Last month, Tilbury-based The Logistics Terminal (TLT) said it had seen a 100% increase in its port-centric throughput in a year, processing an average of 160 containers per week. Although this is a huge increase in volumes for an operation that only began in January 2011,The Hub estimates that this figure amounts to 8,320 containers per year, only a small proportion of the total 314,000 containers that passed through the port 2011.
Port centric logistics provider Felixstowe Warehousing claims the concept has delivered savings and efficiency benefits for customers including paper supplier Garnett Papers, which saved £400 per box on deliveries from Felixstowe to its base in Yorkshire . Port centric logistics providers claim that the service, which sees products taken out of containers and stored in warehouses adjacent to the port which they arrived from, saves money for their customers as there is no cost involved in transporting products from port to DC.
Despite the potential savings, TLT’s figures suggest that thousands of containers are still being driven across the country to be emptied at a hub or depot. Not only does this suggest that many container hauliers are running empty on their way back to the port, port centric logistics could be a concept that either manufacturers and retailers are unaware of, or do not want to use.