Challenge faced by the Ports

Port of Melbourne

Due to draught restrictions, inefficient transport infrastructures and underdeveloped technology, the problem of congestions facing by Port of Melbourne is deteriorating.

Port of Melbourne entering channel has always been embedded with a reputation of shallow draught.  The optimum all-tide draught nowadays for vessels using the channel is 11.6m, and the maximum tide-assisted draught is 12.1m (PoMC, 2007).  This level of draught unfortunately cannot accommodate with vessels that are fully laden.  As a result, 30 per cent of the vessels that visited Port of Melbourne cannot enter or exit with full load of cargos (PoMC, 2005).  Inconvenience caused by this restriction has slowed down the movement of freights and eventually causing traffic congestions at the port.

Effective port's performance is also determined by the efficiency of its transport linkage.   In recent years, insufficient funding from government has led to multiple infrastructure backlogs.  With lack of new and maintained infrastructures, freights are not able to get in and out of Port of Melbourne effectively.  This eventually accumulates freights at the port and leads to traffic congestions.

Last but not least, congestions at Port of Melbourne is presented due to underdeveloped technology.  With outdated technology, logistic companies are not able to track freights in real time.  This hence increases the number of delayed pick-up and delivery.  Since there is only limited storage at the port, delayed movement of freights will ultimately lead to congestions of freight at Port of Melbourne.

Port of Shanghai:

It is evidenced that Port of Shanghai has been congested in the past 20 years due to the complicated nature of vessel-sharing agreement (Gateway, 2014).  Vessel-sharing is a method where cargos for different carriers are being carried on the same ship that then required to transfer to each of the carriers' barge.  This has hence increased the amount of inter-port transfer and eventually causes congestions.

Unstable climate is another factor that contributes to the congestion of Port of Shanghai (Almonte, 2015).  Every now and then, the port is forced to shut down unexpectedly due to occasional monsoon and typhoon seasons.  With the closure of Port of Shanghai, significant delays are resulted since cargos are unable to move in and out of the port.  This ultimately leads to serious traffic congestions at the port.

Moreover, lack of collaboration between different stakeholders at the port is prone to congestion at Port of Shanghai (Brooks and Stone, 2010).  With overloading of the physical infrastructure but lack of collaboration among different stakeholders, the chance of misunderstandings among stakeholders is increased.  Hence rises the possibility of congestion delays.

Based on these challenges, provide a few recomendations.