TransTech Partners LLC

In today’s marketplace, the role of the marine terminal operator is expanding well beyond its traditional boundaries of loading and unloading vessels. Terminal operators are becoming the information centers to validate port of entry or exit for a variety of environmental, security and infrastructure regulations. The result is an increasing network of systems and data required to run the business, not just the terminal operating system. The terminal operating system was already becoming the nucleus of a network of systems to manage the gate, yard and vessel activities as peripheral systems such as RFID, optical character readers and differential global positioning systems have been introduced into the business. The additional environmental and infrastructure fee-collection initiatives that terminals are administering are further expanding the systems and systems integration required to run the business. One example of those systems’ complexity is that as the checkpoint for new usage fees, the terminal operators need information on the beneficial cargo owners. Traditionally, the marine terminal operators’ container tracking and fees have been tied only to the ocean carriers. With the implementation of programs such as PierPass, as well as environmental and infrastructure fees, the associated charges are being tied directly to the cargo owner instead of being paid by intermediaries such as the trucker. To do so, new systems are being built to capture data on the cargo owner. The status of the cargo owner’s payment for these additional fees must be interfaced to the terminal operating system as a new type of container hold and release. With each of these new initiatives, the data that the terminal operating system must manage is increasing exponentially.