INNOVATION GUIDE - HHLA · INNOVATION GUIDE by the Hamburger Hafen und Logistik Aktiengesellschaft Mega-ships Set Course for Hamburg How HHLA is optimising and networking the ﬂow

INNOVATION GUIDEby the Hamburger Hafen und Logistik Aktiengesellschaft

Mega-ships Set Course for HamburgHow HHLA is optimising and networking the flow of ships and data on the river Elbe.

Pioneering Transport Services for EuropeHow HHLA’s railway subsidiaries are expanding their networks with new terminals.

Renewable Power for Container TransportHow HHLA Container Terminal Altenwerder is investing in electromobility.

HHLA | INNOVATION GUIDE 32 HHLA | INNOVATION GUIDE

Dear Readers,

You know us as a highly efficient container terminal operator with strong roots in the Port of Hamburg. You may also be familiar with our rail subsidiaries, which provide regular shuttle services between the ports of Northern Europe and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Both are key aspects of the activities of Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG. We offer our customers services along the entire logistics chains between the seaport and the European hinterland. We not only transport and handle goods but also develop and design processes to optimise these transport chains and monitor them using end-to-end information and data flows. The innovative concepts and solutions necessary for providing these services are developed in-house and in close consultation with our customers. Our priorities are to meet the performance targets and expect- ations of our customers and master the challenges associated with hand-ling the anticipated growth in the flow of goods and commodities over the coming years. HHLA also maintains a close focus on environmental targets such as reducing energy consumption and its associated emissions as well as on further goals of transport policy, such as reducing the burden of goods traffic on the roads. Many of our ideas are developed and realised by the highly qua-lified employees working at our terminals, at our hinterland hubs as well as by our experts in information technologies and electromobility. In this edition of the HHLA magazine, you’ll find examples of our most important innovations and the high level of added value, which the HHLA business model offers. I hope you enjoy reading our magazine.

Klaus-Dieter PetersChairman of the Executive Board of Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG

Contents 4 The World is Growing Together, and the Port

Comes to Inland Europe

6 Hamburg: Hub of the European EconomyWorld map of Hamburg’s global network.

8 Mega-ships Set Course for HamburgHHLA continues to optimise and network the flow of ships and data for the shipping lines on the river Elbe even more closely with the terminals at the Port of Hamburg.

12 Container Handling Enters a New DimensionHHLA Container Terminal Burchardkai is being expanded for the mega container ships of the future.

16 Process Controllers for Commodity FlowsHHLA’s central function Information Systems develops independent IT solutions.

18 Renewable Electricity for Container TransportHHLA Container Terminal Altenwerder is investing in environmentally friendly electromobility.

20 A Tightly Knit Network for Central and Eastern EuropeEuropean map of the HHLA hinterland network.

22 Pioneering Transport Services for EuropeExemplary train systems and innovative terminals put the HHLA rail subsidiaries on track for further growth.

26 Shipping HHLA Know-how around the WorldHHLA consulting subsidiary HPC Hamburg Port Consulting operates a container terminal in Odessa.

28 At Home on the Banks of the River ElbeMap of the port including the locations of HHLA and its subsidiaries.

30 Clear and BriefEnterprises at HHLA.

Imprint Publisher: Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG, Bei St. Annen 1, 20457 Hamburg, Germany, Tel.: +49 (0)40-3088-0, Fax: +49 (0)40-3088-3355, Email: [email protected], www.hhla.de Responsible for content: Florian Marten Concept and editorial content: Torsten Engelhardt, www.toe-kom.de Art direction: Petra Hasselbring Photography/image Sources: Christian O. Bruch, Christoph Bünten, Engel+Gielen, Fotolia, Sven Glage, Eva Häberle, Thomas Hampel/Elbe&Flut, Dietmar Hasenpusch, Krems Tourismus/Gregor Semrad, Nele Martensen, Michael Zapf Lithography and printing: Druckerei Weidemann, Hamburg.Printed on RecyStar Polar, in accordance with the RAL UZ 14 / 19487 “Blue Angel” environmental label.

Copyright: Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG, May 2013

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the World is Growing together, and the Port Comes to inland Europe

Global commodity flows bind our modern world together and 97 percent of these are transported by water. Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA) does not restrict itself to operating highly efficient container terminals that handle giant ocean-going vessels. it is also taking the quality and reliability of maritime logistics to Munich, Prague, Warsaw or the Austrian town of Krems. With its subsidiaries, HHLA is operating an innovative generation of hub terminals deep in the heart of inland europe linked by efficient transport systems and iT solutions that are developed in-house. What are the ideas and sustainable concepts that lie behind these operations? This guide to the world of HHLA innovations provides the answers.

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GERMANY

THE NETHERLANDS

BELGIUM

HAMBURG

CZECH REPUBLIC

AUSTRIA

SLOVENIA

CROATIA

SLOVAKIA

HUNGARY

ROMANIA

MOLDOVA

UKRAINE

BELARUS

SWEDEN

DENMARKRUSSIA

LATVIA

ESTONIA

FINLAND

NORWAY

LITHUANIA

POLAND

Australia/Pacifi c

Asia/Far East

Mediterranean/Middle East

Africa

South America

Central America/Caribbean

North America

Hamburg: Hub of the European EconomyHamburg is a hub where textiles from Asia and reefer containers with steaks from South America meet European road-paving machines or power station turbines. The port offers direct, scheduled connections to 950 seaports and more than 10,000 ships berth here every year. The terminals offer outstanding transport links to Northern, Eastern and Central Europe – whether by rail, feeder vessel or truck. HHLA has developed a network of larger and smaller inland terminals, which facilitate fast and highly effi cient transportation of cargo, in particular by rail (see magnifi ed section of map). These are also important factors in increasing the attractiveness of the Port of Hamburg.

HHLA – Serving Global Transport Chains

Logistics chains are essential for the development of the global economy. As an integrated cargo handling, transport and logistics group, HHLA links overseas ports with the European hinterland. This graphic shows the most important services provided by HHLA along this global transport chain. These extend from unloading and loading ships to forwarding containers by rail or truck.

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• HHLA Seaport terminal

• HHLA Inland hub

• HHLA Inland terminal

• Port locations linked with Hamburg via direct, scheduled services

Target/source regions served by shipping lines

HHLA hinterland services via Hamburg

Production/consumption

Bundling/further distribution

Loading/unloading

Consumption/production

Sea transports

Services provided by HHLA

Bundling/further distributionLoading/unloading

Prague

CeskaTrebova

Poznan

Dunajska Streda

ODESSA

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Ever larger ships are maximising the efficiency of the container transport. This in turn increases the demands placed on participants in the maritime logistics chain. River pilots, shipping lines, port and terminal operators could tell about the challenges they face. This is why the flow of shipping and data for the shipping lines on the river Elbe continues to be optimised and networked more closely with the terminals in the port.

