Empty Return Appointment Caps

Dear Customer,

Unfortunately, APM Terminals Elizabeth is still experiencing empty container return appointment hoarding. Often, the terminal maxes out of empty return appointments which causes TERMPoint to show none available, however, when the terminal closes, we only receive 54% of what was actually booked. We encourage all TERMPoint users to only book what is needed, per day, and to ensure they are cancelling empty return appointments within a respectable time frame per appointment window in order to allow other uses to secure. If everyone follows this method there will always be empty return appointments available.

Example:

A Trucking Company books 10 x MSK 4HC Empty Returns in the 0600-0900 appointment window. At 08:30, the Trucking Company realizes they will only use 5 of these appointments by 1000, so they cancel them. Now other truckers who may need them last minute can access these 5 x appointments.

To stop appointment hoarding, the terminal had to apply empty return appointment caps to the Top 25 Trucking Companies that hoard/waste the most empty return appointments daily. This cap is determined by the amount of empty appointments the trucking company actually returned daily over the past 60 days, plus a 30% buffer to assist. We encourage any capped trucking companies to contact the terminal for further details and discussion.

We hope to see a decrease in the gap between actual empties returned compared to empty return appointments booked. We fully understand the current business dynamic and want to ensure that APM Terminals is offering as many appointments possible each day. We appreciate everyone's assistance.

Best regards,
APM Terminals Port Elizabeth