New safety drive proposes pooling of industry info

In Europe the two shipping
lines MSC and Maersk
Line are spearheading a
new cargo safety drive
in the shipping industry,
aimed at reducing the
number of accidents caused
by hazardous cargoes,
overweight, poorly stowed
containers and the like.
A main tactic being
headlined by the two
shipping companies is that
information on dangerous
practices and incidents
should be shared across
the industry. Therefore, the
goal of the ‘cargo incident
notification system network’
(Cinsnet) is to gather, collate
and share all information
related to potentially
dangerous containerised
freight on an industry-wide
basis.
That would enable
container lines to receive
a rapid alert in the case of
a particularly worrying
incident, and for carriers to
have a clearer idea of how
widespread certain bad
practices or possibly risky
situations are across the
industry.
But it’s not necessarily a
new strategy in this country,
according to Glenn Delve,
marketing director of MSC
in the line’s SA head office
in Durban.
“We recognised the
problems of poorly stowed
and overweight cargoes,
and of carrying dangerous
goods, and have been
conducting our own safety
drive on such problems for
about the last four years,” he
told FTW.
“We have already seen
it as a matter of educating
the market to identify
and correct any high risk
practices in cargo loading.”
But, if the educating
process fails to overcome the
problem with certain agents,
then persistent offenders
face the imposition of
penalty charges, Delve
added.
Tackling the overweight
problem, for example,
the line first of all has to
identify whether a box is
actually overloaded.
Matching the declared
weight on the container
transport order (CTO) with
that on the bill of lading
(against which the tonnage
freight rate is calculated, and
likely to be where a lower
weight would be declared)
is a good indicator of an
overweight misdeclaration,
according to Delve.
“It’s quite a process,” he
said, “but we have found it a
successful test procedure.
“In such cases we have
a penalty system for
overloading, and we have
also found this to be an
effective deterrent.”