Business Process Management Journal

Reengineering the seaport container truck hauling process: Reducing empty slot trips
for transport capacity improvement
Samsul Islam Tava Olsen M. Daud Ahmed
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BPMJ
19,5 Reengineering the seaport
container truck hauling process
Reducing empty slot trips for transport
752 capacity improvement
Received 5 June 2012 Samsul Islam and Tava Olsen
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Revised 31 July 2012 Information Systems and Operations Management,

8 October 2012 The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand, and
3 January 2013
1 February 2013 M. Daud Ahmed
Accepted 4 February 2013
Faculty of Business, Manukau Institute of Technology,
Auckalnd, New Zealand

Abstract
Purpose – Empty container trucks may cause a deficit in transport capacity and contribute to
congestion and emissions in the port territory. Reengineering of the container truck hauling process to
introduce truck-sharing arrangements using the truck appointment system has the potential of
reducing the number of empty-truck trips. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach – This research evaluates the results from an investigation of the
truck appointment system using a case study approach. The data collection phase involved primary
and secondary sources along with using publicly available data on port operations.
Findings – The study explores a dynamic truck-sharing facility for a computer-based matching
system to assign probable export containers to available empty slots of a container truck.
The proposed model reengineers the truck appointment system with a potential to reduce the number
of empty-truck trips to increase container transport capacity around seaport gates.
Research limitations/implications – Due to continuous increases in container-freight traffic,
leading seaports of the world are experiencing a capacity shortage resulting in traffic congestion.
The research findings are useful in practice as the proposed truck-sharing model can be introduced to
enhance capacity in the container transport chain of the port territory.
Originality/value – The empty-trucks problem has not been addressed much in studies from a
decentralized perspective where all truck operators have an equal chance to contribute to optimize the
supply chain in contrast with the typical one-company-based optimization. The solution addressed
here uses the shared-transportation concept to cover the research gap.
Keywords Transport capacity, Empty-truck, Truck appointment system, Process reengineering,
Transportation, Transport management
Paper type Case study

Introduction
A seaport is considered to be an important part of a supply chain (Heaver, 2002; Bichou
and Gray, 2005; Tongzon and Heng, 2005; Wang and Cullinane, 2006; Panayides and
Business Process Management Song, 2008, 2009). Since a port is part of a cluster of organizations, including logistics
Journal and transport operators, the performance of this network is a team effort that depends
Vol. 19 No. 5, 2013
pp. 752-782 on the strategic alignment of the partners and the business processes. Competition
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited between transport chains compels ports to improve the quality of hinterland transport
1463-7154
DOI 10.1108/BPMJ-Jun-2012-0059 services, especially hinterland access for trucks (Notteboom and Rodrigue, 2005).
 This access is influenced by the cooperation of a number of actors (Langen, 2004), such Seaport
as freight forwarders and transport providers. container truck
A result of noncooperation is the limited amount of exchange of cargo between
truck companies and exporters to appropriately utilize available truck capacity hauling process
(Van Der Horst and De Langen, 2008). The reluctance to cooperate may influence total
hinterland access capacity since it is trucks that usually carry most of the domestic
container shipments in a typical seaport. The extent of the cargo exchange problem can 753
be seen in an example of the Port of New York and New Jersey region. Here, only
2 percent of the total container traffic is a result of collaboration in exchange of
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containers in the Port of New York and New Jersey region (Theofanis et al., 2007); there
is no collaboration for the remaining 98 percent of container transfer.
The study of Van Der Horst and De Langen (2008) states that full cooperation for
exchange of cargoes and the utilization of available slot capacity do not develop
spontaneously among exporters and truckers. This may lead to bottlenecks and
inefficiencies in the door-to-door container transport chain, such as congestion in the
road network. The non-utilization of an available slot capacity (i.e. the number of
empty or non-empty containers a truck can carry) of a container truck in import- and
export-related trips can be described as the “empty container truck hauling problem”.
Various terminologies such as “empty container truck hauling problem”, “empty-truck
trips problem”, and “empty-truck movement problem” are used to indicate the
same problem synonymously by practitioners. The slot capacity of a container truck
varies from truck to truck (i.e. container truck type). It may, however, frequently
comprise two twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEUs) or one forty-foot equivalent unit
(FEU) equal capacity.
The empty container truck hauling problem may occur in seaports in part because
of lack of information exchange opportunities between exporters and haulers on
possible matched trips. Trips can be matched from and to warehouses, seaports, and
truck companies. This problem has a propensity to cause additional vehicle miles
travelled (VMT), truck-related emissions, and a notable deficit in potential transport
capacity. The problem addressed in this article is to design an information exchange
platform to facilitate collaboration using a truck appointment system of a case study
seaport. Many ports around the world have implemented systems such as truck
appointment systems, vehicle booking system (Port of Felixstowe), truck licensing
system (Port Metro Vancouver) to efficiently handle huge growth in container truck
volumes and related congestion and delays. Literature on such systems is limited
(Huynh and Zumerchik, 2010). The implemented appointment systems stimulate many
interesting questions for the port communities, for example why the problems occur,
how the systems are implemented, whether or not the specified goals of reduced
congestion and emissions are realized, and whether or not the implemented systems
provide a solution for addressing congestion problems and sustainability issues in
other seaports. A concern for practitioners is how the functions of the appointment
systems can be improved or adjusted to provide a better service for capacity
enhancement and carbon emissions reduction.
This research article summarizes the results from the investigation and evaluation
of a newly implemented appointment system, using a case study approach. It focuses
on its development, implementation, limitations and future potential to address the
following key research questions:
 BPMJ RQ1. How the major transport processes changed at the port gates over time?
19,5 This research question clarifies the major evolution and development of truck
transport processes (i.e. from a conventional truck transport process to basic truck
appointment system (BTAS), and then to advanced truck appointment system
(ATAS)) at the port gates. The selected port reengineered its truck hauling process
several times, from the conventional to BTAS and at later stages to advance ATAS.
754 These improvements help overcome the limitations of the old processes and increase
the overall gate- or transport-capacity. The outcome of the initial business process
reengineering (BPR) was to reduce truck turnaround times from almost four hours to
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approximately 25 minutes. Process reengineering practices can be used in seaports to

increase the quality of service (Hu et al., 2011) and to deal with a variety of problems in
terminal management and in the container transportation system. For example,
Choi et al. (2006b) develop an automated gate system based on radio-frequency
identification (RFID) technology to make seaport gate operations more effective. Zhong
and Yin (2010) show that the application of computing, communication and controlling
(CCCT) in a seaport can increase the throughput of containers by 4 percent and lower
operating costs by 14.78 percent. Major Indian ports have reengineered transportation
processes to incorporate best practices to optimize process flows (Government of India,
2007). What all these given-examples show – other than how the distinctive processes
have become embedded in port’s delivery of operations – is how vital every process to
a specific objective:
RQ2. Is it possible to introduce a truck-sharing facility with the as-is process to
reduce empty trips?
This research question aims to introduce a container truck-sharing system to improve
seaport transport capacity and to reduce truck traffic-related congestion around the
case study seaport and its region. This is important since Davenport (1993) claims that
all types of business processes must be evaluated in terms of key processes, and one of
the key processes of a container terminal is its external truck operations. This external
truck operation is frequently viewed as a major source of emissions, congestion
and capacity problems for major container terminals (Huynh and Zumerchik, 2010).
While process reengineering (Hammer and Champy, 1993; Hammer, 2010) is a
radical approach, business process management (BPM) adopts a continuous process
improvement perspective (Davenport, 1993). BPM is a holistic approach of managing
business processes (Armistead et al., 1999). Doebeli et al. (2011) proposes a BPM
governance model to effectively deploy BPM-capabilities across an organization.
Ko et al. (2009) survey BPM languages, standards and notations. Some supplementary
studies (such as Ravesteyn and Batenburg, 2010; Trkman, 2010; Škrinjar and
Trkman, 2012) investigate and suggest important success factors for BPM-oriented
adaptation and process improvement.
As far as the authors are concerned earlier research covering the empty-truck
hauling problem in the maritime logistics domain is scarce from a decentralized
perspective, which takes all truck companies into consideration to suggest a solution.
For an example, the study of Heide (2010) comes closest to what is attempted in this
study. The study of Heide (2010) suggested the chassis exchange terminal (CET)
concept to increase the utilization of container truck capacity and to minimize the
number of empty-truck trips. In contrast, this paper introduces the application of the
 transport-sharing concept to fill the gap in addressing the empty-truck trips problem. Seaport
The concept is becoming popular at other research domains like car-sharing (Helmeth, container truck
2012), taxi sharing (Xu et al., 2012) and bike sharing (Lin and Yang Ta-Hui, 2011).
We review the literature streams from other research domains as a conceptual basis hauling process
as the empty-trucks problem is found in other areas (both in freight and passenger
transport studies) as well. The problem is not only limited to container transportation
and goes back to the discussions of Pigou and Taussig (1913). The core of the problem is 755
rooted in the imbalance of trade flows, which is widely obvious in freight transport flows
(Wilson, 1987). The problem has been approached in many disciplines, usually based on
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deciding efficient routes for individual vehicles, such as forest transportation (Carlsson
and Rönnqvist, 2007), container ships (Santhanakrishnan et al., 2012) and retail chains
(Yano et al., 1987). Classically, analysts take a centralized decision making perspective
to formulate the problem based on available information and makes a decision (Brewer
and Plott, 2002) to solve such problems, which are known as backhaul problems. Thus, a
related field similar to the objectives of this study is frequently referred to as the
backhaul problem, vehicle routing problem with backhauls (VRPB), and pickup and
delivery problem (PDP). For a comprehensive survey on PDPs, especially on the VRPB,
see Parragh et al. (2008). In the backhaul problem truckers face difficulty in finding
backhauls because of a lower demand for transport on the return journey (Wang, 2009;
Gajpal and Abad, 2009; Demirel et al., 2010; Xing et al., 2011; Zachariadis and
Kiranoudis, 2012). The problem is typically viewed as an administrative and scheduling
problem in a centralized setting (Brewer and Plott, 2002). Researchers consider these
VRPB or PDF problems from the standpoint of a single trucking company, which has a
fleet of vehicles. This may lead to local optimization (e.g. minimizing the total cost of
servicing all customers) and benefits one single company. Such local optimization might
be achieved at the expense of other partners in the supply chain because hundreds
of trucking companies operate their trucks in a typical port. This study proposes a to-be
model to achieve a system-wide optimization to benefit all involved parties
(e.g. especially truckers and exporters) in the supply chain as a whole. Therefore,
most previous studies (including container transportation and other domains) solve the
problem by selecting efficient routes for a truck for a single carrier whereas this study
plans to optimize the benefits of all carriers to increase overall transport capacity.
Few of the truck appointment system studies we are aware of, for examples, see
Ioannou et al. (2006), Giuliano and O’Brien (2007), Namboothiri and Erera (2008),
Huynh (2009) and van Asperen et al. (2011), have attempted to deal with the
empty-truck hauling problem. By contrast, this study proposes a model integrated with
the appointment system.
Therefore, the foremost contributions of this study are shown in brief in Figure 1.
To sum up, the major contributions are:
.
the suggested to-be process to reduce the number of empty-truck trips is
integrated with the truck appointment system concept;
.
the to-be process is approached from a decentralized perspective where all truck
operators have an equal chance to get benefits to optimize the whole supply
chain in contrast with the typical company-based optimization; and finally
.
the working procedure of the to-be process uses the shared-transportation
concept.
 BPMJ
Empty
19,5 container-trucks
problem

756
Centralized Truck appointment Decentralized
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perspective system perspective

Integrated with
truck appointment
system concept

Figure 1. Shared-transport
Optimization Solving
Major contributions concept
algorithms mechanisms
of this study (this study)

To understand and answer research questions, the next section provides further details
of unutilized slot trips, followed by the research methodology. It then addresses
the reengineering and small-scale improvements of truck transport processes at the
seaport gate. The following section proposes a to-be (new) model to increase truck
capacity utilization using a shared-transportation concept, and the last section
summarizes the main aspects of this research.

Empty-truck trips problem

A container truck can perform many empty-truck trips in a typical cycle of an export
process for the fulfilling of diverse functions. These are described here using a typical
export process in Figure 2. The interested reader is referred to DP World (2012) for
more information on the export process. However, for an overview of the container
transport process, see Steenken et al. (2004) and Notteboom (2004). To initiate the
export process, the exporter sends all necessary instructions to the freight forwarder,
who contacts the shipping agency to book shipment, and the agency then considers all
information. The forwarder in turn informs the shipper, warehouse and trucker. The
truck operator asks for an empty container from the ocean carrier, who provides
container pickup details to the truck operator and sends an empty container release
order to the depot operator. The truck operator browses the seaport web site to
generate an event for picking up the empty container. Simultaneously the truck
operator provides truck information and selects the time of arrival from the available
timeslots. Next, the truck operator releases a truck to pickup an empty container
from the empty depot. Once it has arrived, the truck driver exchanges equipment
 A Simplified View of Container Export Process Seaport
Send all documents to exporter container truck
Exporter

Send info to
Start
Send invoice
to importer
Receive LC
from bank
selected freight
forwarder
Make
amendments Exporter
Inventory hauling process
update
Issues Shipment
Forwarder

Confirm Send Bill of

Receive Carry out documentation Apply for
Freight

Request space shipper, Freight Send House Lading and docs

shipment necessary permit
booking warehouse & Forwarder Bill of Lading to another
instructions checks approval
trucker forwarder
757
Ocean Carrier

Send Ocean
Confirm Provide Update Bill of Lading
bookin container container and packing
request pickup details details list
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Deport operator, Inventory

yard location, update
container type
Warehouse
Operator

Communicate Exchange
shipment Pack receipt for Stuff Seal
details cargo empty container container Release laden
container container truck

Plan delivery Raise Send receipt

Trucker

Arrange for Send truck to Return of

Send transport Call for empty requirements Equipment Save to forwarder
pick-up and pick-up empty
instructions containers like routes, Interchange packing list to confirm
delivery times empty container truck
resources etc. Report (EIR) delivery
Operator
Deport

Truck leaves
Distribute Release empty depot operator
container container truck & and reaches
update carrier to warehouse
Port Authority

Send
confirmation
of container Issue receipt Provide Necessary
delivery time Stack of Ship
of container direction further End
container Loading
delivery to truck handling

Figure 2.
Regulators

Approve
permit for
export
Typical truck trips
involved with an
export process
Source: An extension of DP World (2012)

interchange receipt (EIR) with the depot operator. The empty container is released and
the truck driver carries that to the warehouse. Meanwhile, the depot operator updates
the ocean carrier on the container status. The truck driver exchanges documents for the
empty container with the warehouse operator. The warehouse operator begins packing
when he receives the empty container, packs the cargo and informs the hauler. The
warehouse operator also hands over the packing list to the truck operator and freight
forwarder, and lastly, sends an inventory update to the exporter. The truck operator
again browses the port web site to generate another event from the available timeslots,
but this time for the laden container. Accordingly, the truck operator picks up the laden
container from the warehouse, delivers it to the port, and sends the container delivery
receipt to the freight forwarder who prepares and sends the House Bill of Lading to the
ocean carrier. The ocean carrier sends the Ocean Bill of Lading and packing list to the
exporter. Finally, the forwarder deals with the regulators to obtain permit approval.
According to this export process, the associated trips may generate many
underutilized truck movements with every export cycle (Figure 3). Initially the most
expensive and environmentally harmful unutilized slot transportation may happen
during the driving of an empty-truck (i.e. with chassis only) from the drayage company
to the seaport. The goal is to pickup an empty container. A partially unutilized truck
movement next takes place when it picks up an empty container (i.e. TEU) from
the depot and delivers it to the warehouse although the truck has two TEUs
capacity. This can accelerate seaport congestion and increase carbon emissions.
 BPMJ
19,5
Truck without
Container

758 Hauler
4
1
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Truck with Laden

Container
4
Warehouse 3 Seaport

Figure 3.
Probable empty slot Truck with Empty
trips in an export cycle Container
2

The drayage company then assigns another truck, which may not be similar to the
earlier one and may have two TEUs capacity. The assigned truck moves the loaded
container from the warehouse and leaves the container at the port before departing.
This also may create another empty slot trip if the loaded container is only one TEU.
Finally, the truck leaves empty from the port territory after unloading the container.
This can create another unutilized trip although it could have loaded two TEUs or one
FEU empty container(s) for another firm back to the trucker.

