07 Sep American Shipper: Avantida takes container management service to Mexico
“Using an import container to go straight to your export customer without having to go back to the terminal is a refreshing advancement.”
Avantida, a company that enables street turns of ocean containers, has expanded into Mexico.
The Antwerp, Belgium-based company, founded in 2013 and acquired by INTTRA in 2017, currently helps arrange the triangulation of about 1,600 containers each day between shippers or transportation companies in a dozen European countries.
Avantida said CMA CGM and Hapag-Lloyd have agreed to utilize what it calls its reUse container management services in Mexico, but Luc De Clerck, Avantida’s chief executive officer, said the company is recruiting other liner companies as well. “Most of the major carriers are on our platform in Europe,” he added.
The company explained that the service works like this: “Once an import container has been unloaded, it must be taken back to the port or assigned depot. With reUse, transport companies can request the liner shipping company to use that same container and bring it straight to their export customer to get loaded.”
De Clerck said when an import container of a carrier is reused, it is used brought to a customer of the same ocean carrier. In this way, a container that, for example, CMA CGM owns or leases, remains in the CMA CGM container fleet.
Each reuse or street turn must be approved by the carrier and the Avantida computer system allows this to be done automatically. He said the company’s experience is that 85 percent of the street turns are approved by the company’s customers in Europe. Reuse of a container might be rejected, for example, if a container is nearing the end of a lease.
The company said the service helps truckers avoid waiting times at depots and terminals and eliminates travel over unnecessary distances. This reduces both costs and CO2 emissions.
DeClerck said Avantida will offer the service throughout Mexico. The company has ambitions to expand internationally, including into the United States eventually.
“Reuse is a completely new concept for the container transport sector in Mexico. Using an import container to go straight to your export customer without having to go back to the terminal is a refreshing advancement for planners and dispatchers. Being able to manage this on Avantida’s platform makes this new way of planning even easier to adopt,” said Kapil Garg, head of inland operations Latin America at CMA CGM.
“The Avantida platform will bring a new dimension to their planning strategies, optimizing time on the road and reducing transportation costs. For us, we expect a similar structure and efficiency it already provides in Europe,” said Niklas Ohling, senior director of container steering at Hapag-Lloyd.
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