32 ISE Magazine | www.iise.org/ISEmagazine

Freight

expectations:

Growing port seeks

logistic expertise

Georgia Tech supply chain team joins data

analysis effort for harbor’s expansion

By Keith Albertson

Credit: Photos courtesy of Georgia Ports Authority/Stephen B. Morton

The MOL Maxim works

under a rainbow at the

Garden City Terminal

near Savannah.

March 2019 | ISE Magazine 33

Shipping goods across the

world’s oceans was among

humankind’s early methods of

trading across long distances

and remains a key cog in the

global supply chain, even in

an era of high-tech commerce and in-

creased air freight.

To meet this need in a growing econ-

omy, governments of the United States

and state of Georgia are funding a 10-

year, $2.5 billion plan to expand the

Port of Savannah on the Atlantic coast to

serve larger vessels and greater volume of

cargo. To help guide that expansion, the

Georgia Ports Authority is turning to

other groups for their logistics expertise.

The port is the nation’s fastest grow-

ing and includes two deep-water ter-

minals: Garden City, 1,200 acres in

size and the nation’s fourth busiest, and

the Ocean Terminal, with 1.4 million

square feet of storage. In 2018, the port

handled more than 4 million 20-foot

equivalent container units (or TEUs, a

common measurement of cargo con-

tainers), an increase of 7.5 percent from

the previous year, with plans to increase

to 8 million TEUs by 2028.

The GPA also operates two of the

three deep-water terminals in the Port

of Brunswick 80 miles south of Savan-

nah. Its Colonel’s Island Terminal is the

nation’s largest autoport, handling 1.25

million tons of roll-on, roll-off cargo in

2018 as well as forestry and agricultural

products. Combined, the two Georgia

facilities employ some 440,000 people.

The project to deepen the ocean

harbor and Savannah River estuary to

the Garden City and Ocean terminals

is managed by the U.S. Army Corps

of Engineers at a cost of nearly $1 bil-

lion and is scheduled for completion in

2021. The outer ocean channel depth is

now 49 feet, with dredging scheduled to

continue this year on the inner harbor

to reach 47 feet in depth. The project is

expected to save governments and con-

sumers some $282 million in transport

costs, according to a corps study.

In addition, the port expansion in-

cludes massive infrastructure needs. The

GPA plans to add another dozen ship-

to-shore cranes for a total of 42, increase

the ﬂeet of rubber-tired gantry cranes

to more than 200 and expand road and

rail capacity to handle the surge of ad-

ditional freight.

Port partners take on logistics

All of these changes create logistic chal-

lenges. The GPA turned for help to two

in-state resources: the state’s Center of

Innovation for Logistics, an agency

under the Department of Economic

Development, and the Supply Chain

and Logistics Institute at Georgia Tech.

In July 2018, the three bodies signed a

memorandum of understanding to pro-

vide research and data analysis to help

the port authority navigate its growth

strategies.

Tim Brown, director of the SCL at

Georgia Tech, told ISE in a recent in-

terview that the partnership came about

as a natural extension from work the

Ship-to-shore cranes load and unload vessels at the Georgia Ports Authority’s

Garden City Terminal in Savannah, Georgia.

The MOL Maxim works

under a rainbow at the

Garden City Terminal

near Savannah.

The container ship Cosco Development sails up the river past historic downtown Savannah, Georgia, to the Georgia Ports

Authority’s Garden City Terminal.

34 ISE Magazine | www.iise.org/ISEmagazine

Freight expectations: Growing port seeks logistic expertise

institute had undertaken at other ports

worldwide, including those at Singapore

and Rotterdam in The Netherlands.

“Over the past three years as we were

getting to know the ports management

team, we opened a supply chain and

logistic branch on the (Georgia Tech)

Savannah campus and started interact-

ing with the port more,” Brown said.

“We had the international emphasis and

an international faculty with those in-

terests, and we wanted to start working

more here in the state and domestically.

So those type of discussions led to ‘hey,

we should be working together,’ instead

of the GPA trying to re-create the wheel

and ﬁnd people that are analytical. You

have all these IEs and ORs and statis-

tics people here – might as well leverage

them as we have a particular interest in

applying logistics.”

Each of the project’s partners has a

distinct role. For Tech’s SCL, it’s data

research; for the Center of Innovation,

networking with governments and

businesses; and for the GPA, the port

expansion itself and its big-picture eco-

nomic goals.

“We are excited to enter into this

agreement between our organizations,”

GPA Executive Director Griff Lynch

said in a news release when the agree-

ment was signed. “The MOU leverages

the institute’s predictive analytics and

supply chain optimization, the Center

of Innovation for Logistics’ network of

connections and the GPA’s experience

in the ﬁeld as an industry leader.”