When the giants of the ocean enter the Port of Hamburg, sophisticated logistics are essential to ensure that every ship can berth at the quayside at

the right time or be released back down the river Elbe to the sea. The largest ships currently using the port are nearly 400 m long, transport up to

16,000 standard containers and have a draught of 16 m. The “Marco Polo” operated by the shipping line CMA CGM is one of these and can be seen

here berthing at HHLA Container Terminal Burchardkai.

t costs around ten cents to transport an iPad to Hamburg via the 20,000 km sea route from Shanghai. It is cheaper to transport wine by ship from Australia to the nothern metro-

polis than by truck from the Burgundy region of neighbouring France. Oceans no longer separate economic regions; they are bridges between them.

The secret of globalisation’s success and its mainstay is the container. The global standard steel box has long outgrown

its original purpose as a seaworthy form of packaging for almost any product. Today, containers are also used as stackable storage space or even as ripening chambers and cold stores. Ap-proximately 97 percent of all standard general cargo now pas-ses through the Port of Hamburg in containers. Hamburg is proud of its status as a universal port capable of handling all types of goods, from dispatching complete factories to receiving deliveries of ore and coal. However, the fact remains that, with

tomers by ocean-going vessels. This is just one of the reasons why the world’s largest ships are used on the routes between Asia and Hamburg. Nearly 40 percent of all containers handled in Hamburg now arrive on giant container ships, which are capable of transporting more than 10,000 standard containers (TEU) – a class of ships, which did not exist just a few years ago.

The “Hamburg Express” operated by the Hapag Lloyd shipping line is one such vessels. The freighter, with a capacity

container traffic accounting for nearly 70 percent of its total ton-nage, Hamburg is primarily a container port. The second most important container hub in Europe, after Rotterdam, controls the flows of commodities between Asia, America, Africa and around 300 million people in Central and Eastern Europe.

Hamburg’s location more than 100 km inland is also an enormous advantage from an environmental standpoint. Few other ports allow goods to be brought so close to their cus-

Mega-ships Set Course for Hamburg

HHLA | INNOVATION GUIDE 9


of 13,200 TEU, runs a scheduled service between Asia and Eur- ope. Today, it has another 120 km to complete on the river Elbe before it can berth at HHLA Container Terminal Altenwerder (CTA). It is the most challenging section of its long journey.

The Elbe estuary is not just the entrance to one of Europe’s most important ports but also to the busiest waterway in the world – the Kiel Canal. Some 50,000 ships pass along these waters every year. There are tides, strong currents, shifting sandbanks and plenty of wind on the river Elbe. The navigation channel is narrow, the volume of shipping constantly growing. “The Port of Hamburg was originally built for sailing ships with a maximum length 100 m,” says captain Ben Lodemann, alderman of the Brotherhood of Elbe River Pilots. Today, the largest vessels – such as the “Marco Polo” operated by the shipping line CMA CGM – are nearly 400 m long and transport around 16,000 TEU. Fully loaded mega-ships like these can only reach Ham-burg on the flood tide, which adds up to 3.50 m to the water depth and carries them safely over the shallow areas of the river.

24 hours before its scheduled arrival in Hamburg, a vessel requiring a pilot like the “Hamburg Express” must there-fore be registered with the Hamburg Port Authority (HPA). After consulting the terminal operator, the authority will issue a per-mission to berth. The vessel traffic service centre, which be-longs to the HPA, then checks to see whether the ship can enter the port at the scheduled time. It takes into account the state of the tides, wind, currents, the allocated berth and the ships already travelling along the river Elbe. At many points, on- coming vessels with a combined width of 90 m are not permitted to pass by each other.

There are timetables but on the water the laws of nature reign supreme. The main channel is a maximum of 400 m wide.

In places where the river Elbe bends, it can be impossible for two large ships to pass each other. For years, experts have therefo-re been campaigning for the navigation channel of the Elbe to be “deepened”. This is, in fact, something of a misnomer as the navigation channel also requires widening. After all, vessels are becoming larger. In 2008, Hamburg was visited by ships with a capacity of more than 10,000 TEU on 29 occasions; by 2012, this figure had already increased to 349.

The tidal window is the decisive factor in determining when mega-ships can enter the port. Only during this period of about two and half hours can ships with a large draught be turned before they enter the harbour basin and are pushed back-wards along the quayside. “There is not much room when the ship is 396 m long and has a turning circle of 480 m,” says Tim Grandorff, 1st Alderman of the Brotherhood of Elbe River Pilots.

Until 2009, the smaller feeder ships sometimes had to wait until space could be found for them at the terminal quaysides. Since 2009, the Feeder Logistics Centre (FLZ) has been optimising the runs they provide in the port. The introduction of this traffic control centre has many beneficiaries: the terminals utilise their quaysides more efficiently, the changeover times for feeders between the terminals have been reduced and the dur- ation of their stays in the port has been cut. In addition, it has reduced the workload for the feeder shipping lines (see p. 10).

The concept has been so successful that HHLA and Euro- gate, which operate the FLZ together, are already working on expanding it. An institution like the FLZ could be capable of optimising the management of all shipping from the mouth of the Elbe to the port – barges, container vessels and feeders – as well as networking the associated data with the terminals and establi-

shing centralised control. Management of the tide-dependent bottleneck would be improved and the efficiency of the Port of Hamburg un- rivalled. The shipping lines would be integrated into the process while their vessels were still moored in Southampton or Rotterdam. Send- ing these vessels a little faster or slower through the English Channel or North Sea would cost far less than requiring them to wait in the Elbe. Experts already have a name for the idea: Nautical Terminal Coordination.

PORTRAIT The Feeder Logistics Specialist

Gerald Hirt is the manager of the Hamburg Feeder

Logistics Centre. He and his team offer a solution that

benefits three parties: the terminals, the feeder shipping

lines and the Port of Hamburg.

Large numbers of feeder ships enter the Port of Hamburg

every day to load and unload cargo at Hamburg’s terminals

and transport it onwards as quickly as possible via the North

and Baltic Sea. Each ship may have to call at anything up to

five terminals so there is much to be organised. Until a few

years ago, all the parties involved in this acted independently:

each terminal, each shipping line, each captain – and the cost

was paid in wasted time, underutilised terminal capacity and

occasionally high stress levels. Today, Gerald Hirt leads the

organisation responsible for solving this problem. As head of

the Hamburg Feeder Logistics Centre (FLZ), he works with his

team to coordinate and optimise feeder traffic in the port.