Research methodology
Studies reflect different methodologies for process improvement projects as each
methodology is customized to the needs of the project (Klein, 1994). Illustrative examples
are available as follows. Adesola and Baines (2005) suggest and test a methodology
termed model-based and integrated process improvement (MIPI) to support business
process implementation. Kettinger et al. (1997) describe the major stages, which are
usually performed during process reengineering initiatives and shows the relationships
among the stages. Klein (1994) suggests a set of guide lines to direct the choice of selecting
the appropriate research methodology. Vakola and Rezgui (2000) develop, implement and
evaluate a methodology that incorporates human and organizational issues, and also
emphasise the need for continuous improvement, for successful project implementation.
Valiris and Glykas (1999) present a holistic and systematic methodology called ARMA
by incorporating principles of the management accounting, IS development and
organizational theoretic, to cross the limitations of the existing BPR methodologies. For
an example of comparisons and contrasts among suggested methodologies, see Adesola
and Baines (2005). The research framework shown in Figure 4 is the outcome of these
reviewed studies. This study also follows Harbour’s (Harbour, 1994) suggested method
for the BPR model. The implementation phase is out of the scope of this paper.
 Seaport
Process Re-engineering Framework for Maritime Terminals container truck
hauling process

759
Review/redesign Business As-is process
needs analysis analysis
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Figure 4.
Select the optimal Assess to-be options Data collection The BPR methodology
for maritime terminals

Business needs analysis

The case study port is facing many different challenges today such as issues with labor
unions, challenges with maritime and hinterland cargo security, congestion problems
at connected facilities in the hinterland to avoid urgent transport capacity shortage and
concerns of increasing the handling productivity at the port. The problem of improving
hinterland transport capacity is particularly relevant and especially important to
policy makers in charge of alleviating such problems. Accordingly, the empty-truck
trips problem (it can contribute to improving transport capacity) was one of the most
important issues on the agenda. Therefore, the researchers attempted to identify the
major problems of the port. A case study approach was adopted on the premise that the
researchers were interested in analysing a process in depth (Creswell, 2003). A case
study approach is one of the most widely used methodologies in realizing the facts in a
complex situation (Alavi and Carlson, 1992). This intrinsic case study is exploratory as
well as inductive (Yin, 2009) as the researchers wanted to explore the problem.

As-is process analysis

The research team wanted to model and examine several aspects of the current
appointment system (as-is) under study. After analysis, the team described the as-is
process using a flow-chart technique to make it as simple as possible. Evans (1993)
shows the importance of analysing existing business processes to identify weaknesses
in the system. This research has analysed a number of previous and existing truck
hauling processes to discover the flaws and suggested a reengineering approach.

Data collection
The data collection phase concentrates on the particulars of truck hauling and arrival
processes, using a combination of in-depth interviews, observations, documentation,
and site visits to the seaport for data collection. The primary data was collected to bring
a complete picture to events such as the truck appointment system and dispatching
operation. This helped to triangulate the data by providing a higher level of confidence
 BPMJ in the data collected and analysed (Cohen et al., 2007). In total, three one-hour
19,5 interviews were conducted for each of the respondents. Initially, interview questions
were developed. Seaport staff involved with ATAS development and BTAS
implementation phases were then identified and selected in an organized manner.
Staff knowledgeable about the operational procedure of the developed system and its
limitations were given priority during selection.
760 The interviewer’s perceptions were unbiased because interview questions were
redesigned many times and cross-checked by other researchers in the same research
domain. Unstructured questions were asked occasionally if an interviewee’s response
and explanation encouraged raising more questions. Such questions were not
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previously considered important regarding the truck process under consideration.

Illustrations and clarifications of specific scenarios of the truck dispatching processes
were required to be provided by the participant. These illustrations helped to gain an
understanding of issues of the appointment system that had not crossed the
researchers’ minds. Detailed information was collected and recorded to facilitate
cross-checking of the facts with the written notes. Written notes were taken during
each session. Once cross-checking was completed, each session was verified and later
analysed, using the data analysis techniques described in Strauss and Corbin (1998).
In addition, the observational method was used to gather complementary information
about different types of truck capacities around gates. The researchers’ interaction
with the appointment system was thus improved as suggested by Stake (2000). The
data collection phase also involved secondary sources, which consisted of publicly
available data on port operations, and newsletters. Secondary sources also involved an
examination of company documents and research reports.

Assess to-be options

A literature review and expert opinions supplemented the data collection phase.
The researchers discussed the problem of finding an option on which they could agree.
The purpose of the review was to explore ways to resolve the empty-trucks problem.
Few options are available to address the problem from a decentralized perspective to
optimize the entire supply chain operations in contrast with the single-company based
solution, such as backhaul problem. One of the options is to establish a dry port
connecting the port with its hinterland through a high-speed rail network
(Cullinane et al., 2012). Carriers can drop off their containers in the dry port as if
those were left in the main seaport to avoid congestion at the port gates. Another
option that is often forgotten by policy makers is the choice to implement a street-turn
strategy (Deidda et al., 2008), which allocates empty containers to export customers
and loaded containers to import customers. For an example, according to this strategy,
a full container will be emptied at the importer’s warehouse and then it will be given to
the exporter instead of going back to the usual empty depot. CET (Dekker et al., 2012)
entitles collecting containers using trailers during nights and exchanging these
containers with export containers during days. The shared-transportation option uses
the concept of sharing a vehicle with multiple customers.

Select the optimal

The researchers explored the advantages and disadvantages of each alternative before
making a final decision. For example, the port has already established a dry port,
 which is not popular among importers and exporters because of the slow rail Seaport
transportation. Freight transportation using rail is slow because of the geographical container truck
characteristics of the country. Similarly, the street-turn strategy may not be proved
effective to reduce the number of empty-truck trips because an empty trip happens hauling process
when there is no container at all on the empty slot of the truck regardless whether the
container is empty or full. Further, the development of the CET requires a substantial
piece of land. Land is a scarce resource in many container terminals (Liu et al., 2001; 761
Cheng-Ji et al., 2011) including the terminals of the case study port. The more a port
authority effectively utilizes its resources, the more capacity it can get out of its
facilities and operations. Many studies also support the idea of having more seaport
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capacity with higher utilization of its resources (Van Hee et al., 1988; van Hee and
Wijbrands, 1988; Legato and Mazza, 2001). By taking all these constraints and
prospects into account, the researchers selected the shared-transportation concept to
achieve a system-wide optimization, which maximizes the total number of containers
that can operate on the transport network by using all available trucks.

Review/redesign
The review phase is out of the scope of this paper. Sometimes the final stage of the
framework may involve the communication of the solution to the seaport executives for
mutual agreement. This also involves the reformulation of the problem. For an
example, setting the strategy might be easier than implementation. Putting the solution
in place to achieve the desired objectives can be the challenge since the policy makers
can start to see the problems. Reviewing may provide a chance to consider that there
may be another feasible solution, which is less complicated. Under such circumstances,
the researchers may suggest other better alternatives.