Brown said in January the SCL’s re-

search teams were ramping up efforts,

with the second phase of the big ship

impact project headed by Alan Erera and

Martin Savelsbergh, Russ Clark help-

ing the GPA with sensor data and Chip

White heading a research team that in-

cludes the Center for Next Generation

Logistics, Center for Next Generation

Port Logistics and National University

of Singapore. John Bartholdi III, co-

executive director of Tech’s Panama Lo-

gistics Innovation & Research Center, is

also involved.

A wide-angle view of the Garden City Terminal at the Savannah port.

Encompassing 1,200 acres, it is the fourth busiest port in the U.S.

Ship-to-shore cranes work to load containers at the Georgia Ports Authority

Garden City Terminal in Savannah.

Containers and ship-to-shore cranes are seen working to load vessels at the

Georgia Ports Authority Garden City Terminal in Savannah.

March 2019 | ISE Magazine 35

“The short-term will be the big ship

impact stuff,” Brown said. “The longer-

term vision included in the MOU is

supportive workﬂow and economic de-

velopment.”

The big picture goal is to use the insti-

tute’s expertise and research capabilities

to help solve the GPA’s numerous logis-

tic challenges as it grows.

For its part, the state’s Center for In-

novation and Logistics will serve as a

liaison between the memorandum part-

ners and businesses that could beneﬁt

from the expanded port’s capabilities.

“As it relates to this project, we want

to be supportive of the state’s efforts to

improve logistics infrastructure,” direc-

tor Matt Markham told ISE. “We look

for potential opportunities for com-

panies who are shippers through the

port and are looking to better their op-

erations. We work to beneﬁt companies

that work in the state and talk to see if

there are ways we can connect them if it

makes sense. ... We make sure the infor-

mation gets to them and serve as a bridge

between business and government.”

The center holds an annual logistics

summit for businesses and other stake-

holders. This year’s gathering will focus

on the ports expansion project, its needs

and its beneﬁts, and is set for March 14 in

the northwestern Georgia city of Cart-

ersville, near the site of the ports author-

ity’s newly opened inland port.

Bigger ships mean

bigger challenges

The ﬁrst challenge involves how to con-

ﬁgure the port’s infrastructure to handle

the bigger ships that will be able to navi-

gate the deeper harbor. According to

Edward Fulford, communications man-

ager for the ports authority, in ﬁscal year

2018 ( July 2017 to June 2018), about 12

percent of the ships accessing the Savan-

nah port (212 of 1,840) had a capacity

of more than 10,000 TEUs, an average

of about four ships of the 35 received

per week. That total is expected to rise

sharply as the port is deepened.

The Savannah expansion is timed to

capitalize on the trend of massive cargo

ships. Fulford said the shipping industry

is gravitating toward larger vessels that

are more cost-effective to operate and

can carry more tonnage per voyage. He

said the largest ships that now call on

Savannah’s Garden City Terminal can

carry about 14,000 TEUs, while some

routes now include ships with capacities

up to 20,000 TEUs.

The increasing volume of big ships

is partially fueled by the recent deep-

ening of the Panama Canal from 42

to 47 feet, opening the route for more

large freighters from Asia to dock on the

U.S. East Coast rather than exclusively

at Paciﬁc ports or by traveling West

through the Suez Canal and across the

Atlantic. Dubbed the New Panamax

class of ships, they are able to carry up

to 13,000 TEUs, compared to the 5,000

TEU limit for ships previously able to

navigate the isthmus. Because these gi-

ant vessels carry more cargo, they save

on fuel and costs.

As the volume of cargo increases, so

The Savannah port handled 4.35 million container units in 2018, an increase of

7.5 percent from 2017.

Port of Savannah,

by the numbers

• Port handled 4.35 million 20-foot

equivalent container units (TEUs)

in 2018, an increase of 7.5 percent

from 2017

• Intermodal rail lifts increased by

16.1 percent to 435,000 in 2018

• Total cargo at port increased by

8 percent or 2.6 million tons to a

record 36 million tons

• The port’s growth rate is 4.5 percent

annually, highest in U.S.

• Savannah and Brunswick ports

employ some 440,000 full- and

part-time workers, 9 percent of

Georgia’s workforce

• Port activity accounted for

11 percent of Georgia’s total goods

sales in 2017 at $106 billion

• Maritime trade accounts for

$44 billion, 8 percent, of state’s

gross domestic product

• 29 port-related projects came to

Georgia in FY2018, bringing more

than $1 billion in investment and

4,741 jobs.

• Business coming through ports

raised $5.9 million in federal taxes,

$1.4 billion in state taxes and $1.5

billion in local taxes (source: Selig

Center for Economic Growth, Terry

college of Business, University of

Georgia)

Source: Georgia Ports Authority

36 ISE Magazine | www.iise.org/ISEmagazine

Freight expectations: Growing port seeks logistic expertise

does the port’s need to upgrade its in-

frastructure. Lynch told state legislators

in January that includes a plan within a

decade to replace the Talmadge Memo-

rial Bridge that spans the river to allow

larger freighters to pass underneath. An-

other option, he said, would be a trafﬁc

tunnel under the river.

