CITOS

As a major hub handling 17% of the world’s transhipment cargo, PSA's Singapore Terminals provides shippers a choice of 200 shipping lines with connections to 600 ports in 123 countries. The extensive connectivity and staggering volumes are supported by our IT backbone - Computer Integrated Terminal Operations System (CITOS®). First developed in 1988, CITOS is an enterprise resource planning system that coordinates and integrates every asset from prime movers, yard cranes and quay cranes to containers and drivers.

Previously, resources were allocated to specific areas of the yard and stayed there regardless of needs elsewhere. With CITOS, PSA has a powerful tool that allowed the port to manage its equipment and people seamlessly, flexibly and in real-time.

Some examples of how CITOS directs our port operations:

On a typical day, 60 vessels of different sizes call at our port. Although 90% of them arrive out of schedule, our berth planning system allows most of them to be berthed on arrival.

Planning begins 72 hours before the ship arrives, when the shipping line applies for a berth and sends ship stowage and connection instructions to PSA through PORTNET.

Once berthed, the quay cranes discharge boxes destined for other ports and load boxes brought in by other vessels. The Prime Movers are tracked individually via the Global Positioning System and distributed dynamically among the vessels.

The prime mover moves off to a container holding area in the yard. There, the yard cranes lift containers from prime movers and stack them up in the yard. The sequence is reversed for delivery out of the yard to a connecting vessel.

Containers are not stacked in a random manner. When the information is keyed into the system through PORTNET, CITOS automatically generates ship stowage plans and yard layout plans based on factors, such as:

This allows us to: