Expanding its partnership with one of the leading container ports in the USA, Finnish container handling equipment manufacturer, Konecranes, will provide additional rubber tired yard gantry cranes and super post panamax container gantry cranes to the Georgia Ports Authority (GPA). Both sets of cranes will be delivered to the port’s Garden City Container Terminal at separate intervals during 2016. The GPA is a state owned entity with port facilities in Savannah and Brunswick, Georgia. The Authority’s primary facility is located along the Savannah River just north of the City of Savannah. The Port is ranked fourth in container ports in the United States and the Garden City terminal is billed as North America’s busiest, single container facility. The terminal has a continuous stretch of container berths ranging from 719’ to 1690’ in length. Along-side water depths range from 42 feet, to the deepest at 48 feet. The channel leading to the terminal is dredged to 48’ MLW. The Garden City facility is a full service terminal offering over 1200 acres dedicated to vessel discharge and loading, receiving and delivery, container stacking, multi-level reefer storage, warehousing and on-dock rail transfer. An additional intermodal facility is located just outside the marine terminal’s main gate. The latest award to Konecranes includes 16 electric powered rubber tired cranes. Prior to that, the Port awarded a bid for four ship to shore cranes. These will join the present fleet of Konecranes container handling equipment at Garden City. At this time, the Port Authority can field a total of 130 RTGs and 21 ship to shore (STS) cranes. The new orders will increase the RTG fleet at the Garden City facility to a total of 146 and the new ship to shore cranes to 26. The Georgia Ports Authority recently approved the latest additions to their RTG fleet, at a reported cost of $12.6 million. The total investment includes the erection of the RTGs and connection to the Busbar style electrical power supply. The electrification of their newest RTGs is an important part of the Port’s all-encompassing clean air program. It will result in a significant reduction in the use of diesel fuel, which in turn will result in the lowering of carbon emissions. The Authority announced that the addition of the new yard cranes will decrease diesel fuel consumption at the facility by 95%, providing a positive impact on the terminal workers and the surrounding Garden City community. Delivery and commissioning of the new RTGs is expected to be completed in mid-2016. It will bring the total of all-electric RTGs to 25% of their current fleet. The use of Konecranes’ rubber tired gantry cranes at the Port of Savannah began in 1995. With the exception of the first 21 cranes, the balance have the capability to lift 50LT. The first group, delivered between 1995 and 2003, lift 40LT. The span of all of the cranes is 78 feet. In 2016, Konecranes will also begin the commissioning of the new Super Post Panamax dockside container gantry cranes. The arrival of this group of cranes at the Garden City Terminal will bring the total Konecranes ship to shore cranes in Savannah to 26. Beginning in 1990, the specifications of the first Konecranes ship to shore crane delivered to Savannah included a lift capacity of 40 long tons, an outreach of just under 120 feet, and a lift height of just under 90’. The single crane was also the first Konecranes ship to shore crane in North America. The GPA continued to confirm its confidence in Konecranes with successive orders from 1995 to 2016. The GPA followed suit, steadily adjusting the specifications of the new cranes orders from 1995 to the present. Capacity increased from 40LT under the hook to 65 LT. Dimensions were increased, including lift height and outreach. Between 1990 and 1998, the GPA purchased five additional Konecranes STS’s, increasing the lift capacity from 40LT to 50 LT. Dimensions were also increased to allow a maximum of just under 120’ lift height and outreach from the initial 120’ to 149’. In 2003, the critical dimensions in ship to shore crane specifications - crane capacity, height above the dock, crane outreach - were again increased by the GPA as container vessels continued to become larger and container weights increased. These specifications, addressed by the GPA, resulted in cranes with an increase to 65 long tons capacity, (the ability to lift a 50-LT load with 65-LT under the hook), and lift heights and outreach of 120’ and 200’ respectively. From 2003 to 2013, the port purchased a total of sixteen additional Konecranes ship to shore cranes. In the second half of 2016, the Port will welcome an additional four new ship to shore cranes arriving with an adjusted specification, lowering the capacity slightly to 61 long ton, but increasing the outreach to 200’ and the lift height to just under 136’.