Savannah straddles Interstate 95, a

major north-south corridor that runs

along the U.S. east coast from Florida

to New England, and I-16, a four-lane

interstate that connects with I-75 in

Macon in central Georgia up to Atlanta

and beyond. With more containers to

handle, the port’s efforts are focused on

moving cargo on and off ships and onto

rails, trucks and other modes of trans-

portation as quickly and efﬁciently as

possible.

“Bigger ships are coming in, and that

means more freight is moving through,

which provides challenges upstream in

the supply chain,” Markham said. “That

impacts everything from warehouse

and distribution to truck drivers mov-

ing freight and decisions being made on

how and when freight moves through

ports. There are big business decisions

involved.

“One thing we’re interested in learn-

ing are ways to optimize the ﬂow of

freight, including changes in gate hours,

off-site storage, truck turnaround and

the impact on warehousing and dis-

tribution. We’re also looking at driver

shortages, which is an issue all over the

nation, and things that can be optimized

to make it better for a driver to deliver

through the port in Savannah so they

can do their turnarounds in a way that

maintains their quality of life.”

Georgia’s Department of Transporta-

tion has a detailed plan through 2050

to improve freight corridors through

the state, which would include a dedi-

cated lane for trucks on I-75 heading

into metro Atlanta. Markham said other

projects include improvements to the I-

95/I-16 interchange near Savannah to

expedite freight trafﬁc.

Fulford cited some of the speciﬁc

challenges involved with inland trans-

port of increased freight volume: Motor

carriers who are adjusting to new regu-

lations, use of electronic logging devices

and growing driver shortages, often

due to age; and railroads’ need to create

new service lanes for more intermodal

freight.

The solution to ease increased truck

trafﬁc and move freight faster and more

efﬁciently is to boost rail capacity. The

port’s volume of intermodal rail lifts in-

creased by 16 percent in 2018. In Sep-

tember 2018, the GPA approved $92

million for an expanded terminal that

will double the Savannah port’s rail lift

capacity to 1 million per year, making it

the largest in North America. The work

will include 124,000 feet of new track

along with the control devices and pow-

er infrastructure needed to operate it.

Another key element of the expan-

sion is the opening of inland terminal

hubs for container units to be staged for

transport to cities in the southern and

Midwestern U.S. The GPA has created

two such facilities in south central and

northwestern Georgia and plans a third

in the northeastern sector, each located

along major interstate arteries.

To more easily move a greater volume

of goods, Brown said numerous other

options are on the table, such as expand-

ing port hours to handle the extra capac-

ity and whether I-16 could be used as a

test site for autonomous vehicles.

Ship-to-shore cranes are lined up along the dock at the Georgia Ports Authority’s

Garden City Terminal in Savannah, Georgia.

The Garden City Terminal cargo import and export site is seen near Savannah.

Plans are underway to expand the port’s rail terminal capacity.

March 2019 | ISE Magazine 37

Better cargo movement

through data analysis

With all these challenges before them,

researchers now are engaged in analyz-

ing data from multiple sources to ﬁnd

solutions to various issues. Fulford said

analytics provided by the SCL could be

used to help cargo owners and third-

party logistics providers streamline their

supply chains by factoring in various

transportation costs and other market

forces to determine the type of transport

used and sites for future distribution

centers.

“As container volumes increase, dwell

time allowances (the time a container

waits to be picked up after being ofﬂoad-

ed) on terminal must be modiﬁed,” Ful-

ford said. “How we modify dwell times

and understanding how those changes

might impact shippers and supply chain

partners is very important.”

Such efforts are right in line with the

expertise Georgia Tech’s SCL can pro-

vide.

“We really liked hearing about the

inland port plans they were having,”

Brown said. “We love to do multimodal

stuff and look at network planning and

inﬂows and outﬂows and how to bal-

ance them and where to put these type

of things. ... They want us to play with

new ideas, analyze the data and antici-

pate problems.”

From its previous work, the SCL

team has found that issues encountered

at ports in Asia and Europe aren’t always

the same as those faced in the U.S., such

as different labor challenges.

“Different parts of the world have dif-

ferent cost issues, different labor issues,

different automation levels,” Brown

said. “Singapore and Rotterdam are

more automated than ports here, for in-

stance.”

Some of the Georgia port’s speciﬁc

challenges are unique. In Savannah, a

city of about 145,000 residents, moving

goods from the river terminals to major

highways can be dicey through the city’s

narrow, tree-lined streets. To ease this

problem, a connecting highway was ex-

tended 3 miles from the port to I-95 to

expedite truck trafﬁc. Sensors also have

been placed throughout Savannah to

help analysts read trafﬁc patterns to ﬁnd