In addition to the terminal operator performance standards (TOPS) established by the Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA) late last year the authority will also establish marine operator performance standards (MOPS), rail operator performance standards (ROPS) and haulier operator performance standards (HOPS).

Speaking at an event hosted by the South African Shippers Council, in Midrand, TNPA COO Herbert Msagala explained that following the introduction of the TOPS, each of South Africa’s ports now had a performance standard to work from; however, the entire port supply chain had to be managed, as opposed to only the port terminals, as the port terminals alone could not be held accountable for issues relating to performance.

He said currently the TOPS were at an initial phase, explaining that the authority wanted to set an allowed turnaround time for every commodity transported through rail to one of the country’s ports.

“If the rail is not going to be offloaded at a certain time, it must not come into the port, it must be staged somewhere [else] so as to not clog the system,” Msagala said.

He pointed out that at the ports of Richards Bay and Maputo the terminal and rail system now used joint planning to ensure that a train did not come into the port before it could be offloaded.

“We want to roll this out across all the main corridors,” Msagala said.

Further, the MOPS were currently being finalised, while work on the HOPS were set to start soon.

“If we hold the entire supply chain accountable with those key performance measures we can then talk about port performance,” Msagala said.

Meanwhile, in future, TNPA would also like the performance of a port to be the regulator of its tariffs, he pointed out.

“This means that we cannot always increase the tariff without looking at how well capacity is used, otherwise we will keep on pouring concrete and charging the customer,” Msagala said, adding that, currently, the TNPA had found that capacity was being wasted in all areas of the port system – marine, terminals, rail and road – although the extent of the waste did differ between the segments.

“Therefore, there is no one clean port system that can say ‘I am doing better than the rest’,” he explained.

The visibility of the entire port supply chain was also of importance, Msagala said, stating that, for this reason, the Port of Durban would go live in August with its operational centre, which would control the marine, terminal, road and rail systems associated with the port.

This would enable the TNPA to record delays in real time and publish the port’s performance figures daily.

This system would also link the Port of Durban with the ports of Saldanha Bay, Richards Bay and East London to ensure that ship delays could effectively be communicated to a ship’s next port of call.