The FLZ was conceived in 2004 as an internal project at

HHLA Container Terminal Tollerort (CTT). In 2009, it became a

GmbH (Ltd.) owned jointly by the Hamburg terminal operator

HHLA (67 percent) and Eurogate (33 percent). The FLZ at

Tollerort is staffed by twelve employees 24 hours per day, seven

days per week. “We handle a wide range of tasks,” says Hirt,

“from finding a berth at the quayside to pilots, tugs and mooring

lines or determining whether the containers to be loaded at the

terminals are available. We also supervise changes in stow-

age planning, for example if it is necessary to alter the planned

rotation of a ship in the port.” To cope with all these challenges,

Hirt’s staff stay in close and constant communication with the

shipping lines, their captains and the terminals, for which they

have direct access to the planning and control programmes. In

short: a unified centre for traffic control.

“The FLZ coordinates more than 5,000 calls to termin-

als every year so everybody agrees that we need this control

function,” says Hirt, explaining the success of his organisation.

The 38-year-old M. Sc. brings considerable experience to the

job. He has already worked for a shipping line, for the HHLA

subsidiary HPC Hamburg Port Consulting, and for the sales

and a strategic department of HHLA Container Terminals.

Small but important: feeder ships fetch and carry

freight to and from the Port of Hamburg for the ports

of the North and Baltic Sea.

Truck with 40' container (16 m) Panamax class / 5,000 TEU (300 m)

Church of St. Michael, Hamburg (132 m)

“CMA CGM Marco Polo” (396 m)

Person (1.80 m)“Cap San Diego” (160 m)

Container freight train

HHLA | INNOVATION GUIDE 11

The “CMA CGM Marco Polo” is longer than four football pitches, has

an engine as powerful as those of 1,100 cars with 100 hp engines, and

space for containers sufficient to cause a truck jam of 138 km.

Sou

rce:

CM

A C

GM


Container Handling Enters a New Dimension

From the premiere of the first straddle carrier to the world’s first use of satellites for positioning containers and the introduction of direct rail connections with a port terminal: technical innovation has a long tradition at HHLA Container Terminal Burchardkai. The terminal is currently being optimised and developed to ensure it will be able to handle even the next generation of huge container vessels with maximum efficiency.

t is 3 a.m. in the morning and snow falls gently from the December night sky. While others lie in their warm beds, a small group clad in thick winter coats stands on the banks

of the river Elbe looking expectantly over to the opposite shore. HHLA Container Terminal Burchardkai (CTB) is brightly illumin- ated. The “ship spotters” are well prepared and have set up tripods and cameras. Tonight, they are awaiting the arrival of a very special visitor: the CMA CGM Marco Polo. The largest container vessel in the world today is due to berth in Hamburg on its maiden voyage. It will be another 45 minutes and two cups of hot tea later before the ocean giant arrives. A fascinating docking manoeuvre will then drive the cold and dark from the minds of these patient watchers.

On 12 December 2012, the 396 meter long Marco Polo entered the Port of Hamburg. With the help of three tugboats, the freighter will first be turned and then pushed backwards alongside the quay wall – a manoeuvre the pilots have been practising for several months in the simulator. The container vessel with space for 16,020 standard containers (TEU) was processed at the CTB within 41 hours and then departed for Asia with a new load. For the CTB, container handling had just entered a new dimension.

In 2004, when HHLA took the courageous decision to modernise its oldest and largest container terminal while continu- ing normal operations, vessels on the scale of the Marco Polo were not yet on the horizon. However, it was already clear that the challenges facing modern container terminals would grow over the coming years. The CTB was indeed able to expand its total capacity from 2.6 million TEU in 2005 to a current total of 4 million TEU per year. Yet increasing capacity by such a lar-ge amount is an enormous challenge. The greater the volume of cargo handled at the quay wall, the greater the capacity required within the rest of the facility – in the places where containers are stored or loaded onto railway cars and trucks. In short: no stone can be left unturned in optimising the efficiency of every area of the facility. After all, hardly no new areas for expansion are available in the Port of Hamburg.

HHLA has invested 400 million euro in the modernisation programme for the CTB. Not only the scope and scale of the construction project are unique. The decision to implement the programme while the terminal was still operating was also extraordinary. However, due to innovative concepts such as a “roaming construction site”, the CTB always managed to keep an adequate area of the terminal available for container handling.

The new tandem gantry cranes at HHLA

Container Terminal Burchardkai were used

for the first time in 2009. They can lift four

20' containers simultaneously.


The first completed section of the project – one of the most modern container railway terminals in Europe – went into operation in the summer of 2006. Four special gantry cranes load and unload the trains along the length of their 700 m long tracks. Each train has a fixed time slot in which it has to be processed. This allows the logistics of processing the trains to be prepared more efficiently and HHLA to offer reliable shuttle services to hubs in the Central and Eastern European hinterland (see also pp. 22–25). In 2007, just one year later, the volume of rail freight handled at the CTB had increased by more than 20 percent and now lies significantly over half a million TEU per year. Once completed, the new freight terminal with up to eleven railway tracks will be capable of handling more than one million TEU per year.

In order to maintain CTB’s available storage capacity as far as possible during the modernisation work no significant re-duction in the size of the existing container storage area was permitted – an expectation that the innovative and ingenious construction site management team fulfilled. The model for the new block storage system at the CTB was provided by their equivalents at HHLA Container Terminal Altenwerder (CTA),

this was enhanced further for the CTB. In terms of height, length and capacity, they now surpass their role model: each 380 m long block at the CTB has space for ten rows of containers in which up to six boxes can be stacked on top of each other. The result is a capacity of 2,200 TEU per storage block – ap-proximately 1.5 times as much as at the CTA. In order to hand-le these quantities, each storage block at the CTB has three rail-mounted gantry cranes – while those at the CTA only have two. The CTB is currently the only terminal in the world to use three gantry cranes per block storage area. Eight of the storage blocks have been completed so far. Eventually there will be 29 storage blocks with a capacity to hold more than 60,000 TEU – more than doubling the storage capacity of the CTB compared to 2004.

The new CTB is operated as a hybrid terminal. This means that, beside the block storage area, there is still an area in which containers are stored conventionally with straddle carriers mo-ving and stacking the boxes in a maximum of three layers.

The first mega-ship berth with five modern container gantry cranes was built at the CTB in 1999. Three further berths for mega-ships have subsequently been constructed at the

PORTRAIT In the Fast Lane The programme “Fuhre 2.0” (Trucking 2.0), under the

guiding hand of process manager Dr Nicole Lehmkuhl,

is increasing the efficiency of processes at the check-in

gates of the HHLA terminals.

CTA, Wednesday, 14.00: The container trucks do not always

roll as steadily as today through the terminal gates – and that is

precisely the challenge for Dr Nicole Lehmkuhl. “The check-

in stations can process a maximum of 200 trucks per hour.

However, the volume can be considerably higher than this,”

says the 43-year-old mathematician who specialised in chaos

research. “Our goal is to spread the quantities of containers

more evenly in order to avoid congestion and waiting times.”

As process manager, Lehmkuhl has been in charge of

implementing the “Fuhre 2.0” programme since March 2012.

