Transit sheds and aprons are facilities at ports for handling cargo. Transit sheds provide temporary covered storage for cargo as it moves from vessels to transport or from transport to vessels. They are usually single or double storied. Aprons are open spaces in front of berths that allow installation of cranes and transport tracks to efficiently load and unload cargo from vessels. The size of transit sheds and width of aprons are determined by factors like cargo size, vessel size, and number of transport tracks needed.

1. TRANSIT SHEDS
AND
APRONS

2.  Transit shed:
As the name suggests, it is a shed for goods in
transit from the vessel to the consignees or from
consignors to the vessel.
For export cargo, to facilitate the quick
loading cargo is first brought to a transit shed
and collected there.
In case of import cargo, it is not possible to
clear all the destinations by railway and trucks. In
fact for general cargo, verification of marks,
quantity and safe delivery makes it necessary to
take this cargo to a temporary covered storage,
thus for a temporary storage, a covered
arrangement is called a transit shed.

3. These sheds are single or double storied in
height. The floor area is being used for
handling and distributing the incoming and
out going cargo requiring protection.
A transit shed is a necessary facility
attached to a berth. Thus a port does not
change any rent for its use for a period,
generally 3 to 5 days. Beyond this period
“demurrage” is charged. The idea of charging
demurrage is to discourage the use of a
transit shed beyond the free period allowed
in order that the space can be used for other
cargo and thus more cargo could be handled
at the berth.

4.  Factors influencing the size of the transit shed:
 Nature of cargo, height of its staking and
allowance for movement and other non storage
areas.
 Size of the vessels
 Length of the transit shed:
The length of the shed provides covered space
opposite to the entire length of the biggest
vessel for which a berth is designed. The idea is
to provide quick access from all hatches. For a
unit length of 180m, the shed length is
suggested as 165m, This leaves space for end
access roadway to apron and shed floor.

5.  Width of the transit shed:
The width of the transit shed is determined
by the area.The minimum width of the shed
should not be less than 50m.

6.  Apron:
To expedite the unloading and loading of
cargo in vessels, some open space is left
immediately in front of the berth. This open
space is known as Apron.
The apron is utilized for the installation
of mechanical devices as cranes and transport
agencies as railway track and road for trucks
for the efficient handling of the cargo.

7.  Dimensions of Apron:
The width of a apron should be kept
depending upon the following factors:
 Width should be kept to a minimum
necessary for contemplated operations.
 The cost of construction of the facility should
be minimum.
 To save the time of travel the carriage of
cargo to and from the ship and transit house
or shed.

8. For general cargo public terminals, the width of
apron is suggested as follows:
 The plate width of 9m is sufficient. This width
includes single apron rail track.
 For two apron rail track 12m is necessary.
 For half portal gantry crane add 1.5m to the
width in (b) and 3m for full portal crane.
Thus the apron width with two rail tracks and
a full portal crane should not be less than 15m.
In general the apron width usually varies
from 10m for ports with light traffic to 25m for
direct birthing ports with heavy traffic.