Just-in-time arrival was mentioned in a gCaptain article about use of technology in shipping to improve efficiency.
I made the mistake of using the term “timed arrival” in a post about giving the 2nd mate a letter of warning for botching a simple navigation problem.
Here’s an explanation of JIT arrivals:
The concept of just-in-time (JIT) arrival aims at reducing time at anchorage in order to lower the environmental impact and congestion issues at harbors. For instance, it consists of adjusting the vessel’s speed during the voyage so as to make it arrive at the optimal date and berthing window set by the port when all assets are available and ready to receive the ship: pilots, tugs, quays, handling equipment, crew, ancillary services, trucks, and trailers, etc.**
The difference is timed arrivals are used on short coastwise voyages whereas JIT arrivals could be for an entire ocean voyages.
From the article.
It is then far more efficient than the old conventional approach of “first-come-first-served” that induces the vessel crew to sail at full speed ahead to get in line at the earliest and meet the canceling date set in the contract.
First saw this with MSC when I was third mate, Port Hueneme to Guam. Captain would start out with more speed than required then take off a few turns as we approached the trades where the weather is more predictable.
Timed arrivals are getting more common in the tanker markets - where the charterer agrees to a deemed arrival date with the owner based on the ETA, and the owner agrees to share the bunker savings they get by slowing down to arrive at a later date.
That’s interesting. In many situations it does seem like the terminal has the upper hand and is running the whole show.
A lot more to this than I imagined,
Along with ETA there’s RTA - Requested time of arrival and PTA which in some cases means predicted time of arrival - an ETA done shoreside rather than originating on the ship.
Is it actually happening now? A few years ago I was flabbergasted at going balls-to-the-wall max speed to “get to port cuz muh charterer says so and pays fuel” on a 6 day voyage only to sit at anchor for 5 days before going into the terminal.
I was shocked that the modern tanker market was hurry up and wait (first come first serve) for coming into the terminal…like WTF they can’t do better planning?
Way more involved in your scenario than you know or care about. Quite likely that once the ship takes arrival, the time becomes waiting for berth and who is liable for the cost of the delay changes.
JIT arrivals requires that a system be put in place and operated. Who is going to pay to run that system? The terminal has nothing to gain if all the cost savings go to the shipping companies.
Where did I say that it was a simple one-dimensional problem?
Yeah, no care…other than more wear on equipment, burns significantly more fuel (MOAR CO2!).
Very true. And when I book a hotel room for the night, I can just leave the water running continuously and have the A/C set to 60 and open the window when I get cold (or heat to 100 and open the window when I get hot), because I’m not liable for those costs. I mean, who cares about waste as long as I’m not paying for it?!?
Tanker mates have to also look out the window/at screens during cargo ops, so I guess they do work a bit harder than container ship mates that are ashore getting hammered.
How the money works on this for folks who may not know
On voyage Charters:
A ship is fixed with a voyage commencement date/time and a cancel date/time. If the ship arrives prior to commencement, it is an 'arrived" ship but laytime ( the amount of time allowed for load/discharge in the charter) does not start until the commencement date/time. If the ship arrives after the cancel date - the charterer has ( with some conditions) the option to cancel the charter.
At the load port, if the ship arrivies inside the load window, and is delayed in berthing, the charterer of the vessel can claim against the supplier of the cargo for the cost of that delay. - this is called supply demurrage. Also, if ships arrive at the load port after the cancel date, the suppliers of the cargo can continue to bypass that ship in the berthing que - and berth ship that are inside their laycan in front of it - since they have no exposure for suppliers demurrage for ships that arrive outside the delivery window.
There is no speed required on the ballast passage to the load port. Although the ship is required to use “utmost dispatch” . On the laden passage vessel speed is negotiated and put in the charter party.
At the discharge port, the laytime clock starts when the vessel arrives. In general, the incentive is for the owner to get there and begin laytime. All delays in berthing are laytime. Charterers have delivery windows to meet with the recievers of the cargo and are need to meet those windows.
The point is the all the parites to the charter have different incentives and penalties on vessel timing. But the drive to save fuel and emmisions by minimising the delays in port is already happening - and gaining momentum. There is a whole budding industry in data management with this as a goal.
An aside - much of the speed management for timed arrival is a result of the new ability of slow speed diesels to steam at slower speeds. In my day, econ speed on my ships was about 12 kts. It usually make more sence for us to steam at 12 kts to the port, and then go on hotel bunkers- than to try a steam at slower speeds.