GPA preserves past while pursuing future

Innovations Advance

As an early adopter of containerized trade, the Port of Savannah has evolved from paper records to computer tracking as volumes have reached millions of containers moved each year.

The port’s ship-to-shore cranes have grown progressively larger to work vessels that have gone from carrying fewer than 1,400 twenty-foot-equivalent container units to today’s behemoths with capacities of as many as 14,000 TEUs.

Truck gates have expanded in number, with pre-registration and gate technologies speeding the flow of interchanges.

Rail capacity has increased with first one, then two, on-terminal rail facilities served by Class I railroads Norfolk Southern and CSX. The GPA is now in the midst of a major rail expansion, to link the two rail yards for a total of 34 miles of track on Garden City Terminal. This Mason Mega Rail Terminal project is designed to allow Savannah to better accommodate 10,000-foot-long unit trains, facilitating faster, more effective service into Chicago and throughout the U.S. Midwest.

Market Forces Favor Savannah

The consolidation of shipping lines into global consortia moving cargo on ever-larger vessels has been a net positive for the Port of Savannah, as it plays to the strength of the port’s Garden City Terminal.

At 1,200 acres, Garden City is the largest single-operator terminal in North America, with its contingent of 30 super-post-Panamax cranes along 9,700 contiguous feet of berth space offering superior ability to handle the influx of cargo delivered and taken on by super-post-Panamax vessels.

Garden City Terminal is served by two Class I railroads, provides immediate access to major north-south and east-west Interstate highways and is situated amidst the largest concentration of import distribution centers along the Atlantic Coast.

Since the Panama Canal opened its new, wider locks in June 2016, containerized cargo trade at the Port of Savannah has grown by 25 percent, from 3.6 million to 4.5 million TEUs per year. This is thanks in part to the preponderance of mega-containerships now bringing burgeoning cargo volumes to the U.S. East Coast via the Panama Canal.