The programme is intended to accelerate and optimise the

proceses for handling trucks at the terminal. In the first phase,

self-service terminals were installed for the drivers at the

access points. In addition, the gates were fitted with video

cameras which supply data such as vehicle registration num-

bers and container numbers directly to the screen workstations

in the check lane. The next phase will see improvements made

to the registration process for hauliers and drivers via data

interfaces. “We have to make the system attractive and trans-

parent because we need as close to 100 percent of the trucks

as possible to register for binding timeslots in advance in order

to be able to control processes effectively.” The new version of

the programme will soon have to prove its worth in practice.

For Lehmkuhl, “Fuhre 2.0” is just one element of an

overall concept which is intended to harmonise the processes

at all three HHLA terminals. She radiates focus and confi-

dence. Sometimes, she wishes she could move into the fast

lane in order to make quicker progress. “I’m impatient,” she

admits and adds with a smile, “but also very determined.”

The entire HHLA Container Terminal Burchardkai is controlled from a new

control centre – 24 hours per day, 360 days per year.

CTB quay wall with a total length of 1,100 m. In the summer of 2013, an additional five container gantry cranes will be added, providing the CTB with the most modern and efficient mega-ship berths in Hamburg. The new tandem gantry cranes can lift two 40' or four 20' containers at a time and have booms, which can also process the 23 rows of containers in the coming generation of 18,000 TEU vessels. Tandem gantry cranes were used for the first time in Europe at CTB’s Berth 2.

Staff at the new control centre coordinate the entire CTB 24 hours per day, 360 days per year. The Integrated Terminal Control System (ITS) is their most important tool. Developing and implementing the system was one of the greatest chal-lenges created by the decision to redevelop the facility without halting operations. Not only it was necessary to network the components of the new CTB system with each other, but also simultaneously to organise the existing storage system where containers are stacked using high-legged straddle carriers instead of gantry cranes. The ITS was therefore developed in parallel to the existing facility operating system and the new and old subsystems integrated gradually into an overall system.

All the components – the giant container rail terminal, the first automated block storage area and the new mega-ship berths – have been in operation in combination with the control centre and ITS system since the autumn of 2012. Once the opti-misation phase has been concluded, the CTB will have achieved another major milestone in its comprehensive modernisation programme.

Hamburg will be able to process even the very lar-gest mega-ships efficiently in future. Precisely when these giant freighters, of which many are still in the design phase, will berth at Burchardkai for the first time is uncertain. One thing is sure, however, Hamburg’s “ship spotters” will soon be lining the banks of the river Elbe – whatever the weather and whatever the season.

Storage Blocks with a Hull Construction In order to occupy the minimum possible area, the construction of

the new storage blocks was divided into two phases. In Phase 1,

the first step was to construct the overhead area, where all three

gantry cranes had already been erected and were in operation.

Only in the shorter Phase 2 was the storage block rolled out over

its full 380 m length. This ensured that the terminal capacity was re-

duced only slightly while the storage block was under construction.


The HHLA department Information Systems handles process control and networking of data flows. It is home to IT experts who develop unique and independent solutions: digital tools for efficient commodity flows, which offer the option of intervening at any time.

here are some people who can be found sitting at their computers before even sipping their first morning coffee. This is not an idea that appeals to Florian Riechers – al-

though the 38-year-old is a graduate in information technology. “It is important for me not to lose contact with real people just because I am working at a computer screen,” says Riechers. This was one of the reasons why the IT specialist decided to take up a position at HHLA after completing his diploma thesis. “Here, I’m not dealing with anonymous numbers all day long – everything I do has an effect on the operation of the port.”

Every two to three weeks, Riechers can be found outside at one of the three HHLA container terminals where he meets the colleagues who work with the software that he helps to develop. At the moment, these are programmes used for load planning – allowing dispatchers to see which containers must be stored in which part of the ship or whether dangerous goods are on board, for example. Riechers not only has to reach agree-ment with his users, there are also a host of activities to coordi-nate within his own department. “It is unbelievably important to exchange information and communicate effectively.”

A total of 210 internal and external IT specialists work in the central function Information Systems at HHLA. There are also another ten IT coordinators assigned to the various operations. The IT systems they operate and enhance are critical for cargo handling at the port. “If the associated data doesn’t flow, the containers won’t flow either. Nothing gets moved from A to B,” says Michael Busch, head of information systems. As he explains, it is a responsible job. “When you work at the port, you can actually witness the processes you set in motion.”

When you look at HHLA Container Terminal Altenwerder (CTA), which is still one of the most modern in the world ele-ven years after going into operation, you can understand what Michael Busch means. The terminal handles several million stan-dard containers (TEU) per year. Container gantry cranes grab the boxes and lift them out of the ships. The gantry trolley automa-tically places them on automated guided vehicles (AGV). This transports the container to the storage block. Specially developed proprietary software calculates the quickest route using more than 19,000 transponders set in the ground. Several years ago, Florian Riechers was one of those involved in the develop-

ment of this control software. Today, his colleagues are working hard to accelerate handling processes even further.

Until recently, it was normal to first unload the ship and then begin the loading process. This is time-consuming and means that vehicles carry no loads at all on half of their journeys. With the help of clever algorithms, the processes of loading and unloading can now be combined – this operation is known as a “dual cycle” and a large number of staff from various depart-ments participated in its development. The processes only work because experienced practitioners and IT specialists maintain a continuous exchange of information. These processes are being optimised following the model used by the CTA.

“Our know-how in the area of automation is one of our competitive strengths,” says Heinz Brandt, director of human resources. “It secures our market position in a long-term growth market and thereby makes a decisive contribution to securing jobs in the company.” Many new jobs have been created in Information Systems and Terminal Development. The compa-ny is still seeking more IT specialists, not least because HHLA does not just use standard software. It also develops important

programmes of its own. For example, the company offers app-renticeships to school leavers with academic or vocational qua-lifications who wish to become IT specialists. Students pursuing a combined study degree in a field such as business informatics have the opportunity to gather valuable practical experience. Other skills are in demand as well: HHLA also requires trained professionals in mathematics, logistics and natural sciences.

Precisely how working in interdisciplinary teams functions in practice is something that Riechers understands well. “One of our teams is currently working on ways to convert the AGV to electric drives.” The challenge: empty vehicle batteries have to be replaced by fully charged batteries in the fully automated battery-changing station without slowing down operations (see p. 18). Soon, all 84 vehicles could be retrofitted – this would make exchanging batteries a real logistical challenge. Complex calculations using models developed by Riechers’ colleagues aim to work out how these processes could be designed for maximum efficiency. The IT specialist has enormous respect for these simulations. “The software is just one small part of the puzzle. These simulations require good mathematicians.”

