An introduction to Empty container management

1. Empty Container
Management
© Abdulla Wanis Tabet

2. For container carriers, empty container repositioning is a non-
revenue generating operation, and it is a costly part of meeting
customer demand.
Port regions benefit from a more efficient repositioning system for
empty containers, which also contributes to reduced congestion
and emissions.

3. The major tasks within the scope of a container liner
shipping company:
container equipment follow-up (follow-up of any movement of
each particular container at any terminal and depot worldwide
and keeping entries in the company IS up-to-date).
container maintenance and repair.
container leasing and return.
purchase of new container equipment.
empty container equipment repositioning.
entering agreements with carriers, depots, and container repair
shops.

4. Container movement flows (block diagram)

5. Factors behind Empty Container Flows
 Imbalanced Flows
 Feeder Services
 Cargo / Equipment Specialization
 Cabotage Rules

6. Overview of decisions for empty container
repositioning

7. Decisions at a tactical level include:
 service selection: the selection of routes on which services will be
offered and the frequency of these services;
 traffic distribution: specification of routes for the traffic of each
origin– destination pair: services used, terminals passed through
and operations performed at terminals;
 terminal policies: consolidation activities that have to be
performed at each terminal;
 empty balancing strategies: how empty vehicles, trailers and
containers have to be repositioned in order to satisfy future
requests;
 vehicle and crew planning: especially for less-than-truckload
transportation in Europe, when vehicles and drivers are regarded
as a single resource and vehicle tours have to be determined
taking legal and social requirements into account.

8. Proposed solutions

9. 1- Proposed solution
A new approach (street turn)
(problem)(solution)

10. Inland depot system2-
(problem)(solution)

11. 3- Proposed solution
Folding containers

13. Thank you
© Abdulla Wanis Tabet