The maritime industry has perhaps been slower than most to embrace container terminal automation, however, confidence inautomation technology is now at its highest level ever and the development of automated terminals is quickly approaching the point where the rush is about to begin.
Seventeen years ago, the innovators at Thamesport began partautomating its terminal operations, a development which was quickly followed by the world’s first fully automated terminal at European Combined Terminals (ECT) at the Port of Rotterdam. Back when Thamesport began operations, the technology available to the design team was very different to that which is available now and the plan required in house development of a whole range of new, purpose built technologies to integrate the automated operation. Nowadays, the challenge is far less significant and almost all such technology is available ‘off the shelf ’…
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