Print
PDF
APM Terminals is establishing a new Truck Safety program featuring carefully researched and tested standard operating procedures for outside truck drivers delivering or picking up containers. This will be put into effect by the end of 2016 throughout the company’s global terminal network, which include facilities in the ports of Port Said East, Egypt; Aqaba, Jordan; Salalah, Oman and Khalifa bin Salman Port, Bahrain in the Middle East, as well as Mumbai in India.
“Our goal is to ensure we have safe operations. The basic concept here is to eliminate the risk of accident or injury to the thousands of truck drivers who enter our facilities daily by strictly enforcing a “Stay in the Cab” mandate for external truckers, with clearly identified Designated Safe Zones in non-operational areas specified for those occasions when leaving the truck is necessary,” said Kevin Furniss, vice president, Health, Safety, Security & Environment.
A pilot program at a number of APM Terminals facilities identified risk situations and reasons for drivers leaving their truck cabs. Implementation of the program, now underway, requires all APM Terminals’ facilities to provide specially designated, physically protected areas for drivers conducting required operational activities outside of their truck cabs, by the end of 2016, and offer safety instructions specific to each facility’s layout and traffic flow.
The group has also confirmed that APM Terminals Bahrain, operators of Khalifa bin Salman Port, has recently made significant advances in safety performance and information technology systems, including the successful completion of a Load Collision Prevention System (LCPS) pilot project scheduled to be implemented throughout the APM Terminals Global Terminal Network.
APM Terminals Bahrain was selected as the first terminal to introduce and live-test the LCPS, following two years of research, engineering and initial testing by APM Terminals to reduce the risk of accidents due to collisions in the container yard between container handling equipment and stacked containers. Technical innovations and procedural changes were put into place on KBSP’s RTGs and reach stackers. The investments made in collision avoidance and distance detection systems included installation of state-of-the-art cameras on all of the RTGs to remove blind spots faced by the operators and enhanced night vision features. The success of the program, known as “Project Stack”, has led to plans to introduce the new equipment and procedures at other APM Terminals facilities next year, as the improved safety features are rolled out globally.
