The Georgia Ports Authority has implemented a Navis terminal operating system at the Port of Savannah’s Garden City Terminal to help facilitate data exchanges between shippers and carriers and improve the speed of cargo movements.
“After conducting extensive research, we selected the Navis N4 Terminal Operating System to optimize planning, visibility and asset utilization at the Garden City Terminal,” said Bill Sutton, GPA’s chief information officer, in a news release from Navis. “The system eliminates data silos, improves velocity across our terminals and enables us to more easily integrate with our customers to provide the data and insights they need.”
Headquartered in Oakland, California, Navis is a global provider of port and terminal operating systems as well as carrier and vessel technology solutions. According to Navis, its operating system processes more than 40% of global container volume annually.
“With rapidly growing operations and more carriers and shippers choosing the Port of Savannah as their preferred East Coast gateway, GPA continually experiences record gate volumes, leading it to expedite infrastructure projects that will add 1.7 million TEUs of annual container yard capacity. Launching the Navis N4 Container Terminal Operating System represented a crucial element in the expansion project,” the Navis news release said.
GPA data Tuesday showed 43 vessels at anchor waiting to berth at the Port of Savannah. That continues the trend seen in August, as the number of container ships waiting offshore of North American ports was extremely elevated throughout the month, according to American Shipper’s Greg Miller.
The West Coast ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, however, are an exception. Miller reported last week that there were less than 10 container ships waiting for berths at the ports of LA and Long Beach, the lowest number since the early days of COVID-19 sent U.S. consumers into an online-buying frenzy.
Miller said the shift to ports on the U.S. East and Gulf coasts is believed to have been driven by shippers’ concerns over peak season congestion in Southern California and the expiration of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union contract in July.
GPA moved a record 5.75 million twenty-foot equivalent units in its fiscal year 2022. It began the 2023 fiscal year with July volumes that were 18% higher year over year.
Navis said it can help improve the Port of Savannah’s vessel turn times.
“As increasingly complex and tighter supply chains put pressure on terminals to operate at peak productivity and efficiency, leading ports such as GPA are turning to innovative terminal operating systems that offer scalable visibility and control,” Navis said. “Shipping lines depend on a terminal’s promised productivity to turn vessels quickly to maintain schedules, maximize slow steaming to reduce costs and to deploy vessel assets as efficiently as possible.”
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Click here for more American Shipper/FreightWaves stories by Senior Editor Kim Link-Wills.