Process Controllers for Commodity Flows

With information technology (IT) running through their veins:

mathematician Dr Naire Kazakova-Frehse (l) is responsible for

ensuring effective quality management and crystal clear processes

within the IT infrastructure, Yangzi Zhang (top) writes programmes

for HHLA Terminal Tollerort, Markus Riepenhusen (bottom) is a shift

manager at the control centre for HHLA Terminal Altenwerder and

Michael Busch (r) is head of Information Systems at HHLA.

T


t the HHLA Container Terminal Altenwerder (CTA ), each rail-mounted gantry crane travels 56 km every day

sorting containers into the storage area and delivering them when required to trucks or placing them on automated transport vehicles. There are 52 of these cranes at the CTA and they cover a total annual distance of well over 1,000,000 km. Yet they generate no CO2 emissions or other pollutants because the gantry cranes at the CTA are powered exclusively by renewable electricity – just like the enormous container gantry cranes, which each move approx. 1.8 million tonnes of cargo every year.

The use of electricity generated from renewable energy sources, instead of the diesel power more usual at port terminals, has played a key role in achieving major reductions in CO2 and noise emissions. It has cut the CO2 emissions per contai-ner handled by a considerable amount. The HHLA has set its-elf a sustainability goal for the year 2020: reducing the specific

CO2 figure by at least 30 percent compared to 2008; by 2012, it had already achieved a reduction of 24.5 percent.

Since the terminal opened in 2002, the automated guided vehicles (AGV), which transfer the containers between the ship and the storage blocks have run on diesel. With annual mileage totalling around 3.8 million km and a maximum load capacity of 70 tonnes, switching to electricity has the potential to cut emissions significantly. This can only be done using bat-teries. Yet do batteries have the capacity to power heavy goods vehicles, which have to operate around the clock at the terminal, 360 days per year? The answer is “yes”. CTA developed the first battery – powered heavy goods vehicles in partnership with the crane and machinery manufacturer Gottwald Port Techno- logy, which now belongs to Terex Port Solutions, during the course of 2010/2011. Using two prototypes, HHLA and Gott-wald were able to demonstrate that battery-driven AGV are

Renewable Electricity for Container Transport The HHLA Container Terminal Altenwerder is investing in environmentally friendly electromobility. The prototypes battery-driven container transporters test at the terminal have already been recognised by a renowned sustainability award.

able to meet the challenges of operating at the terminal. For this achievement they were awarded the HANSE GLOBE 2011 sustainability prize.

A specially developed battery-changing station lies at the heart of the system for integrating battery-powered AGV into the fleet of vehicles at CTA. In this huge building, the empty batteries weighing eleven tonnes each are automatically removed from the AGV and robotically lifted to a high bay for charging. At the same time, a fully charged battery is returned to the AGV. The whole process takes five minutes. Since the beginning of this year, an ambitious project in Altenwerder has been investigating ways to charge AGV batteries at precisely the times when there is a surplus of wind or solar energy in the power grid. The project “Battery Electric Heavy Goods Transports within the In-telligent Container Terminal Operation” (BESIC) is being fund- ed by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology and combines the resources not only of the HHLA and Gottwald but also Vattenfall and the Universities of Oldenburg, Göttingen and Clausthal, which are coordinated through the Energy Research Centre of Lower Saxony (EFZN). Among other things, the project partners are investigating the possibility of coordinating charging times with the terminals operating requirements and the peak loads of the electricity grid. To do so, a battery management system is being developed which determines suitable charging times from the exchange of data between Vattenfall’s load fore-casting systems and the terminal management system of the CTA. This way, wind or solar power could be used if a surplus is available.

The project team led by Boris Wulff is investigating both the practical feasibility and commercial viability of such a model. If such an intelligent charging strategy leads to clear savings in operating costs, it may well pave the way for such technology to be used in many related areas, for instance to run electric buses in public transport networks or battery-operated apron vehicles at airports. With this pilot project, the HHLA is playing an in-

PORTRAIT

The Sustainable OptimiserAs a project manager for terminal development at the

CTA, Boris Wulff, 38, aims to make the facility even more

efficient – and environmentally friendly.

“Sustainability is the greatest challenge facing our society in this

century. It is enormously stimulating to be participating in the

development of completely new ideas in this area,” says Boris

Wulff. He is currently managing a project which brings together

partners from business and science to investigate how batteries

used in automated guided vehicles (AGV) can be charged at

exactly the times when there is a surplus of renewable electri-

city available in the grid. If he succeeds, his team will have

made an important contribution in facilitating the transition to

new energy sources and to optimising the CTA. Identifying and

tapping areas for improvement have been constant themes in

the work of this native of Hamburg, who started working at the

CTA immediately after completing his degree in technical busi-

ness administration with an emphasis on logistics. As a project

manager in the terminal development division, he has been in-

volved in major projects to optimise the facility – including “Mul-

tiple Load”, a process in which one AGV simultaneously trans-

ports two 20 foot containers, thereby saving a journey. Wulff

was also responsible for the development of the prototypes of

the battery-powered AGV at the CTA. The fact that he is invol-

ved not only in making the facility more efficient but also more

environmentally friendly is a source of great satisfaction. “In

Altenwerder, we are not interested in environmental gimmicks.

The projects have to pay for themselves, otherwise they are not

sustainable. Battery-powered AGV are more cost efficient than

their diesel-powered counterparts because they use consider-

ably less energy – simply as a result of the process.”

The green container transport bearing the number 86

is already using the battery-powered drive. Soon, these

vehicles will account for one eighth of the total fleet.

novative role in the transition to using new sources of energy. In addition, the CTA is retrofitting eight of its diesel-hydraulic AGV with the new battery drive system. These ten battery-driven AGV will make up one eighth of the total AGV fleet and cover a distance of some 450,000 km at the CTA with zero carbon emissions.

A


POLAND

UKRAINE

MOLDOVA

ROMANIA

BELARUS

RUSSIA

LITHUANIA

LETTLAND

ESTLAND

SWEDEN

NORWAY

FINLAND

GERMANY

THE NETHERLANDS

BELGIUM

AUSTRIA

SWITZERLAND

SLOVENIA

CROATIA

HUNGARY

SLOVAKIA

CZECH REPUBLIC

RUSSIA

DUISBURG

HAMBURG

LEIPZIGWROCLAW

KATOWICE

LODZ

ZLIN

OSTRAVA

KOSICE

DUNAJSKASTREDA

MALASZEWICZE

LVIV

KIEV / ODESSA

GDYNIA

POZNAN

SESTOKAI

WARSAW

NUREMBERGLUDWIGSHAFEN

ANTWERP

ROTTERDAM

REGENSBURG

MUNICH

KREMS

VIENNAENNS

TRIESTE

KOPERRIJEKA

SALZBURG

DRESDEN

CESKATREBOVA

PRAGUE

BREMER-HAVEN

PLZEN

BUDAPEST

ISTANBUL

A Tightly Knit Network for Central and Eastern Europe HHLA has built a highly effi cient rail network for Central and Eastern Europe, which allows goods to fl ow quickly, reliably and inexpensively between the ports ofNorthern Europe and their hinterland. This relieves pressure both on road traffi c and the environment and, with its network of inland hubs, is unique in Europe.

