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Welcome to Tappers

End of year thoughts....

As 2009 draws to a close, we thought we would take the opportunity to thank you all for your support yet again. It has been a tough year for all of us, but we have watched with pride as all the staff here have recognised the changed environment, adjusted to it and just got on with it.

One of the bigger challenges has been gaining smooth access to the Auckland waterfront given their apparent shortage of resources since they amalgamated the Bledisloe and Fergusson container terminals and laid off a lot of staff. Our email this morning tells us that they have formed a joint venture, Conlinxx and are entering the container transport market.

At this point, we don’t feel too threatened by that. If they run their transport company as efficiently as they run the port, we are reasonably safe!

This year has seen an exciting development for us. We have been quietly operating a shuttle train twice a day from the port to Southdown railhead carrying 20 teu each way – a total of 80 teu per day. While this only represents about 16% of our total container movements, it is an encouraging start.

With bigger things in mind, we have leased 10,000 sq. metres of land from Ontrack/KiwiRail and will base our container hub on that land from March 1st next year. This is a really big break through for us and we look forward to discussing its potential with you all next year.

So, thanks again for your business and all of us here look forward to taking container transport to a new level next year. In short, bring it on!

Have a great Christmas and a happy New Year.



Two Minds Think Alike On Freight City for Penrose
Dave MacIntyre 19 Oct

When a few weeks ago I was summarising the suggestion put by Fonterra General Manager Supply Chain Strategy Nigel Jones, about the creation of a “Logistics City” at Southdown, something stirred in my memory.
Wasn’t this similar to an idea floated some years ago which I thought was quite far-sighted?
The tumblers in the mind started whirring, gradually some shape emerged and finally three lemons popped up. Back went the mind nearly six years to a New Zealand Freight Transport Summit at which trucking leader Simon Tapper presented his view of a solution to Auckland’s growing congestion.




Tapper called for a site at Penrose where all authorities with any say (local, regional and central government) should set aside land, appropriate transport corridors and other infrastructure to allow for the establishment of one or more inland intermodal terminals. Failure to do so would have disastrous consequences for both region and country, he said.
Let’s compare the two calls, made by Jones in 2009 and Tapper in 2004, to see how these two very different players in the logistics industry – one a major shipper and the other a wharf cartage contractor and inland port operator – came to broadly similar conclusions about the problems we face, and the solutions needed.
Jones defined a “logistics city” as a concentrated area linked to sea ports, airports, rail and road infrastructure. This would be in a designated area and offer scales of economy by aggregating then moving freight in large volumes.
It would be planned by both industry and government for the logistics industry, be backed by high-technology services and offer a complete range of logistics capabilities.
It would house freight forwarders, trucking companies, importers, Customs brokers, government agencies such as Customs and MAF, distributors and engineering and repair services among others.


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