Operations/Terminals
Operations · Container terminals

Terminals

Quay, yard, gate and rail run as one machine, on one plan, re-solved every second.

Phase 4 · 2030–2032Planned
Throughput
25,000 TEU / acre / yr
Crane moves / hour
120 peak · 85 sustained
Truck turn
20 min
Import dwell
1.5 days
Reference terminal — plan view
300 acres · 1,300 m of quay · 7.5 million TEU a year
Quay
Three berths, 18 cranes. A 24,000 TEU ship works eight cranes and sails in about 20 hours.
Yard
36 automated blocks stacked five high. Every import has a slot before it leaves the ship.
Land side
Ten camera gate lanes and on-dock rail. 40% of boxes leave by train.
I · The operating model

One operator from the ship’s hold to the gate.

The first terminal is a concession or joint venture at a secondary port. Infrastructure capital funds berths, yard and grid. IC runs the operation with its own machines and The Brain, and rebuilds the terminal to this layout block by block.

01 · Entry

Concession or joint venture

A 30 to 50 year concession or joint venture with a port authority, starting at a secondary port. Infrastructure funds carry the civil works; IC operates and supplies every machine.

02 · Quay

Three berths, 18 cranes

Each crane lifts two forty-foot boxes a minute at peak and holds 85 boxes an hour over a shift. A 24,000 TEU ship exchanges 12,000 boxes in one 20-hour call.

03 · Yard

Blocks that never wait

Automated rail-mounted gantries stack five high in 36 blocks. The slot for every import is chosen before discharge, so boxes are stacked in the order they leave.

04 · Gate

Twenty minutes, gate to gate

Ten camera lanes read the truck, the box and the seal. The truck is called only when its box is staged at the interchange, so there is no queue at the gate.

05 · Rail

Trains built the same day

On-dock rail takes 40% of boxes: about seven 3 km trains out and seven in each day, handed straight to the IC rail network.

Rail network →
06 · People

Supervisors, not drivers

Twelve supervisors a shift run the terminal from the operations room. They see the same twin, hold or reroute any move and clear exceptions. No one works inside the automated zone while it runs.

II · A box through the terminal

From the hold to the gate in a day and a half.

Every move is planned before the ship is alongside. The crane, the road train, the yard crane and the truck each arrive at the minute the box does.

Import box — six hand-offs, one plan
01 · Hold
Discharge sequence set before arrival
02 · Crane
Tandem lift, 2 × 40 ft, 60 s cycle
03 · Road train
4 × 40 ft per trip to the block
04 · Yard
Stacked in the order it leaves
05 · Interchange
Staged before the truck is called
06 · Gate or rail
20 min truck turn · same-day train
Berth window — eight cranes on one ship
Discharge and load run on every crane at 85 boxes an hour sustained: 12,000 boxes in 17.6 hours of crane time, plus berthing and lines, is a 20-hour call.
Terminal throughput
25,000 TEU / acre / yr
vs ≈ 5,000 at LA/LB today
Crane moves / hour
120 peak · 85 sustained
per crane; 25–34 at US terminals
Truck turn time
20 min
gate-in to gate-out; 55 min today
Container dwell
1.5 days
import, 2.95 today. Rail 2.0 vs 6.75
III · The machines

Six machines, one plan.

Every machine on the terminal is built by IC for The Brain. 176 machines work the reference terminal; each links to its own page.

18 units · Quay

Ship-to-shore crane

Two forty-foot boxes a lift, a lift a minute at peak. Three berths, eight cranes on the largest ships.

Ship-to-shore crane →
78 units · Yard and rail

Rail-mounted gantry crane

72 work the 36 yard blocks in pairs; 6 load and unload trains on the on-dock tracks.

Rail-mounted gantry crane →
48 units · Horizontal transport

Terminal tractor

Road trains of four forty-foot boxes between crane, block and rail yard, 40 to 48 boxes an hour each.

Terminal tractor →
12 units · Truck interchange

Straddle carrier

Stages each import at its interchange slot before the truck is called, and takes exports off the chassis.

Straddle carrier →
12 units · Empties

Rubber-tired gantry crane

Works the empty-container yard and moves between blocks as the empty flow shifts.

Rubber-tired gantry crane →
8 units · Depot and special cargo

Reach stacker

Out-of-gauge boxes, the empty depot and tight corners the gantries do not reach.

Reach stacker →
IV · On The Brain

The terminal is one object in the twin.

The Brain holds the common operating picture, the digital twin and the shared data model for every box and machine. Its decision layer plans the quay, yard, gate and rail together; orchestration hands each machine its next move.

Runs on The Brain
How the terminal takes its orders
Common pictureEvery box, machine, truck, train and person on the terminal, located continuously and shown to supervisors on one screen
Digital twinThe terminal in 3D, updated ten times a second; each berth window is run forward in the twin before the ship arrives
Data modelOne record per box: holds, customs release, appointment, yard slot and train. Carriers, truckers and rail read the same record
Decision layerDischarge and load sequence, yard slots, truck slots and train builds solved as one problem, re-solved every second
OrchestrationThe next move for each of 176 machines; any step can be held, changed or vetoed from the operations room
Agents≈ 60,000 box agents on the terminal at once, plus one per machine, berth, truck and train; ≈ 2,500 state changes a second at peak
MachinesEvery sensor on a machine is wired to both of its compute modules; each module is primary for its zone and hot standby for the other
SafetyA software fault can never drive any machine outside its certified safe envelope. Each machine’s safety channel has its own encoders, load cells, limit switches and safety-rated lidar and radar
LinkDual fibre ring to every quay crane, block and gate; private 5G to mobile machines. A plan reaches a machine within 1.2 s; every safety loop closes on the machine
The Brain plans; the machine executes. Commands pass from the machine agent through the certified safety channel to the drives, never around it, and every machine keeps working its last plan through any outage of the link.
V · Operating figures

The reference terminal.

Design specification.

Area
300 acres
Quay
1,300 m · 3 berths
Throughput
7.5 million TEU / yr
Boxes
≈ 12,000 / day
Berth rate
680 boxes / hr · 8 cranes
Ship call
≈ 20 h · 12,000 boxes
Rail share
40% · ≈ 7 trains out / day
Gate
10 lanes · 300 trucks / hr
Machines
176, all electric
Power
≈ 14 MW avg · 26 MW peak
Handling energy
≈ 8 kWh / TEU
Diesel on terminal
0
Today vs IC
Today’s US container terminal beside the IC terminal
Today · US container terminalIC design
Crane rate25–34 moves per crane-hour at US terminals120 boxes an hour peak, 85 sustained, per crane
Density≈ 5,000 TEU per acre a year at LA/LB25,000 TEU per acre a year
Truck turn55 min port average; 39 min at the best terminal20 min gate-in to gate-out, no queue at the gate
DwellImport 2.95 days; rail 6.75 daysImport 1.5 days; rail 2.0 days
Yard transportDiesel yard tractors, one box per tripBattery road trains, four forty-foot boxes per trip
Vessel timeLong Beach 318th and Los Angeles 359th of 403 ports on the global index of vessel time in portA 24,000 TEU ship exchanging 12,000 boxes sails in ≈ 20 hours
The IC column is the design shown on this page. Sources for the Today column are listed in BUILD_NOTES.md.
Runs on The Brain
Every box, crane, carrier and truck on the terminal is one record in The Brain, planned together and re-planned the moment reality drifts.
See how it works →