Development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Container Terminal for Speed up Clearance Process

Abstract—Currently container terminals are busy to handle high volume of container shipping movement. Conventional operational procedures have difficulties in handling containers movement, thereby slowing clearances and even resulting in some administrative issues in terminal operation. This paper presents an development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in a container terminal in order to speed up clearance process. A business process is proposed in container terminal for management system operational flow. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology and ICT are incorporated for the purpose of identifying driver, vehicle, eseal, and number of containers. The RFID middleware manages all the information between Gate Checker (GC) and Container Terminal Management System (CTMS), as well as RFID reader. The middleware receives information requested by GC from reader and is then verified by CTMS database. Both types of passive and active RFID tags are used in operation of container terminal. In order to comply with the global standard of container terminal ports, a passive RFID was used for driver and vehicle tag, while for container tag used e-seal which is an active RFID tag. The proposed system was implemented and tested at a private Container Port. ICT system implementation at receiving station gate of the container terminal will reduce truck queue and manpower in-charge for operation. The clearance process in conventional manual operational procedure is significantly reduced from average 248 second per container to 57 second per container.