’s research, reports Maritime Executive. It observes that not only does automated handling technology require a huge initial capital investment, but that many of the side effects – such as incapacitating industrial action by dockers – remain outside those calculations, ...