Minister lashes out at UK trust ports BRITAIN'S shipping minister yesterday launched an astonishing attack on trust ports, threatening to "put a bomb" under operations allegedly beset with patronage and senility.
Truckers paralyse France AS French haulage bosses yesterday began their indefinite blockade of ports and frontier crossings, the European Commission stepped up political pressure on Paris for a settlement.
Steamship mutual faces 1999 underwriting deficit IN a new jolt to the fiercely competitive protection and indemnity market, Steamship Mutual (Bermuda), one of the largest clubs, has revealed it is likely to suffer an underwriting deficit in the 1999-2000 policy year.
Board roles change at Tibbett & Britten TIBBETT & Britten, the £1.2bn ($1.93bn) turnover UK logistics company, is restructuring its boardroom responsibilities to reflect the multinational business of its core customers writes Roger Hailey.
Attica targets Baltic ferry routes FOUR of Attica Enterprises series of six new ropax ferries being constructed for its Superfast Ferries operation by Germany's Howaldtswerke Deutsche Werft are to be put into service in the Baltic next year.
Oil charterers' policies wrong claims Slater OIL companies have been accused by Paul Slater, chairman of First International, of allowing price, rather than quality, to dictate their tanker chartering activities.
San Francisco picks cruise terminal firm SAN Francisco port has selected an international joint venture, San Francisco Cruise Terminal, as its choice to develop a new cruise terminal and commercial area on the city's South Beach waterfront.
Ventspils lowers profit target for 2000 LATVIAN oil terminal Ventspils Nafta has approved a 2000 net profit target at Lats8.7m ($1.48bn) due to increased Baltic competition and unfavourable Russian oil sector policies, but will leave transhipment tariffs unchanged this year.
Les ports français risquent d'être bloqués eux aussi Quatre fédérations patronales de transporteurs routiers français ont organisé ce lundi 10 janvier une opération de blocage des frontières. Un mouvement, qui commença dès 8h00 le matin, et vise également à bloquer les ports. Il pourrait même entraîner des barrages filtrants à l'intérieur du pays.
L'e-commerce, un nain qui aura une influence de géant Le "commerce électronique", qui est défini comme des "transactions commerciales conclues sur internet", est un phénomène récent qui, surtout aux Etats-Unis, prend rapidemennt de l'ampleur. Les montants concernés sont déjà fabuleux et l'on s'attend à un essor exponentiel. Pourtant, bon nombre de "cyber-gourous" se trompent lorsqu'ils disent qu'il remplacera le commerce traditionnel: l'on s'accorde généralement pour dire que le commerce électronique ne devrait pas représenter plus de 10% de l'ensemble des transactions commerciales... et que c'est essentiellement dans le business-to-business que ce situera la croissance. Mais même marginal dans son ensemble, on peut toutefois prévoir que le commerce électronique aura une influence disproportionnée sur les processus logistiques - tant en amont qu'en aval - ainsi que sur la mobilité. C'est ce que nous aborderons dans une série de trois articles, pour lesquels nous avons tenté d'astiquer au mieux notre boule de cristal.
Quand les PC s'attaquent au marché des car carriers et autres PCTC Le marché océanique des car carriers et pure car truck carriers (PCTC) est-il menacé par une intrusion en force des grands porte-containers? A terme, ce n'est pas impossible. On sait que depuis quelques années, des voitures neuves sont mises dans des containers de 20 et 40' grâce à des structures métalliques qui permettent d'y caser les véhicules et de bien les arrimer, mais jusqu'ici il s'agit d'expéditions très limitées. Tout récemment encore, à l'exposition "Intermodal 99" qui s'est tenue à Londres, était exposé un concept de structure métallique permettant d'accueillir deux grosses voitures, ladite structure une fois chargée étant glissée dans le container. Aujourd'hui, il est question d'expédition massive de voitures avec des porte-containers.
