It’s fitting that a beer company would be the first customer for an electric ship on inland canals.
The ship is unique, because it uses rcontgainers of rechargable batteries as power. The containers can be swapped at either end of the voyage to renew the power source.
Inland waterway traffic in Europe is very important to reduce the level of pollution fom trucks. Most EU countries have set goals to increase the amount of inland waterway barge traffic, to reduce the trucks on the road. This vessel is even better, since it does not generate any emissions at all, whereas a diesel barge would generate some.
Hope they get more of them!
7 September 2021
Port Technology International Team
It may be harder to find crews for nuclear ships than to build them.
Known to most as a senior London arbitrator, Michael Allen’s first career before becoming a lawyer was as an engineer officer on British nuclear submarines. Below, he poses plenty of questions about crew onboard the next generation of nuclear-powered ships.
One of the big problems owner-operators have is waiting to load and unload at warehouses. that is dead time for them. They are only earning their fee if they are rolling; they aren’t paid for waiting time.
Uber Freight has designed a service called Powerloop, which offers to place leased trailers at shippers’ premises so that they can load or unload when it suits them. When a trailer is ready for pickup, the Uber Freight system finds an owner-operator driver who can come to the premises, and simply hook up to the trailer and leave. And on the other end, the owner-operator simply drops off the trailer. It’s then up to the receiver to unload the trailer on their own time.
This is clearly a big advantage to the driver. And Uber takes a cut from the fee offered to cover the trailer lease and maintenance costs, and the service ofhaving it at the shipper’s warehouse when they need it.
Think of it as a bit like the U-Haul moving pods you sometimes see outside the house of someone who is moving. the family can load it as they can, and when it’s ready they can just say, “Come pick it up.” A driver comes and takes it to where it’s going, and leaves it again, in the new driveway or something. It’s up to the family to unload it, and then have it taken away. For some it works a lot better than a moving van.
Warehouses are notorious for having limited working hours that don’t conform to the needs of the truckers they’ve hired to move the load. The warehouses may have labor rules for union workers, or may have instituted various rules themselves. Failing to match rules to truckers’ needs can result in a warehouse being placed on a lwess-than-desirable list that may bring higher rates, or fewer carriers to select from. And at the extreme it may result in abandoned loads and poor relations with the carrier, customer, and warehouse, losing money and time for all.
The Uber approach is one that could work in drivers’ favor and warehouses also. It takes financial muscle, such as Uber can generate— to lease the trailers; and technology, like Uber’s— the system for good communication with drivers and drop-off points to get the scheduling right.
Uber Freight’s power-only expansion into Georgia gives owner-operators leg up Powerloop now accessible in 3 states .
Supply Chain and Logistics 