Study of a seaport
The port under study is the country’s leading port company and it is most significant
because of the value of trade handled each year. The value of handled trade is more than
10 percent of the GDP of the economy. Most importantly, this is the largest container port
by volume and occupies a very significant portion of the total containerized trade
market. For example, annually it handles approximately 890,000 TEU. The port, like
other ports around the globe, is currently surrounded by an environment of high
complexity and affected by the immediate supply chain networks (Cetin and Cerit, 2010).
Activities are often carried out in a disorganized way, with high costs, poor customer
services, and sub-optimization of resources (Paixão and Marlow, 2003). These conditions
force the ports to adopt strategies such as “BPR” to maintain competitive advantage
(Paik and Bagchi, 2000). As an example, the port reengineered its truck hauling process
from the conventional to BTAS and at later stages to ATAS. The port is continually
searching for improvements in transport processes that may lead to leaps in performance
improvement. Such reengineered and improved processes are described here.
The conventional truck hauling process is one of the oldest processes that has
survived in the port system over times. The system was operational up to 2008. The
process flow is referred to in the “previous truck hauling process” subsection. It is very
common to do a flow analysis of processes before BPR (Earl and Khan, 1994). Process
flow helps to identify the problem areas before redesigning the existing ones (Kim and
Kim, 1998). Process flow analysis shows that the problem of a conventional system
 BPMJ depends on the way it is operated. Since the truck arrival rates are not pre-advised, there
19,5 is a mismatch between demand (i.e. number of truck arrivals per hour) and supply of
capacity (i.e. gate capacity per hour). This resulted in long queues of trucks waiting to
be served, and delayed turnaround times. Truck turnaround time is one of the most
important performance measures of port efficiency (Lubulwa et al., 2011). It measures
the amount of time taken by a container truck from the time it arrives at the port
762 terminal until it exits. In some cases the standard turnaround time is 25-30 minutes.
In 2007 the port experienced container trucks waiting an average of four-and-a-half
hours during peak hours. There are many reasons behind this. The long queues of
trucks get more critical during the early hours of the day since truck operators are
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motivated to exchange containers in the early morning. The main objective is to allow
the trucks to be used in some other activities during the rest of the day. Huynh (2009)
also expresses a similar concern. Moreover, the compensation received (cartage cost is
adjusted to cover this) from the exporters discourages the truck companies from
finding a solution. Most importantly there is no common interest among stakeholders,
such as truckers, exporters and freight forwarders, for a probable solution. The reason
is the absence of a contract.
To bring consistency in turnaround times to achieve world-standards, the port
authority planned to reengineer the conventional truck hauling process. The objective
was to reduce truck turnaround time and to improve service. Mohanty and Deshmukh
(2001) suggested that BPR could be considered as a problem-solving approach to bring
significant improvement in the service level. Therefore, the port authority introduced a
truck appointment system around 2008. It is termed the “BTAS” in this paper. The
system is still operational at the port. The description of the BTAS process flow is
given in the “as-is truck hauling process” subsection.
The final output of the BTAS is reengineering the truck hauling process using
technology. The significance of technology in process reengineering is suggested by
O’Neill and Sohal (1999). The internet-based appointment system reduces the
possibility of reservation of the same timeslot for an excessive number of trucks. The
reservation is important to discourage exceeding the available capacity of the port
assets (e.g. gate system and straddle carriers), and to maintain a minimum service level
(Guan and Liu, 2009a). The main idea behind BTAS application is capacity
management, i.e. matching demand and service. Capacity is managed through
matching loading equipment capacity, i.e. the limited number of straddle carriers and
operators, with the stochastic nature of truck arrivals (Huynh, 2009).
Since the introduction of the system, the average truck turnaround time became
25 minutes, as shown in Figure 5. Along with reducing the truck turnaround time
(Huynh and Walton, 2008), the BTAS helps importers and exporters with inventory

30
25
20
15
10
Figure 5. 5
Post-BTAS monthly 0
average truck turnaround May-10 Jun-10 Jul-10 Aug-10 Sep-10 Oct-10 Nov-10 Dec-10 Jan-11 Feb-11 Mar-11 Apr-11 May-11
time (minutes)
Source: The port
 planning, labor utilization and space management. The system provides a specific Seaport
arrival or delivery timetable for containers at the seaport. It also helps trucking container truck
companies to increase truck utilization (Giuliano and O’Brien, 2007), and assists the port
to position containers optimally in the yard to minimize reshuffling (van Asperen et al., hauling process
2011). BTAS benefits all parties in the supply chain including forwarders.
Although BPR encourages dramatic changes (Champy, 1995), total quality
management (TQM) inspires incremental changes based on existing processes (Love 763
and Gunasekaran, 1997). This is clearly evident in the context of this case study. Here
the port reengineered its entire truck hauling process with radical effects on truck
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turnaround time (i.e. from almost four hours to 25 minutes). To achieve such
remarkable results, incremental and small improvements would not have been
sufficient. On the other hand, after such significant changes, TQM can play a role for
further continuous improvement (Zairi, 1997). BTAS needs further small-scale
improvements. According to the port authority, BTAS still has limitations.
One of BTAS’s limitations arises from the misuse of the system by truckers. For
example, the present appointment system (i.e. BTAS) allows truck operators to book an
appointment without cross-checking the container information in the database.
However, ATAS only allows reserving a timeslot if all container information is
matched with the container announcement message (COPARN). COPARN is an
electronic data interchange for administration, commerce and transport (EDIFACT)
standard EDI message. The message includes export booking information, such as
vessel and voyage information, cargo type, number of containers and type of
containers. The message is sent from the shipping line to the container terminal
operator and depot operator. Therefore, in ATAS, prior to booking an appointment for
cargo delivery for export, some basic information about the cargo needs to be provided
in order to be matched. Once the provided information is validated against the
container, the carrier can make an appointment. This prevents misuse of the system by
truckers. Another limitation of the BTAS is the manual gate process. In ATAS, a truck
company has the ability to obtain a gate card online, i.e. a personal identification
number (PIN). The facility allows the truck driver to go directly to the gate and enter
the designated area of the container terminal. The driver just needs to scan the driving
license and to enter the PIN at the gate kiosk to facilitate a paperless entry without any
manual interference.
BTAS also has the limitation of failing to cross-check booked timeslots by
other stakeholders, such as exporters and importers. This has been overcome with the
new ATAS. Lastly, the new appointment system was developed to ease the process
of adding more functions in the future such as optical character recognition/
radio-frequency identification (OCR/RFID) to make gate entry faster. These functions
will assist by continuously increasing growth in container volumes and truck arrivals.
For applications of RFID technology at the entrance gate of container terminals, see
Hu et al. (2011) and Shi et al. (2011). The study of Choi et al. (2006a) explores different
technologies applicable to automated gate system. For these reasons, the port
completed planning the introduction of ATAS. It is termed the “ATAS” in this paper.
The system is not yet operational at the port. The description of the ATAS process
flow is referred to in the “upcoming truck hauling process” subsection.
The primary incentives for developing a new ATAS are to provide fairer access
to appointment slots and to automate gate entrance compared to the BTAS.
 BPMJ However, there is no feature incorporated in the newly developed system (compared in
19,5 Table I) to solve the empty-truck hauling problem. According to the January 2011
statistics, more than 7,000 trucks received only one empty container (irrespective of the
size) from one of the two container terminals. These trucks did not bring any empty or
laden containers to the port. In another example, for the same time period and container
terminals, the number was 2,459 trucks. These trucks delivered only one laden
764 container to the port without transporting back any empty or laden containers with
them. Similar inefficiency is also observed in arriving or departing trucks having only
one TEU although they have two TEUs capacity. Table II shows the empty container
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truck trips problem at the port. The huge numbers of empty-truck trips show scope to
improve the transport capacity for the port.
The transport capacity improvement decisions within the port are important because
road traffic congestion is developing as a serious problem for the port and a national
problem for the port region. The port is located in the central business district and roads
surrounding it have to be capable of carrying the huge volume of freight that passes to or
from the port each year. Here 87 percent of the landside containerized movements are
carried by road and generate approximately 3,000 truck movements per day.
Furthermore, the long-term forecasts of TEU growth rate over the years, 6 percent p.a.
in particular, look alarming. The huge growth rate will require huge investment in port
and transport infrastructure to avoid bottlenecks. Finally, the airport, the country’s
second-largest cargo port by value, is located within the same region. The airport
depends on the same regional land infrastructure to provide transport solutions. These
combined pressures may burden the local transport system around the port. Here the
port-related data sources are deliberately omitted because of the confidential nature.
Many other important global variables (Islam and Olsen, 2011) also demand
additional transport capacity from the port leading to congestion that may cause
deterioration of travel conditions for passengers in the wider port region. Capacity issues