Seaport terminal

HHLA Inland hub

HHLA Inland terminal

HHLA rail services

Other Inland terminal

HHLA Seaport terminal

POLZUGBlock trains operated by HHLA

subsidiary Polzug Intermodal have

provided a link between the con-

tainer ports of Northern Europe and

the Central and Eastern European

hinterland since 1992. Polzug

serves the most important econo-

mic centres in the key market of

Poland and also handles rail trans-

ports to the former CIS states via

its hub terminal in Poznan. Services

include fi nal deliveries, container

storage, electronic depot reporting

and customs clearance. Custom-

ised information technology and

certifi ed quality management guar-

antee a high level of reliability.

METRANSHHLA subsidiary Metrans operates a

high-frequency rail link between the

export-based economies of Central

Europe and the ports of Hamburg,

Bremerhaven and Rotterdam. With

inland terminals, its own locomotives

and special container waggons, the

company operates high performance

hub-and-shuttle systems. The ports

of the Northern Adriatic are also inte-

grated into this intermodal network.

Metrans offers complete customer

service including products such as

trucking, customs clearance and

container storage and takes the high

quality of maritime logistics deep into

the hinterland.

CTDContainer-Transport-Dienst (CTD)

is a container trucking specialist

in one of the world’s largest con-

tainer hubs. As the market leader

in port haulage in Hamburg, CTD

has used technological innovation

to optimise logistics processes

and speed up transportation. The

company is also forwarding the

steel boxes throughout Germany

and Europe and provides its own

inventory of suitable chassis for

every type of container. Offi ces in

German economic centres ensure

that customers receive the best

possible support right down to the

“last mile”.

The Hub SystemHub terminals are modelled on the bicycle wheel with a hub at the centre and spokes spreading out

in all directions. Regular shuttle trains bring containers bound for a variety of destinations (shown in

colour) from the port to the hub. Here, containers being shipped to the same destination rail terminal are

transferred to a direct train to continue their journey. Trucks usually provide the delivery service over the

“last mile”. Naturally, the system functions in exactly the same way for cargo travelling in the opposite

direction, from the hinterland to the ports.

Hub terminal


Pioneering Transport Services for Europe

Hamburg is the most important container port for Central and Eastern Europe. HHLA’s rail subsidiaries are on track for further growth. With exemplary trainsystems and innovative terminals, they are rapidly expanding their services,now also in Germany and Austria.

At the hub terminals operated by Metrans, containers are transferred from

shuttle trains arriving from the Port of Hamburg onto direct trains or trucks

carrying them onward to their destinations in Central and Eastern Europe.

he quality of a seaport terminal is no longer determined exclusively by the effi ciency of its facilities at the quay-side. More and more important today is the ability to

create a highly effi cient network linking all the processes at the terminal with container transports to and from customers in the European hinterland. Metrans has been offering highly success-ful services in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary for a number of years and is now extending these to Austria and Ger-many. This expansion into the German-speaking world simul-taneously increases attractiveness of HHLA terminals.

Metrans has already been providing regular services to and from Munich since the end of 2012. In early 2013, these were so successful that the number of connections was in-creased to six per week in each direction. Departures to Nu-remberg, Leipzig and Dresden were integrated into the rapidly growing Metrans network after just a few months of testing. Pro-gress in Austria was also achieved at express speed. In October 2012, Metrans acquired the container rail terminal at Krems, a port on the river Danube, which offers excellent transport links in the heart of Lower Austria. For the fi rst time, Metrans now oper-ates its own terminal in Austria. With links to and from Vienna, Krems, Enns and Salzburg, Hamburg continues to reinforce its position as the export port of choice for the Alpine republic.

In the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, Metrans has already been on the fast track to success for many years. Customers value the reliable intermodal service and have grown accustomed to the tailor-made shipment information provided by the market leader. It is the perfect way to bring the quality of maritime logistics to the hinterland in cooperation with its par-ent company. HHLA is renowned as an effi cient and innovativeterminal operator, which even develops its own IT systems (see p. 16). It is an excellent match that offers bright prospectsfor the future.

One important condition for implementing the new joint intermodal strategy was the acquisition by HHLA of the Deut-sche Bahn shareholdings in Metrans and Polzug in 2012. Polzug is now a 100 percent subsidiary of HHLA, which also holds 86.5 percent of Metrans. The remaining 13.5 percent are owned by the company’s management.

In May 2013, Metrans achieved another milestone with the opening of its hub terminal in the Czech town of CeskaTrebova, 180 km east of Prague. The town has long been a railway network hub and is conveniently situated at the centre of Route 22 of the Trans-European Networks (TEN). This route runs from Nuremberg or Dresden via Prague, Vienna and Budapest to Sofi a. Today, Ceska Trebova handles a signifi cant propor-

T


tion of Austrian transports and opens up the entire southeas-tern region of the CzechRepublic, Slovakia and Hungary. In early 2013, more than 100 trains were passing through the Ceska Trebova terminal every week. Jiri Samek, the founder and chief executive of Metrans, proudly calls it “our model terminal”.

The great advantage of the terminal is that it no longer requires shunting locomotives. With a track length of 630 m and six lanes, it is possible to process the complete trains, which roll directly into the terminal pulled by their electric locomotives. Once the railcars have been loaded or unloaded by the three gantry cranes, the entire train can simply be driven out again. There is no need to change the locomotive. Each train is pro-cessed in just a few hours saving both time and money. This in-novative handling concept cuts the time required for processing a train by between five and eight hours compared to a standard container railway terminal.

Ideas like these have been at the root of the rise of Metrans since it opened its first hub terminal in Prague in 1991. The seeds of this successful concept for rail transport, which utilises direct and shuttle trains as well as its own hub terminals in excellent locations, were sown in Praha-Uhrineves. Shuttle trains bring containers at regular intervals from the seaport to the hub where they are sorted. From the feeder trains, they are loaded onto connecting trains for their onward journeys or are forwarded by truck (see also p. 21). These shuttle trains operating at regular intervals enable receivers of freight to plan with

extra security. If containers miss one train, they can take the next one: Metrans shuttles travel from Hamburg to Prague five times a day. With a transit time of around twelve hours, this route is the quickest link from the Czech Republic to any seaport; more than 70 trains commute between the cities each week.

Terminals such as Prague or Ceska Trebova also offer a comprehensive range of services – from container storage to on-ward transport by road and the handling customs of formalities. The storage facilities at these hubs also act as buffers for global transport chains – qualities usually only offered by seaports.