Seagha de plus en plus utilisé Le trafic de messages de Seagha, le système de communication de données du secteur portuaire privé anversois, a connu une forte croisance en 1999. Le principe "Single Point of Entry", proposé aux clients, a été le produit de l'année, déclare Seagha dans un communiqué. Quant à l'avenir proche, on parle de développement d'un centre back-up et de commercialisation de nouveaux services.
Chalk up the Wisconsin Badgers' 17-9 Rose Bowl victory to tailback Ron Dayne's 200-yard rushing performance, or quarterback Brooks Bollinger's fourth-quarter touchdown, or the motivational magic of coach Barry Alvarez. But when credit is handed out, don't forget John Chadima. He's the man with the logistics plan that got the Badgers to Pasadena.
Congress may have authorized billions of dollars for new highways, intermodal connectors and terminals and port expansions, but a six-year-old White House order to executive branch agencies could freeze the shovels and cement mixers. Even trucks powered by diesel engines could be forced off highways. What's going on is called environmental justice.
Many businesses have a global strategy but the Internet is exposing the extent to which companies can actually engage in world markets. In a recent survey of U.S. retailers carried out by Forrester Research, 85 percent of the companies contacted could not ship products internationally. "If they were doing it, they were really servicing a country from a domestic warehouse," said Stacy McCullough, a supply-chain analyst at Forrester.
Enterprise resource planning software company Baan Co. N.V. is reorganizing to focus on the business-to-business electronic commerce market. The company's chief executive officer, Mary Coleman, has resigned, effective immediately. The announcements came as a surprise to analysts Elizabeth Malis, with Benchmarking Partners, and Rod Johnson, of AMR Research. Her departure "is nothing but bad news for Baan," said Malis. "Mary Coleman really brought a lot of excitement to the team. She is a very talented woman. To see her leaving is really very troublesome for these guys."
Overnite Transportation Co. wants to start the year with a new emphasis on expanding its LTL customer base as it tries to put its labor strife in the past. Overnite is actively seeking small and midsize shippers attracted to the carrier because of its high service and competitive rates and willing to look past Overnite's current labor strife. Overnite enjoyed a 1.5 percent rise in revenue for the 1999 fourth quarter despite a 1.6 percent drop in tonnage compared with the 1998 fourth quarter, but is not expected to match its overall 1998 earnings of $40.5 million when parent Union Pacific Corp. releases its final financial report on its trucking unit on Jan. 20. In the first of a two-part series Traffic World examines the effect the 11-week Teamsters strike is having on Overnite, the nation's fifth-largest stand-alone LTL carrier and biggest nonunion LTL carrier.
BC Rail shippers in northwestern Canada have been on pins and needles since the railroad locked out a group of trade unions on Dec. 27. That tension was greatly relieved when a tentative agreement was reached Jan. 5, and both labor and management are hoping the agreement sticks. The weeklong lockout could have had a much greater impact on BC Rail customers - namely forest product shippers - had it occurred almost any other time of the year. As it turned out, the lockout took place over the Christmas holidays when mills operate in low gear.
Cargo 2000 greeted the new year by throwing out a good chunk of the work it's done over the last three years. Originally the group set out to indelibly link freight forwarders with airlines, a task that has eluded the industry for decades, with a single technology solution. After more than a year of evaluating choices and narrowing the field down to two vendors, Cargo 2000 decided to take on more a supervisory role and let the airlines and forwarders make their own IT choices. The decision, much to the dismay of Syntegra and Unisys, opens the floodgates to Internet companies hungry for a piece of the transportation market.
One of 2000's best business prospects for the maritime sector is a land-based mode of transportation. Buoyant consumer demand and the globalization of manufacturing are fueling growth in the number of finished autos that are being shipped around the world. A growing number of manufacturers are asking for global tenders and multitrade delivery services from ocean carriers, and in order to meet these global demands carriers are becoming more integrated with manufacturers' operations.
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