Appointment Container info Automatic RFID Truck-sharing

Truck process system cross-checking gate entry functionality service

Conventional N N N N N
process
Table I. BTAS Y N N N N
Feature comparison of ATAS Y Y Y Y N
truck hauling processes ATAS-based TSS Y Y Y Y Y

Container number Container number

(empty container) Truck trips (laden container) Truck trips

1 Delivery (without any receive) 7,063 1 Delivery (without any receive) 6,849
1 Received (without any delivery) 3,707 1 Received (without any delivery) 2,459
2 Delivery (without any receive) 796 2 Delivery (without any receive) 651
Table II. 2 Received (without any delivery) 759 2 Received (without any delivery) 490
The Port’s empty-truck
trips in January 2011 Source: The Port
 are also contributing towards increasing traffic delays for cargoes at some of the port’s Seaport
transport routes. Huge growth in the container freight transportation system resulted in container truck
environmental problems as well (Giuliano and O’Brien, 2007). Traffic congestion is thus
considered a serious problem because of lost income, time and pollution. hauling process
Due to the evolving shortage of transport capacity and the further deterioration of
the situation, the port authority is looking for opportunities that might resolve the
problem. There is pressure to find efficient ways of expanding overall transport 765
capacity. Within this rapidly-changing maritime domain, a reengineering approach is
suggested to redesign the empty-truck hauling process to extract more capacity from
the existing transport system. The purpose of the suggested to-be state is to reduce the
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number of empty-truck trips compared to the as-is system. Improving efficiency in

resource allocation (Guan and Liu, 2009b) and increasing the utilization of truck
capacity (Heide, 2010) are deemed important to achieve that objective.

Previous truck hauling process

The process (Figure 6) involves the communication of a freight forwarder request for
transport service to a truck company. The request is to provide both empty-container
pickup to deliver to the warehouse and laden container hauling to transfer goods from
the warehouse to the port. The trucker initially receives an assignment in the form of a
letter of instruction or a fax. The letter includes information regarding exporter
identification (e.g. name, address and contact info), vessel details (e.g. vessel name,
voyage number, estimated time of arrival (ETA) and departure), container size and
type, number of containers, and the pickup and delivery address of the empty container.
After approving the request, an assignment profile is created and appropriate data is
keyed-in. The truck operator asks for an empty container from the ocean carrier.
Once the assignment details are in a mode to employ routing and scheduling
operations by allocating resources, the dispatcher informs the driver. The driver is
informed of container collection and delivery locations along with specific time
limitations, container pick up details (e.g. identification of depot operator, yard
location, container type, size, and number) and empty container release order. Arriving
at the port gate, the trucker submits the release order form to the gate clerk to facilitate
the creation of the pickup ticket. The trucker drives to the empty stack and submits the
pickup ticket to the yard clerk. The yard clerk instructs the equipment operator to load
the empty container onto the truck.
The trucker arrives at the out-gate and submits the pickup ticket and the tally sheet
(i.e. any damage to the container) to the gate clerk. The gate clerk processes the EIR and
allows the trucker to leave the facility after signing the report. The trucker takes the
empty container to the warehouse in which loading of the cargo is carried out
sequentially. Once loading is completed, the truck with the packed containers now
moves to the port gate with an entry permit. The gate clerk checks container details for
damage and seal number, and issues a drop-off ticket. This clerk ticket is important in
directing the truck to the correct export container-stacking area. The trucker discharges
the container, confirms all details at the exit gate, issues the EIR, and leaves the port.

As-is truck hauling process

The new process is quite typically triggered by the importers and exporters. The role is
transferred to port-recognised truck companies to participate in the same process of
 BPMJ A Simplified View of Conventional Truck Dispatch Process for Exportation

19,5 Different Parties Trucker Seaport

Registration
Receives Internal Submits
Incoming and driving
Sends job order booking database release order
truck license
request update form
checking

766
Sends shipment Requests for Controller
Submits empty
Empty Container Pickup
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info (type, size, empty generates Issues pickup Direction to

pickup ticket
delivery date, container routing and ticket empty stack
to yard clerk
ETA, ETD etc.) scheduling info

Sends depot
Sends info to
operator info, yard Truck arrives Trucker signs
location, container driver (origin, Arrives at Equipment
destination, at out-gate Equipment
type, size and port gate operator
number time windows) and submits Interchange
loads container
pickup ticket Report (EIR)

Container
Updated info delivery to
warehouse

Internal
First part
database
closed
update

Controller Incoming Registration Surveys and

Sends info on Internal
generates truck with and driving weighs
stuffing database
routing and export license container, and
completion etc. update
scheduling info container checking seal number

Sends info to Tallies

driver (origin, Arrives at container Issues drop- Direction to
destination, warehouse details off ticket export stack
time windows) (damage etc.)
Laden Container Delivery

Submits
Container is Trucker
Releases laden Arrives at drop-off
discharged confirms all
container truck port gate ticket to
from truck details and exit
yard clerk

Internal
database Updated info
update

Second part
Job closed
Figure 6. closed
Conventional truck
dispatch process

exportation for empty-container pickup and laden container delivery. Truck companies
need a user name and password to enable access to BTAS and to facilitate collection
of any charges for the port. After logging in, the truck driver continues with a slot
booking. The slot booking must be created at least 15 hours before arrival and
also requires details of the container that the driver is exchanging. Only one selected
user of any truck carrier is allowed to make appointments within three minutes.
 This is important, to ensure impartiality of access for all truck carriers. The user first Seaport
selects the type of booking (import, export or both) to enable it to specify the date and container truck
to select the zone for which to make the booking. A terminal operator can determine the
slot limits per zone to match the capacity of the terminal to maintain an adequate hauling process
service level as shown in the “available column” of Table III. The truck driver arrives
within the booked appointment time and proceeds directly to the terminal, either via
the express kiosk or with a card number. That is given at the road office. There is a 767
penalty for non-arrival at a booked slot. Since both BTAS and ATAS (an improved
process of BTAS) are appointment-oriented processes and thus a bit similar, the
procedure is explained in detail in the ATAS description.
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Upcoming truck hauling process

To export a cargo, according to the ATAS process, there are five steps that need to be
completed sequentially for an empty-container pickup and a laden container delivery.
The process is shown in Figure 7. Initially, the exporter, the freight forwarder, or
the trucker requires an “empty release pre-advice”. This helps to acquire a PIN
for paperless processing at the terminal gate. The exporter needs to enter the

Zone Begin End Available Required Zone Begin End Available Required

00 00:00 00:59 25 00 12 12:00 12:59 8 00

01 01:00 01:59 15 00 13 13:00 13:59 25 00
02 02:00 02:59 29 00 14 14:00 14:59 8 00
– – – – – – – – – –
11 11:00 11:59 24 00 23 23:00 23:59 24 00 Table III.
24 hours BTAS export
Source: BTAS Manual appointment slots

A Basic View of ATAS Full Container Delivery Process

Update
Input Vessel Update
Provide Container Details
Visit, Booking Find COPARN Cargo Variations No Mandatory Info Nominate the Pre-advice
Start Booking Info (Container
Reference, Line Message Details Exists? (Cargo Type, Carrier Status?
for Pre-advice Number, Seal
Operator Commodity etc.)
Number etc.)
Exporter

Yes Status: Confirmed with Holds

CBS Advise the Info are Match the Cargo Status:

Pending Complete
Update Shipping Line Wrong? ( Cargo Type, Pre-advice Not
No Temperature, Pre-advice
Details? Confirmed
Details
Number of Units)

Confirmed
No Slot Available

Search Status
Select a Add
Pre-advice Update the Appointment Not ‘Confirmed’ and Slot Put in
Specific Appointment
to Add Pre-advice Status? Pending PIN Generated Available Waiting List
Container Details
Appointments without [X]

Info Provided Holds

Un-manifest Pending
Cleared
Truck
Un-manifesting?
Trucker

Select Search
Holds or PIN Generated Select
Terminal and Confirmed Slot
Outstanding Info? with [X] Container (s)
Clearance of Service Area Appointments
Holds Holds?

