The southern gateway alternative continues to gain traction
La Spezia Container Terminal (LSCT) has recorded its largest ever result in container throughput in the first four months of 2017. Total throughput at the terminal, which is the leading gateway container handling facility in Italy operated by the Contship Italia Group, was in excess of 276,000 units for the period January 1st, 2017 to April 30th, 2017.
This represents a rise of 15% in total throughput compared to the corresponding four months of 2016 which recorded a throughput figure of 240,000 units. The increase in traffic reflected strong performances in the trades to/from the USA and Asia, as well as intra-Mediterranean services. LSCT said such a performance was particularly encouraging because the increase in volume was spread across several trade lanes.
The Contship Italia Group also saw a surge in rail traffic volume during the same four months, with the percentage of boxes moved via rail into southern Europe increasing by 20% year-on-year. This was the strongest increase ever recorded at the Southern gateway terminals.
The rail growth, specifically in La Spezia, was due primarily to increased competitiveness thanks to faster transit-times via LSCT’s fast-corridor and preclearing systems. LSCT highlighted that all the main global container alliances call La Spezia and offer improved transit-times to and from key ports in Asia.
Peter Hill, head of commercial at Contship Italia Group said: “These strong throughput figures are highly encouraging for LSCT and demonstrate that the improvements we are making to help cargo flow through the logistics supply chain, that benefit Italian importers and exporters, are starting to pay off. Whilst it is too early to say if there will be a sustained upturn in the global economy, it is clear that our “Southern Gateway Alternative” continues to gain traction. The formation of the new shipping alliances (from April 1st) is also starting to work favorably for us.”
In tune with the integrated product development, he further added that from next month (June 2017) Hannibal, the intermodal transport operator of Contship Italia Group, will increase the number of connections directly serving the Swiss market from two to three per week, thus offering faster transit-times to the market and improving the opportunity for customers to achieve better supply chain risk management, as well as inventory cost savings.
