VTA talks tough on empty box park conditions

And the VTA will also press the Victorian Government to back a levy on shipping lines to help fund the extended trading.

Speaking after a meeting of the VTA Container Group late last week, association CEO Phil Lovel said the overwhelming majority of stakeholders acknowledged that the status quo could not remain “if we are to avoid lengthy delays and truck queuing at ECPs, growing inefficiencies, and increased disputes between the commercial parties as container volumes rebound”. 

However there were divided opinions over some core issues, he said.

The most contentious is the potential introduction of rigid time-slotting arrangements for trucks arriving at ECPs, as part of broader information visibility and exchange systems likely to be adopted by container parks and shipping lines in the near future. 

“The VTA supports and encourages the implementation of better information visibility and exchange – our members can see advantages in this helping to improve park performance, reducing futile truck trips and redirections, and removing inefficiencies in administering container availability and container receipt information,” Mr Lovel said. 

“But this shouldn’t occur at the cost of reduced flexibility in empty container return.

“We don’t want undue added administrative cost burdens on transport operators, or significant costs incurred through the need for additional transiting of empty containers via transport yards because the parks lack the gate capacity to accept empty returns.” Mr. Lovel warned. 

He said the VTA was committed to holding bi-lateral discussions with all Melbourne ECPs to achieve cooperative implementation of information systems that meet commercial needs and legal obligations of the parks and transport operators. 

The VTA still had “fundamental concerns” about the mismatch of operating hours between ECPs and the rest of the container transport chain, and the identified lack of empty container storage and handling capacity to meet future container volumes. 

“Shipping lines cannot walk away from these issues and need to pay for these improvements,” Mr. Lovel said.

“The VTA urges all container parks to implement an infrastructure fee on shipping lines to fund the extension of park operating hours. We will be lobbying the Minister for Roads and Ports, Tim Pallas, and the Port of Melbourne Corporation in support of this outcome. 

“6am to 4pm, Monday to Friday, has got to become a thing of the past for empty park operations.”