Productivity of first-generation container terminals: Sydney, Australia

In 1969 the first of Sydney's purpose-built container facilities in Port Jackson, the Seatainer terminal, became operational. Later, in 1973, the second terminal at Glebe Island, a common-user facility, shared the task of handling the container traffic for much of eastern Australia until the development of the new facilities in Botany Bay. The two terminals differed in almost every respect except their inner-city locations and restricted sites. This paper explores these differences and their implications for terminal productivity. It examines some of the structural characteristics of the container trade and traffic and defines vessel time profiles and container handling rates for operations over the sample years 1977, 1979 and 1981. The paper establishes that there were remarkably similar productivity characteristics at the two terminals, despite their significant characteristics, but it also reveals the relatively high proportion of vessel alongside time or time spent at the berth that was idle, non-working or unproductive.