Glossary

A fully automatic, driverless transport vehicle which carries containers back and forth between the container gantry cranes on the quayside and the block storage yard at the HHLA Container Terminal Altenwerder.

Automated block storage is used at the HHLA Container Terminals Altenwerder and Burchardkai to stack containers in a compact and efficient manner. Containers are stacked in several storage blocks. Rail-mounted gantry cranes are used to transport and stow the boxes.

A vessel which can transport both containers and rolling cargo (see “Roro”).

A crane system used to load and discharge container ships. As ships are becoming larger and larger, the latest container gantry cranes have much higher, longer jibs to match.

Vessels which carry smaller numbers of containers to ports. From Hamburg, feeders are primarily used to transport boxes to the Baltic region.

The catchment area of a port.

A terminal which bundles and distributes consignments as handling hub. HHLA’s rail companies operate hub terminals like this in Ceska Trebova, Budapest, Dunajska Streda, Poznan and Prague.

Transportation via several modes of transport (water, rail, road) combining the specific advantages of the respective carriers.

The North European coast. In the broadest geographic sense, this is where all the international ports in Northern Europe from Le Havre to Hamburg can be found. The four largest ports are Hamburg, Bremerhaven, Rotterdam and Antwerp.

Crane units spanning their working area like a gantry, often operating on rails. Also called a storage crane when used at a block storage facility, or a rail gantry crane when used to handle rail cargo.

Short for “roll on, roll off”, RoRo is a means of loading cargo which can simply be rolled or driven onto or off a ship. Most rolling cargo consists of cars of trucks, but project cargo is also transported in this way on special trailers.

A train which travels back and forth on one route with the same arrangement of wagons, eliminating the need for time-consuming shunting. HHLA’s rail subsidiaries operate shuttle trains between the seaports and the hub terminals (hinterland).

Weighing several tonnes, the spreader is the part of a container gantry crane or other crane used to grip then lift or lower containers.

see TEU

A highly efficient container gantry crane capable of unloading or loading two 40-foot containers or four 20-foot containers in a single movement. HHLA uses gantry cranes of this kind at the Container Terminal Burchardkai.

In maritime logistics, a terminal is a facility where freight transported by various modes of transport is handled.

A TEU is a 20-foot standard container, used as a unit for measuring container volumes. A 20-foot standard container is 6.06 metres long, 2.44 metres wide and 2.59 metres high.

The action of a locomotive pulling a train.

A performance indicator used for rail traffic, calculated as the product of the volume transported and the distance covered.

A vehicle used to transport containers at the terminals. The driver manoeuvres the straddle carrier into position above a container and lifts it up. The vehicles can stack containers up to four high.