Oslo Port Authority operates two container terminals, both located in the main port area close to the city centre. Projections show that the container traffic through these terminals will grow rapidly over the next 15 years and the Port Authority employed Posford Haskoning to assess the present situation and to make recommendations for the future development of the terminals.
Specific tasks included finding the ultimate capacity of Terminal West, given its restricted land area, and calculating the land area required to handle a specified traffic through Terminal South. Posford Haskoning were also instructed to assess the viability of using rock caverns for container storage and to examine the use of floating container handling facilities.
The geology of the Oslo Fjord means that the shape of reclaimed areas is far from ideal and the performance of the terminals could not be fully modelled with the normal parametric tools.
The project team carried out the analysis of the terminals using the Posford Haskoning written Container Terminal Simulation (CTS) package with, several additional modules being produced to address the unusual features of the site.
The simulation package allowed a number of different options to be fully investigated within the three week duration of the initial site visit. CTS is one module of POSPORT, a suite of port terminal and marine navigation numerical modelling and visualisation programs, developed in-house, based and applied to port projects world wide.
