For some forwarders, this shift equals about 25% of their (previous) barge container volume, a spokesman for the Dutch forwarders’ association Fenex said at the Rotterdam Harbour Debate on Thursday, 7th December.

The day before, Duisburg port authority reported a slight decrease in waterborne volume, despite a steep 12% growth of its container volume to 4.1M TEU. Ascribing the waterborne decrease to the ongoing barge delays in the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp, Duisport also mentioned that rail had gone up significantly consequently.

Rotterdam port authority (HbR) acknowledges that there is "incomprehension" in German Rhine ports at the situation. “When we held a seminar in June in Duisburg to address the issue, we were questioned sharply for two hours," said Matthijs van Doorn, HbR's logistics director. "We encountered a lot of irritation and frustration, also as the problem has been going on for some twenty years already.”

Around 200 people from the shipping, inland shipping, ports and forwarder community attended the Rotterdam Harbour Debate, which is organised annually by local industry publication Nieuwsblad Transport.

They were told that HbR’s barge performance monitor indicated that 76% of all container barges had sustained ‘substantial delays’ during week No 19. In weeks 36, 37 and 41 this figure ran between 41 and 50%, whilst 25% of substantial barge delays in week 48, followed a rare smooth period of five weeks.

An inquiry by NT indicated a deterioration of the barge congestion problem from 84% of the participants. “Alas it is no incident, but structural,” said Fenex speaker Robin van Leijen concluded, and nobody disagreed.

There is broad acceptance that the increase in ULCV calls and related call size peaks is the biggest single factor, followed by deepsea schedule unreliability, and then exacerbated by insufficient IT-exchange within the chain and teething problems with the two new Maasvlakte II terminals.

The small inland barge call sizes were regarded as the least important factor culprit, although stevedores and larger inland shipping companies did not share this view.

There was consensus on the additional perfect storm factor: the newly formed alliances’ schedule reorganisation, the double digit growth from Rotterdam’s ‘disproportionate’ benefitting from this, and the APMT cyber attack.

HbR has taken the lead and has supplied €3M to facilitate three specialist multipartite working groups now addressing the issue. “One problem is, that a chain consists of eight or nine parties who all put their own commercial interest first," said Matthijs van Doorn noted.

He berated the fact that, despite the congestion, inland shipping still booked a 4% growth, whereas rail fails to benefit in the same way as road transport does.

Possible, partial solutions tabled during the debate included the creation by all involved of a flexible layer in the planning and production, such as a driver hot-seat change by ECT; or longer notice about when a container is due in the hinterland, to optimise stacking, as ECT suggested.

Easing demurrage and detention, so a box is not collected quickly just to avoid these charges, might work in combination with such longer notice, was another one. Better IT throughout the chain scored high on almost everybody’s list.

“But you can exchange whatever data you will, when the deepsea ship arrives out of window, we’ll all simply have to cope with this,” inland terminal group BCTN noted.

The Rotterdam port operators’ organisation Deltalinqs reiterated suggestions for stricter rules to be enforced by the port authority, and called for talks on this matter with the HbR.

• ECT, United Waalhaven Terminals (UWT) and Smith Holland will launch an "Empty Transferium" at the ECT Euromax terminal at the Maasvlakte. The Empty Transferium will provide empty depot services for both reefer containers and dry containers at the deepsea terminal. The following services will be offered at the Empty Transferium: transport to and from the Transferium, inspection and cleaning of the container, minor repairs to both the container and the cooling system of the reefer container and pre-trip inspection (PTI). The Empty Transferium is targeted at the deepsea shipping lines and anticipates the growing demand for services of this kind. "A major advantage of the Empty Transferium is that the services are rendered at the deepsea terminal; consequently, the container can be returned to the operation again as quickly as possible." The preparations for the Empty Transferium, the opening of which is planned for the Q2 2018, are already underway. Leo Ruijs, CEO of ECT, said: “The cooperation between UWT, Smith Holland and ECT guarantees the input of knowledge and expertise. All three parties contribute their own specific know-how regarding all operations at the Empty Transferium. To ECT, the Empty Transferium constitutes a next step in its service provision.”
• Rotterdam, 14 December 2017: In a bid to tackle the barge congestion problem, ECT is to pilot a ‘fixed windows’ service for inland barge, starting in January. "If the pilot proves successful, then ECT will make this service available to the market; the various conditions under which this will occur will be tested in the pilot."
• The fixed windows are intended for barge operators that, either independently or jointly, are capable of directly calling at one of the terminals of ECT with substantial volumes of containers for discharging and loading. Barge operators for whom this is not possible can continue to make use of the regular procedure or opt for the Barge Transferium Maasvlakte.
• Three inland shipping combinations will participate in the pilot, which in principle will run for three months. HTS Intermodal; the combination CCT Moerdijk, Barge Terminal Tilburg; and the combination Contargo, Haeger & Schmidt and EGS.
• Besides call size, the applicable criteria relate to the sailing schedule in Rotterdam, the ability to guarantee fixed weekly calls, punctuality and data exchange. The pilot also addresses the question whether a more commercial relationship contributes to improving inland container shipping.