In order to achieve high added value in as many areas of the transport chain as possible, Metrans has invested both in its own locomotives and in maintenance and repair facilities. The company has purchased 1,300 container waggons, which were developed in cooperation with the Czech railcar builder Tatravagonka. Metrans has gained a competitive advantage because the waggons designed for its container transports are 30 percent lighter than those used by its European competi-tors. The first generation of container waggons, each weighing 25 t, was already more than ten percent lighter than stan-dard. The latest model weighs just 21.5 t – another quantum leap forward in container waggon design. For a train of up to 27 waggons, such as those used in Germany, weight-saving totals 180 t – an enormous advantage both economically and ecologically. The new design is more compact, thereby offe-ring another important advantage. Standard trains in Eastern

Europe have a maximum length of 610 m. Here, Metrans trains with 23 container waggons have a capacity of 92 TEU. In West- ern Europe, where trains of 720 m are permitted, 27 Metrans container waggons can be loaded with up to 108 TEU. By way of comparison, its competitors can transport a maximum of 88 TEU using trains of an identical length. Thus Metrans trains can transport around 20 percent more containers per train.

Together with Metrans, HHLA has made major advances in the development of its hinterland network. HHLA subsidiary Polzug has also adopted the principle of the hub terminal. The company serves the most important economic centres in Pol- and through its central facility in Poznan. The daily pair of shuttle trains between Hamburg and Poznan now require only 12 hours rather than the previous 18 hours for the journey. As well as pro-viding links to European seaports, Polzug now also organises continental transports.

HHLA’s ambition is to optimise all the links in the logistics chain continuously – from the seaport to the customer. This is not only an attractive business for customers, but also strengthens the environmentally friendly combination of ship and rail transportation. HHLA’s rail transport systems are creating the best conditions for capturing further market share from the roads. “Hamburg is the most important port for the economies of Central and Eastern Europe,” says Samek in assessment. With modern technology, a host of innovations and the expansion of the route network, Metrans is on track for further growth.

PORTRAIT Setting the future courseIn 1991, Jiri Samek (58)

founded the rail company

Metrans in Prague. How did

Samek create a market lea-

der and what plans does he

have for New Zealand ?

When Jiri Samek talks about

his baby, it all sounds so easy.

“You need the best people and

the best know-how,” says the

58-year-old Czech. “And a goal,

for which you are prepared to

clear every obstacle in your

way.” In 1991, when Samak

founded his rail company Met-

rans in Prague, there were no

block train services between the

Czech Republic and the Port of

Hamburg.

Today, Metrans is the most successful rail operator

in the area of intermodal transports to Central and Eastern

Europe with a market share of nearly 70 percent. More

than 2 million containers have already been transported

along the Hamburg-Prague axis. On average, a shuttle train

loaded with containers leaves the Port of Hamburg every five

hours. “When you have an idea, you simply have to make it

a reality,” says Samek. With degrees from the University of

Transport in Slovakia and the European Business School in

Germany, he has the ideal background for building a logistics

company.

“From the outset, we were a one-stop shop offering

container transport from the seaport to the customer. Not

only do we run the trains, we also operate the cargo handling

facilities in the hinterland. And we guarantee onward transport

to the customer,” explains Samek in fluent German. “We do all

this with a high level of productivity.” This is due to a produc-

tion system supported by the very latest software. Metrans has

set a new standard in hinterland transportation for European

seaports.

“With HHLA we have been able to expand our busi-

ness still further and reinforce our links with the Port of Ham-

burg,” says Samek. Today, HHLA is the majority shareholder

in Metrans. The idea of stopping has never crossed Samek’s

mind. “I still have a few more ideas,” he says smiling. “Perhaps

I will found another Metrans in New Zealand.”

Metrans has invested not only in its

terminal network and own locomotives

but also in its fleet of innovative con-

tainer waggons. These transport more

containers and are lighter than standard

container waggons – an enormous

advantage both economically and

ecologically.


Container Terminal Odessa is operated

and being developed by HHLA

subsidiary HPC Ukraina.

Shipping HHLA Know-how around the World

HHLA subsidiary HPC Hamburg Port Consulting advises port and terminal operators around the globe. Sometimes the advisers even become operators themselves – as happened in the Ukrainian port of Odessa.

HLA subsidiary HPC Hamburg Port Consulting has its headquarters in the heart of the port at HHLA Container Terminal Altenwerder. “We take the knowledge and ex-

pertise of HHLA, the Port of Hamburg, out into the wide world,” says Susanne Milberg, consultant and partner at HPC, describing one of her company’s key tasks.

She and her colleagues advise governments, compa-nies and organisations charged with coordinating national and international development. HPC has already worked in 110 countries, focusing primarily on ports. These may have been earmarked for privatisation or sale, require thorough moderni-sation or equipping with a new technology. Sometimes, they are green field projects involving the construction of a completely new port. “Container terminals are our main area of interest,” adds the qualified economist.

For its clients, the team at HPC produces studies and analyses, offers and applications for invitations to tender or com-petitive bidding processes. It monitors markets and develops port layouts as well as considering infrastructure requirements, technical equipment, links to the hinterland and, of course, financing. “Sometimes we gaze into our crystal ball,” says Mil-berg referring to forecasts for the next twenty to thirty years.

As the example of Odessa shows, looking into the crys-tal ball and the subsequent consulting process sometimes even results in HPC being appointed as the terminal operator. The Ukrainian port lies on the shore of the Black Sea, which has been integrated into the worldwide container transport network ever more closely over recent years. “In 2001, when we were asked to develop the terminal, it was handling only 50,000 standard containers per year,” says Milberg describing the beginning

of the project. Today, Container Terminal Odessa (CTO) is ope-rated by the subsidiary HPC Ukraina and handles significantly more than 300,000 standard containers (TEU) per year. “Moreo-ver, CTO is also generating good revenues,” says Milberg.

CTO has been and continues to be a beneficiary of major investment and also of HPC’s decision to extend its corporate purpose. After all, until that point, it had only been a provider of consulting services and not a terminal operator.

HPC constructed block storage areas served by rubber tired gantry cranes (RTG), purchased container gantry cranes and developed a terminal control centre. The port used the ter-minal and IT components distributed worldwide by HPC as well as the experience offered by HHLA. “CTO has profited enor-mously from Hamburg’s know-how,” says Milberg. Further ex-pansion of the terminal is underway – one day it will have an annual capacity of more than 1 million TEU. The Port of Odessa handles a significant proportion of the Ukraine’s imports and ex-ports.

HPC thus act as a conduit for spreading HHLA innovations around the world and these sometimes return to the hub of Hamburg in the form of vigorous flows of goods and com-modities.

The globetrotting Susanne Milberg is on the road yet again – this time in East Timor. “The country wants to build a new port and is looking for a private operator,” she explains. The aim is for it to handle up to 400,000 TEU eventually – a large figure for a country with a current population of just over 1 million. HPC works on sixty such projects every year. At its Hamburg headquarters, the company’s parent HHLA also profits from these contacts.

