Port Operations

With the rapid expansion of trans-oceanic transportation older ports on the East Coast of the United States with limited real-estate must remain viable options to move cargo. Ports seek alternatives to move additional cargo with advancements in equipment, intermodal operations, and alliances. Adapting to change will keep the current ports layout in a position to process cargo and remain viable in cargo movement operations. Successfully adapting over the shore marine cargo movement operations during rapid globalization is vital to the sustainability of the Eastern sea board maritime fleet movement.
The possible future vessel characteristics and related handling operations will put high demands upon infrastructure and superstructure of ports and terminals (Konings, 2008). As vessels expand carrying more cargo port operations must expand as well to compensate for the additional movements. The Eastern ports in the United States cannot expand land area thus they must seek alternatives to transfer cargo. One method to enhance operations while not requiring additional real-estate adaptive crane structures. The Carrier Crane utilizes two waterside trolleys (rope-driven) which position containers onto moving carriers to double hoist cargo during marine port operations (Konings, 2008). Simply the Carrier Crane is two hoist contained in the same structure that would previously suitable for a single crane.
To accommodate double the amount of cargo being moved in limited real-estate areas the interchange area must be located close cargo containers (Konings, 2008). Limiting the distance containers are from intermodal transportation modes improves the potential thru-put and reduces the labor required. If the amount of time from crane to processing area and subsequently intermodal transportation is reduced cargo can move rapidly and enhancing operations. For instance, East Coast ports dominated by the trucking industry gate handling are critical to support the uptick