| Melbourne Empty Container Park Fee Increases from January 2020 - CTAA Notice to Industry Empty Container Parks (ECPs) in Melbourne have advised transport operators of significant increases in truck arrival notification fees to commence in January 2020.
The fee increases range in size from 82 percent to 344 percent of current notification fees.
The ECPs have cited a range of reasons for the fee hikes, including increased operational and labour costs, infrastructure requirements, IT fee increases, maintaining extended operating hours (in some cases) and/or EPA compliance costs.
These significant fee increases cannot be absorbed by container road transport operators in Melbourne, who are liaising with their customers before Christmas to advise them of their fee recovery arrangements.
As with the stevedore infrastructure fees, transport operators must pay the ECP truck arrival notification fees well in advance of being able to recover these costs from customers (anywhere from 30 to 60 days or more). This time lag has a cash-flow burden and risk, and added administration costs in reconciling fees.
CTAA looks forward to the Port of Melbourne Pricing and Access Review being completed by the Victorian Government in early 2020, and we hope that the findings of the independent review will be made public for consultation.
In addition, CTAA continues to strive to voluntarily bring together transport operators, empty container park operators and others in the container logistics chain to address empty container management inefficiencies and productivity concerns. We believe that all parties in the chain need to work together to off-set these cost increases with further productivity and efficiency initiatives. This will also require the cooperation of shipping lines and the Port of Melbourne.
Download the CTAA Notice to Industry on these matters in the tab below. |