Georgia Ports Authority Hopes RFID Will Boost Efficiency, Throughput

Each lane at the port will typically have three such position markers, one at each checkpoint, either buried under the ground or positioned next to it, to send position and time data to the tag. As each truck moves through its lane, it will eventually pass an i-Mark position marker, which will transmit a unique bit string identifying that specific marker. That information will be received by the tag, which will periodically forward it, along with the tag's ID number, to the Identec Solutions interrogators. The readers will relay all the RFID tag data to Navis' Edge Manager software, which will also receive the OCR, scale and seal-inspection data from the three checkpoints. All of this information will then be cross-referenced and checked in Navis Express to clear each truck's entrance into the terminal, and to generate instructions regarding each driver's next steps. Navis Express will then automatically send an electronic file containing those instructions to a computer at the pedestal checkpoint, to be printed out and handed to the driver.

"The GPA is one of the fastest-growing, most successful ports in the America," says Dempsey, adding that the project will help increase the flow of trucks into the gates and into the yard. "As the volumes grow, that's important. Also, from a green standpoint, because trucks won't be idling for long times waiting in lines, there will be less congestion and less fumes."

The GPA is also installing RFID interrogators in cranes and other container-handling equipment at the Port of Savannah, which will scan the tags as operators move containers in the yard.

Most notably, rubber-tired gantries (RTGs)—70-foot-tall cranes used to move the containers around—will have i-Mark position markers mounted onto the sides. When a truck pulls under an RTG to have its container off-loaded, the position markers will communicate with the tags, providing position and time data. The tags will then be scanned by a nearby reader, which will download the information and pass it to Edge Manager, which will send it to SPARC, officially documenting that a specific container is being off-loaded. SPARC will gather that information and create instructions detailing where to put that container.

Those instructions will then be sent to a truck-mounted computer accessible by the RTG operator. In the past, a person on the ground used a radio to inform the operator where to put the containers. What's more, the RTG operator—who is typically 70 to 80 feet up in the air—had to look down onto each container to manually read its ID, printed on top. The new automated processes will add even more benefits to the GPA implementation, Dempsey says, noting, "Once inside the yard, the benefits are really twofold: safety and labor savings."