Weathering the Snow and Fog at DP World Southampton

During the first month of 2010, a variety of weather fronts have been affecting the whole of the UK to varying degrees.  In fact, you know the extent of weather when operations at DP World Southampton are impacted, a terminal which remains largely unaffected by weather thanks to its protected position on the South Coast.

During the first working week of 2010, ice and heavy snow disrupted both shipside and landside operations, for a matter of hours at a time as opposed to days.  Thanks to the efficient use of the terminal’s vehicle booking system (VBS) by the operations staff and additional equipment resources employed, the terminal was able to clear any backlogs of lorries within a couple of hours of operations resuming on each occasion.

Talking about the challenge, Steve McCrindle, Operations Manager, DP World Southampton, said:

“We were fortunate that the delays to operations were for a few hours at a time as opposed to days in both cases as we moved from snow to, quite unbelievably, thick fog.  Our VBS system plays an extremely important role in how we control the number of vehicles on the terminal at any one time. 

On occasions when we had suspended operations we removed any bookings which hadn’t already been booked which minimised the backlog of lorries where possible.  Any booking already taken is honoured just as soon as operational safety allows operations to resume.

We would like to thank all users of the terminal for their patience and understanding through the disruption.”

During the night of 21/22 January, the terminal handled 737 lorries, one of the largest number of lorries during a night since 2007.  Earlier that day operations had been impacted by fog.