Container yard operations, located both at port terminals and at inland depots, have drawn the attention of safety experts, who have issued recommendations aimed at reducing the incidence of accidents which result in bodily injury, cargo damage, equipment damage and operational downtime. According to the analysis of insurance claim data provided by the freight transport specialist insurer TT Club, telling statistics are revealed, such as: 53 percent of the total costs of operationalrelated claims were caused by yard equipment; 75 percent of the cost of injury claims in terminal facilities resulted from yard equipment accidents and 67 percent of costs related to fires were attributed to yard equipment. This analysis was based on a total of over 4,000 claims valued above US$10,000 received over a six year period from operators of container terminals, yards and other container handling facilities, with a total cost of US$341 million.
“These headline findings point to a heavy concentration of avoidable incidents”, comments Laurence Jones, TT Club’s director of global risk assessment. “Analysis of TT’s data shows that up to 1,600 claims amounting to US$130 million resulted from such incidents. Changes to operational procedure, additional training and/or fitting safety equipment to machinery could significantly reduce this bill…”
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