Gate Card Detail

More Generated Gate Card Generation of Add Choose from Manifest
Generated Information
Info? with [X] Generated Truck ID Fleet Number Available Drivers Truck
Without [X] Provided

Figure 7.
Scanning of Scan Driving
Enter the
Discharge of ATAS laden container
Sea Port

Allowing Designated Registration of Contact

Arrive at the Driving License at Loaded
End

Access to Laneand New Drivers/ Customer

Port Licenseat Gate
Kiosk
Terminal
Exchange
Grid Kiosk
Dispatch of
Yard Equipment
Container and
Leave the Port Assign a Driver Service delivery process
 BPMJ “empty release number” and “empty depot name” in ATAS to automatically populate
19,5 container details. Container details are “line operator”, “container length”, “available
quantity of empty containers”, “remaining quantity of empty containers”.
The pre-advising procedure is thus completed. The objective of pre-advising is to
ensure that a valid reason exists for arriving at the terminal; once this is completed,
appointments can be made. To simplify describing the export process using the ATAS
768 platform, the focus is on “export” (e.g. to deliver a full container to the terminal against
an export booking) and “empty release” (e.g. to collect an empty container from the
terminal against an empty release order) quota type.
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An “empty-release slot appointment” can be created by the nominated truck carrier

only. Once an appointment is created, a PIN is generated. Upon receiving a valid card
number, the trucker proceeds straight to the terminal gate, scans the driving license at
the gate kiosk and enters the terminal yard. Without having a gate card, a “self-service
kiosk” is also available for a driver to manifest a truck to receive a gate card number.
After entering the terminal, the driver scans the driving license at the exchange grid
kiosk. Then the driver enters the lane designated to be occupied by the designated
truck. The action sends a signal to the yard equipment to carry an empty container for
the truck to upload and to leave the port.
Soon after completing the first phase of the ATAS process, the exporter or freight
forwarder creates an “export pre-advice”, a necessary condition to nominate a truck
carrier and to deliver a laden container to the port. To initiate the pre-advice procedure,
the exporter is asked to provide information on “vessel visit”, “booking reference
number” and “line operator” to find the corresponding COPARN message details. Finally,
the exporter nominates the preferred road carrier and closes the pre-advice stage.
At this point the appointment has a “confirmed” status. This means that all
pre-advice information is completed and container details are provided and valid.
The carrier then needs to manifest the truck online before arriving at the terminal gate
and associate the appointment with the driving license number. After searching for
the appointments created so far using the “confirmed slot appointment” facility of the
ATAS, road carrier selects a specific container to manifest to a truck and includes the
“driver license number”, “truck ID” and “fleet number”. A “gate card number” is
generated to gain entry into the port when presented with the driving license and
the truck is given the status “truck not arrived”. The driver scans the driving license
at the exchange grid kiosk after arrival, then enters the lane designed to be occupied by
the truck. This sends a signal to the yard equipment to discharge the full container
from the truck to load on the vessel. For more information on the process, readers may
contact the authors. For a complete description of the process, interested readers are
requested to contact the authors.

To-be truck hauling process

The insights expressed in developing the to-be model working procedure reflect an
adaptation and integration of the basic ideas of earlier shared-transportation articles
and case studies (Wolfler Calvo et al., 2004; Kelley, 2007; Morency, 2007; Thaler and
Teredesai, 2009; Agatz et al., 2010; Martino et al., 2011). Such studies explore
the concepts of shared-transportation (car-pooling, car-sharing, ride-sharing and
lift-sharing). Many similarities can be drawn between car-pooling companies and
container transportation firms. Both are characterized by poor co-ordination among the
 corresponding stakeholders, high fixed costs for operations, stochastic demand for Seaport
service, and a limited quantity of slots which generate costs if they remain empty. container truck
The transport-sharing applications allow users to save money by sharing seats.
Transport-sharing applications have fundamental similarities with the current hauling process
proposed model functions that facilitate sharing empty-truck slots. However, several
other variables have been taken into consideration during model development because
of the diverse container and truck characteristics (size, weight and capacity) of freight 769
transportation. These variables may vary significantly from port to port and be more
complex than other types of shared-transportation (car-sharing) since many other
types of shared-transportation are not dedicated for cargo.
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This research proposes the truck-sharing service (TSS) that incorporates a key step
named “slot share” in the ATAS to reengineer the empty-truck hauling process to gain
dramatic improvements on reducing the number of empty-truck trips. Such a radically
updated process will help to advance the seaport’s performance to fully utilize its
available transport capacity. This constitutes a significant change in the as-is process
that requires a process reengineering approach:
.
A modification in the practice of the as-is process that could significantly affect
the usage rate of the underutilized truck capacity, e.g. a significant change in
procedure.
.
A major amendment in the intended use of the truck appointment system.

The phrase “could significantly affect the usage rate of the underutilized truck
capacity” and the use of the adjective “major” refers to changes to achieve major
performance improvements.
The study of Hammer and Champy (1993) emphasises the selection of performance
measures during identification of the reengineering process (also, Davenport and
Short, 1990). The number of empty-truck trips and the container truck capacity
utilization ratio are considered two vital performance measures. To achieve efficiency,
some of the procedures of the truck hauling process have been changed and some of the
new ways to accomplish objectives have been added. Khan (2000) expresses similar
concern in the reengineering of the air cargo-handling process.

TSS operating procedure

The dynamic truck-sharing system will offer a systematic matching facility. If some
exporters have similar departure and destination locations, they could share container
trucks. Container trucks can be shared as long as empty slots are available. Here, by a
dynamic truck-sharing system, an automated system is referred to, such as the ATAS.
ATAS is assumed to be provided by the truck-share service provider (the port). The
objective is to successfully matchup exporters and truckers to share empty-truck slots
even at very short notice (e.g. same day).
TSS users such as a truck operator can offer an empty slot to share with an
exporter, or vice versa. The TSS structure consists of components to store information
of the user’s (profiles and preferences of the exporters and the truckers), trips and
locations (origins and destinations) into a database. The users of the TSS, especially
the truckers, are private independent companies. Currently, more than 250 truck
companies are registered at the port but their operational procedure is completely
decentralized. Since the truck operators are independent and decentralized in nature,
 BPMJ participation in the TSS arrangements depends on their preferences. TSS must match
drivers’ preferences with exporters’ requirements for sharing a trip. For example, a
19,5 driver may have a preference for a maximum deviation from the shortest route to
pickup or drop off any empty or full container. The driver may also have a preference
on the maximum number of assignments or stoppages to share an empty slot. The TSS
should provide alternative selection to the users (truck operators and exporters). Users
770 can advertise to share a trip or delete a formerly created invitation if it is not accepted
by the other party. A user can view the full list of past and present invitations, or view
the invitations of other users. If a user accepts an invitation, the user then provides
details of the departure and destination points of the trip, type (B-double, super
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B-double, long B-double or road train) of the container truck, capacity (two TEU or one
FEU) of the container truck, ETA to pick up the first container (full or empty),
estimated time of departure (ETD) from the origin and the maximum allowed distance
of deviation from the main route to pick up another container.
The matching of a sharing slot is performed with a query against the database, and
conditions are developed to create a working procedure for the TSS. There may be
many conditions:
.
Both the exporter and the trucker are departing or arriving in the same direction.
Destinations might be approximately the same or a little different.
. Created appointments to arrive at the port fall into the same time zone and
should have an analogous schedule to reach the destination.
.
The exporter is closer to the location of the trucker than the total distance from
the port during arrival at the port gate.
.
The exporter is located within an acceptable and preferred radius from the
trucker.
. The sharing task should benefit all the corresponding parties from a financial
perspective.
.
The truck and the container characteristics are taken into account during
matching.
.
Most importantly, the needs and the preferences of each other (exporters and
truckers) are discovered.