PORTRAIT The GlobetrotterSusanne Milberg, 49, is a consultant with special expertise

in the global development of port and terminal concepts at

HPC Hamburg Port Consulting.

Susanne Milberg is not just a consultant for HPC Hamburg Port

Consulting, a subsidiary of the HHLA Group, she is also one of

seven shareholding partners. With her colleagues, she deals

with global giants. They advise governments, organisations and

companies in matters concerning every aspect of ports. Milberg’s

expertise lies in the development of concepts for efficient container

handling. The daughter of a businessman, she describes herself

as “precocious” and can always be found on location – in green

fields, by the water’s edge or at the heart of a port – with a hunger

for efficiency and modern handling systems. She travels the world

for three to four months of every year and her passport lasts for an

average of just two years – by then it is fully stamped.

She is a strong believer in looking at every project close-

up. “The situation on the ground is usually different from the one

presented on the drawing board,” she says. Travel is clearly a

source of enjoyment for her and squeamishness an alien concept.

“In our business, everyone has to be prepared to travel any-

where. You must have mastered essential cultural skills and be

considerate of others,” she says. “For example, we fly economy

class because it would be embarrassing if we sat in the front of the

plane and our customers in the back.”

How does Ms Milberg quantify success? “When a lead

becomes an order, our projects are managed successfully, young

colleagues learn new skills and we maintain contact with the

customer,” she says. Then she quickly thinks through her plans,

studies and lists, she concludes, “the greatest pleasure is when I

return to a place and see the port we planned spread out before

me.”

H


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Alten-werder W i l h e l m s b u rg

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WHOLESALE MARKET

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CENTRE II

SPEICHERSTADT(warehouse district)

CRUISE CENTRE I

O’SWALDKAI

OVERSEAS CENTRE

BURCHARDKAI

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HANSAPORT

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MAIN RAILWAY STATION (Hbf)

HAFENCITY

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At Home on the Banks of the Elbe

Shaping a Sustainable Structural Transformation

Project development, district management and shaping the

structural transformation of urban environments are the core

competences of HHLA Real Estate. Founded in 1885 to build

and operate the world’s largest and most modern warehouse

complex, it is now spurring the transformation of the Speicher-

stadt or “warehouse district” into a modern quarter of the city.

The listed buildings in this area of Hamburg have been beauti-

fully renovated and redesigned in accordance with sustainable

principles. As well as the outstanding architecture, cultural at-

tractions such as the Miniatur Wunderland model railway draw

millions of visitors. Today, a growing number of sophisticated

tenants from the worlds of media, culture and fashion are also

fi nding their inspiration where coffee was once stored.

Container handlingand storage

Fruit logistics

Vehicle logistics (RoRo)

Contract andproject logistics

Cruise terminal

Bulk cargo handling

Real estate

KEY

Port area

City area

HHLA sites

his map shows the locations of the HHLA and its subsidiaries in Hamburg. The large terminals and logistics facilities lie at the heart of the port area. They are perfectly linked to an extensive network of waterways, railways, roads and highways, which connect Hamburg to the rest of Europe. The Speicherstadt (warehouse district), which is home to the HHLA headquarters, and

the Hamburg-Altona fi sh market lie on the fringes of the port.

T

30 HHLa | innovATion Guide HHLa | innovATion Guide 31

Competent Solutions Behind the Freihafen bridge and in sight of the elbphilhar-

monie concert hall the Port of Hamburg begins: here is

HHLA Logistics located. The company acts as a logistics

interface at the port, fully integrated and with access to all

the information. The location is well connected to Germany’s

highways, railways and inland waterways and is closely

linked to the port’s terminals with overseas connections.

The wholly owned HHLA subsidiary is responsible for

planning and managing all logistics activities on behalf of

its customers and offers particular expertise in the field of

project and contract logistics. The company finds the

appropriate solution for every package, from giant smoke

filters for power stations to smartly designed parcels of

fashion items. experienced staff are at hand to manage

every task from direct delivery of online orders to seaworthy

packaging or complex handling of heavy goods for

shipment.

Fresh Fruit

The white reefer ships which berth in front of the HHLA

Frucht- und Kühl-Zentrum deliver one of the last cargoes that

is not yet transported exclusively by container. Mobile cranes

lift pallets of banana boxes out of the ship’s belly, dozens of

forklifts transfer them immediately to the fully automated refri-

geration hall. While the centre’s core business is still handling

and storing these sensitive tropical fruits, which are also

delivered by a regular container line service, other fruit and

temperature-controlled goods are becoming increa-

singly more important. Close cooperation with the specialist

freight forwarder ulrich Stein ensures that importers of fruit

and other goods do not have to deal with the many customs

regulations and special authorities for plant protection or

bio-certificates themselves. The two HHLA subsidiaries

complement each other well in the fruit logistics team at

Germany’s largest fruit port – Hamburg.

Clear and Brief

Rolling Loads

vehicles and vehicle components are Germany’s number

one export with machinery and equipment a close second.

demand for products “Made in Germany” is growing strongly,

especially overseas. Hamburg’s multi-purpose terminal

o’Swaldkai is playing its part in facilitating the export of these

rolling loads. in 2012, the HHLA subsidiary unikai Lagerei

und Speditionsgesellschaft processed a total of 376 special-

ised ConRo freighters. The cargoes passing over their stern

ramps, which have a load capacity of up to 450 tonnes, were

primarily high quality German vehicles. As well as 202,000

cars and 16,200 commercial vehicles, unikai also handled a

total of 110,000 tonnes of general and project cargo. These

items were mostly large industrial plants or construction

machines, which were dismantled for export and stowed on

the ships’ decks on trailers.

of cargo can be unloaded within 24 hours along the quays, which

extend for more than 1000 m. Some 90 percent of the systems at

HAnSAPoRT are automated with up to 15 trains being processed

automatically every day. not one metre of road is required for the

transportation of bulk cargoes from HAnSAPoRT – an approach

that makes good ecological sense.

A giant among terminals is at work in the shadow of the Köhlbrand

bridge – and also a miracle of automation. More than ten percent

of the Port of Hamburg’s total throughput is handled by the HHLA

affiliate HAnSAPoRT– nearly 14,000,000 tonnes of coal and ore

annually for the power stations and steelworks of northern Germany.

depending on the ship size and type of cargo, up to 110,000 tonnes

Black Mountains

HaMBuRGER HaFEn unD LoGiStiK aKtiEnGESELLSCHaFtBei St. Annen 1, d-20457 Hamburg, telephone: +49 (0)40-3088-0, fax: +49 (0)40-3088-3355, e-mail: [email protected], www.hhla.de/en

INNOVATION GUIDE - HHLA · INNOVATION GUIDE by the Hamburger Hafen und Logistik Aktiengesellschaft Mega-ships Set Course for Hamburg How HHLA is optimising and networking the ﬂow

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