Taking into account these constraints, TSS creates a channel of interest around an
empty slot offering truck’s primary origin and destination route. TSS also checks the
candidate exporters that fall within that channel range based on their departure and
arrival locations. In creating the channel, the route calculation is performed by the
TSS using “Dijkstra’s algorithm”. This selects the shortest path between source and
the destination. For an application of the algorithm in real-time shared-transportation,
see Sghaier et al. (2010). Although such applications in truck-sharing are appealing, they
are outside the scope of this paper. Finally the matched exporters are sorted by distance
from the truck location. The exporter with the least distance is selected to communicate
the offer of the empty slot. For the selected exporter, TSS calculates the savings from
sharing slot and carbon emissions. TSS also exchanges the results with the exporter. On
the other hand, if there is no match found, the exporters can subscribe for notifications.
The matching decision is communicated to the user using a web-based application
interface. The web-based interface can be the ATAS; ATAS can use a SMS or an
 e-mail service. The matching decision provides an estimated time of the trucker arrival. Seaport
Hence the application interface also provides updated matching information to the container truck
exporters, along with storing user-provided information, and collecting trip data. The
trucker receives a map generated using the Google Map API, plus the contact hauling process
information of the exporter. The TSS also sends the identification (e.g. container or seal
number) of the exporter to the trucker to match and to verify the exporter if it becomes
necessary. The trucker picks up (drops off) the container from (to) the exporter at the 771
agreed time and location. The TSS can also guide the trucker to the appropriate location
of the exporter and to the destination via the interior navigation system of the truck.
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TSS basic functions

Data flow diagram (DFD) is used to show the basic function of the TSS. DFD helps to
split the total system into more understandable processes (Zarei, 2001). The primary
functions (Figure 8) of the TSS can be viewed as a combination of:
.
User authentication. To verify the user with a public identifier (username) and a
private identifier (password) prior to providing access to the service;
.
User profiling. A profile of users, consisting of exporters and truck operators,
created based on their preferences and past trip histories of slot sharing
(e.g. number of accepted slots, number of offered slots, user ratings);
.
User interactions. Users can offer, edit and delete an empty slot as a truck
operator and accept or share an empty slot as an exporter;
.
User status. The system provides the function of evaluating performance of
truck drivers and operators based on their past behaviours of participation in
shared trips; and
.
System administration. Administrators can set route calculation algorithms, and
other useful analytics such as changing the layout, modifying the user
communication (i.e. interaction) options, and many others.

System integration
The complete process is shown in Figure 9. It takes laden container delivery as an
example. Here, only one more step (i.e. slot share) needs to be completed compared to
the earlier ATAS. After completing the pre-advising procedure, the exporter may
become interested in sharing available empty slots. Instead of selecting and booking a
new appointment by the nominated trucker, the exporter forwards his interests in

Preferences & Past Trip Histories

New Info Request

TSS Users Username & Password Selection

User Authentication
0
Truckers
User Reputation CBS-based TSS
&
Exporters User Feedback
Figure 8.
Matching Request DFD diagram (context
level) of TSS functions
Available Slots and Confirmation
 BPMJ A Basic View of ATAS-based TSS for Full Container Delivery

19,5 Provide
Input Vessel Update Update
Visit, Booking Find COPARN Cargo Variations Mandatory Info Container Details Nominate the Pre-advice
Start Booking Info No
Reference, Line Message Details Exists? (Cargo Type, (Container Number, Carrier Status?
for Pre-advice

Pre-advice
Operator Commodity etc.) Seal Number etc.)

Yes Status: Confirmed with Holds

Status:
Advise the Info are Match the Cargo Complete
CBS Update Pending Pre-advice Not
Shipping Line Wrong? ( Cargo Type, Pre-advice
No Temperature, Details? Confirmed
Details

772 Number of Units)

No Match Found

Provides Info Route

Trucker and Sorted
New (Departure and Database Preferences Candidates Subscribed for Calculation
Slot-share

Exporter No Exporters
Appointment Destination Query Prioritized Identified? Notifications (Dijkstra’s
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Choose NEW
Points etc.) Algorithms)

Yes

Pickup Container Communicate Communicate Communicate Select Exporter

Payment of Arrive at
End

User Feedback at Specific Time Map and Exporter Savings and with the Least
Service Fees Destination
and Location Exporter Info Verification Info Trucker Info Distance
Yes

No Slot Available

Status
Search Add
Select a Specific Update the Appointment Not ‘Confirmed’ and Slot Put in
Pre-advice to Appointment
Appointment

Container Pre-advice Status? Pending PIN Generated Available Waiting List

Add Appointments Details
without [X]

Info Provided
Pending

Holds or Holds Select Search

Outstanding Info? PIN Generated Select
Cleared Terminal and Confirmed
with [X] Container (s)
Service Area Slot Appointments

Un-manifest Clearance of
Un-manifesting? Choose from Manifest
Truck Holds
Holds? Available Drivers Truck
Manifest

Gate Card Generation of Add

Generated Truck ID Fleet Number

Gate Card Detail

More Generated Registration of
Generated Information Contact
Info? with [X] New Drivers/
Without [X] Provided Customer Service
Assign a Driver

Scanning of Scan Driving

Gate

Allowing
Arrive at the Driving License at
Access to
Port Licenseat Gate Exchange
Terminal
Kiosk Grid Kiosk

Figure 9.
ATAS laden container
delivery process:
Terminal

Enter the
Discharge of
integrated with TSS Designated
End

Loaded Container
Lane and Dispatch
and Leave the Port
of Yard Equipment
structure

sharing an empty slot and the trucker provides information to offer one. The platform
stores provided information (profiles, preferences, origins and destinations) of the
users (exporters and truckers) and matches candidates for a trip share. If there is no
match found, the exporter can subscribe for notification in the future. If more than one
match is found, the exporter with the minimum distance from the truck location is
selected to offer the empty slot and the results of sharing-slot benefits (carbon emission
and costs) are exchanged. After receiving the map, the trucker picks up or drops off the
container from or to the exporter at the fixed time and location. TSS charges service
fees. However, if the exporter decides to avoid sharing empty slots, the rest of the
procedure is identical to the ATAS. The same five steps (pre-advice, appointment,
manifest, gate and terminal) need to be completed as described in details in the
“upcoming truck hauling process” subsection.
Depending upon the functional requirements of an integrated system (appointment
system and TSS) the specific components required may vary from port to port.
 A typical example is Figure 10, where components of the appointment system are Seaport
adapted from Navis LLC (2003). The flow-chart notation is used because of its container truck
simplicity as suggested by Winkelmann and Weiß (2011). Both of the systems are
required to be highly integrated with the terminal operating system (TOS) to simplify hauling process
operations, to deliver excellent service, and to reduce operating costs. It may include a
user interface, an administrative interface, three rules-engines, a database, a web
portal, existing systems of the TOS and a database. Users can see, create, book, modify 773
and cancel existing shared slots. Users can also book appointments by making a phone call
to an interactive voice response (IVR) based system. The web portal does many important
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tasks such as verifying users, setting options to limit user access and confirming a security
check. The rule engines applies business rules to users and system administrators such as
maximum number of appointments per hour, minimum number of containers required to
share a container truck, the authority of administrators in the system and the allowed
maximum distance of exporters to minimize transportation costs. The truck-sharing
engine performs a matching of sharing slot with a query against the whole database with
conditions. The truck-routing engine performs route calculations using “Dijkstra’s
algorithm” to select the shortest path between the source and the destination. The
database stores and shares all appointments and slot-sharing information.

TSS benefits
A dynamic truck-sharing system may provide two unique benefits, such as
maximizing total transport capacity and minimizing total VMT. Total transport
capacity represents the total number of containers (TEUs and FEUs) of the port that
the combined services of all trucks can transport to facilitate containerized cargo
exportation and importation. Proper utilization of all available slot capacity

User 1
(Telephone) User
(Port) Terminal Operating System (TOS)

User 1
Appointment Truck-sharing Truck-routing
Business Engine Engine
Internet RulesEngine

User N
Web Portal

TOS Database

Administration
(Port) Figure 10.
Components of the
integrated truck
Existing Systems
(Port)
appointment system
and TSS
Source: An extension of Navis LLC (2003)
 BPMJ should result in an increased number of containers transported using the same number
19,5 of trucks. This can increase the road-side transport capacity of the port. Total VMT
represents the total miles driven by all seaport trucks to pickup and drop off
containerized cargoes and empty containers to and from the port. Appropriate
utilization of available slot capacity helps in reducing the total vehicles miles driven by
all participating truck drivers travelling to their destinations. This is important from
774 all perspectives (such as economic, environmental and social sustainability) as it helps
to reduce pollution and congestion. This also helps to reduce the transportation costs of
all concerned parties (e.g. road carriers and exporters).
In summary, the to-be system has the potential to generate many benefits for the
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stakeholders of the port. For example:

.
Sharing container trucks in the port territory should increase overall transport
capacity.
.
Exporters pay a only part of the rate thus saving money and reducing
transportation costs.
.
Drivers earn more as two or more exporters will share the same truck and
the truck will enjoy full capacity. Most container truck costs are not variable
usually.
.
Fewer container trucks on the road means less congestion and pollution.

The study of Heide (2010) for the Port of Rotterdam shows that reducing empty-truck
trips can save trucking companies 17 million kilometres per year. This is equivalent to
saving e25.5 million a year.

Model generalizability
The to-be model developed here is designed to be applicable to other ports of the world.
There are two key reasons behind the generalization capability of the process:
(1) The proposed transport model provides an abstract representation of the
important elements that are required to create an effective container TSS. This
keeps the window of customization open for further development and
adaptation of the basic to-be model in the future. Customization should be based
on the unique operating characteristics of a port.
(2) The model as proposed uses a truck appointment system as the formal
foundation of the model.

Many ports of the world use such a truck appointment system, such as Port of
Rotterdam, Port of Hamburg and Port of Singapore. Although there are significant
differences in the manner truck appointment systems are designed or implemented, the
basic operating rules for proper function are the same. This offers an excellent
and easy way to integrate both the container TSS and the truck appointment system.
Most importantly, the to-be model is generic in nature as it incorporates only a generic
matching system as a middle layer with the current system. The middle layer
manages a profile matching process without any port specific information.
Port specific profile attributes and related values can be added. However, in order to
use this model in other ports of the world, the model needs to reconfigure the matching
profiles.
 Model implementation Seaport
Many BPR projects have failed to achieve performance improvement targets (Shin and container truck
Jemella, 2002). In reality, only 30 percent of the projects have achieved the desired
breakthrough (Bashein et al., 1994) and BPR is plagued by high failure rates hauling process
(Abdolvand et al., 2008). Some well-thought out strategies need to be taken into
consideration for the successful development of the ATAS-based TSS structure and its
real-life implementation. These strategies are similar to those that have been adopted by 775
the case study port during BTAS implementation and ATAS development. For
example, a working group should be formed to plan the basic and customized
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(comparable to the local shipping business) working procedures of the TSS. The
working group may consist of the Road Transport Forum (represents trucking
businesses on local and regional issues), road carriers and port representatives, since the
internal or external customers must initiate a BPR project (Childe et al., 1994). The
further implementation plan may be accelerated by arranging a series of counselling
meetings with the stakeholders: shipping companies, freight forwarders, customs
agents, empty depot operators, road carriers and statutory authorities to resolve raised
concerns and to avoid future conflicts. The result of the meetings will reassure all
concerned parties the benefits that a reengineering process would bring for all. If the
counselling meetings become successful, an initial trial of the basic system may be
implemented for a short period of time to fine-tune the process to cope with the local
transportation environment. This trial system may include all carriers interested in
volunteered participation to measure and observe the daily operation of the new system.
To make local hauliers accustomed and primarily experienced with the new innovative
system, the daily operating rules should function in a flexible way during the first
couple of months. In the mean time, the port authority should collect useful real-world
data and feedback from the trial and flexible system to make the process practically
adjusted and smoothly workable for road carriers, exporters, importers and terminal
operators. While, the implementation plan for any port will be situation dependent, it
will likely follow a similar framework to the above proposed for the case study port.

Post-implementation support
A problem associated with process reengineering is that such drastic efforts of
performance improvement can focus too narrowly without taking a holistic view of the
welfare of the whole organization (Neilson and Couto, 2003). As a result of these issues
associated with a BPR project development and implementation, Davenport (1993)
suggests to adopt a continuous process improvement perspective (Doebeli et al., 2011).
Such an adoption of a BPM philosophy is a less aggressive way to shift to a
process-oriented thinking. Although little academic contribution is available in
assisting managers to embedding BPM in the organization (Bruin and Doebeli, 2008),
the building of a BPM governance system is crucial for the successful deployment of
BPM (Doebeli et al., 2011). Organizations should enable a process-oriented approach
through empowerment of business process owners, embedded reward systems and
alignment of organizational structures (Doebeli et al., 2011). Corporate culture also
contributes to everyone’s positive attitudes and behaviour towards continuous
improvements (Guimaraes, 1999). The study of Ravesteyn and Batenburg (2010)
surveys the success elements for a BPM-system implementation and the study of
Antonucci and Goeke (2011) investigates responsibilities and positions for a successful
 BPMJ BPM initiative. These suggestions can smooth the process of rolling out from BPR to
19,5 BPM-based change and can help to develop an understanding of the key elements of a
successful BPM deployment in the seaport.

Conclusion
The efficiency of a port depends on the proper utilization of its resources. Lack of
776 collaborative arrangements among supply chain partners, especially among the
exporters, importers and truckers, encourages inefficient use of limited amounts of
container truck capacity and triggers the empty-truck trips problem studied here. The
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problem has a direct impact on increasing road congestion around seaports, carbon
emissions, transportation costs and on decreasing the system-wide truck capacity. The
traditional method (BRPB-VRPB) to solve the problem works well under the
assumption of a centralized decision maker of a single carrier. Such a solution may
become ineffective in a supply chain setting where many carriers are involved. This
study adopts a case study approach to suggest a mechanism (TSS) from a
decentralized perspective to minimize the number of empty-truck trips to benefit the
whole supply chain.
The specified case study setting is important because it is in a growing economy
with a 6 percent TEU growth rate where almost 87 percent of the landside container
transfer is carried by the road. Besides, currently, at least 70 percent of the truck trips
happen without carrying any container (i.e. empty or full) at all or carrying only one
container while the truck has a two-container equivalent capacity. The appropriate
step is to adopt the TSS to reduce the number of empty trips to improve the
system-wide transport capacity along with bringing environmental benefits by
reducing the trucking industry’s carbon footprint-the greenhouse gases it emits. The
implementation can also bring significant societal benefits by reducing traffic
congestion and air pollution around the port gates and the surrounding city. Carriers
should realize the economic benefits of transportation-sharing since the rate will be
divided among all participating clients.
This study further examines the development and implementation of radically
redesigned and improved processes at the selected port gate. The importance of
exploring process reengineering opportunities is evident from the selected case study.
For example:
.
The seaport developed a truck appointment system (BTAS) to reengineer the
conventional truck hauling process to effectively regulate increased truck
volume. This is a radical change on top of the conventional truck dispatch
process. The objective is to match the stochastic nature of truck arrivals with
port capacity. The major outcome of the BPR was to reduce average truck
turnaround times from almost four hours to approximately 25 minutes.
.
Even after the big changes in the as-is process, the port continues to develop an
ATAS since BTAS needs small-scale improvements.

The new system provides the benefit of cross-checking container data, automation of
gate entrance and the possibility of adding RFID in the future. The system is not yet
operational at the port.
Managerial implications of this research are that additional functions can be added
to the proposed process to make it more robust and integrated with features in the
 future to overcoming transportation capacity shortages. Transport capacity shortage Seaport
is a problem in many container terminals of the world. The proposed process can be container truck
further developed, configured and tested for other ports to overcome the few
limitations that the current research acknowledges. A limitation of the current study hauling process
was the development of the to-be process based on export containers without taking
import containers under consideration. However, the benefits of implementation of the
suggested process can be evaluated with a simulation modelling tool (such as 777
ARENA). Therefore, future research directions may include a simulation model to
assess the potential capacity of the to-be model using a before/after scenario.
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Samsul Islam can be contacted at: samsul_islam_mis@hotmail.com

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