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TT Club urges formal training for warehousemen packing boxes and trucks

BRITISH transport insurance provider TT Club is urging training for those packing containers so that weight distribution is spread out in a way outlined in a training scheme it is promoting. While praising the work of the International Maritime Organisation's (IMO) maritime safety committee on unit load safety, there is much to be done in developing safety throughout the supply chain, said the TT Club statement.

With the verification of container weights becoming mandatory in July 2016, comes the responsibility of shippers to declare gross mass of their consignments accurately and as well as clarify how calculations were made.

TT Club's views are supported by both the International Cargo Handling Co-ordination Association (ICHCA) and developer of e-learning training courses for the transport industry, Exis Technologies.

"Increased training of those employed by shippers, consolidators, warehouses and depots to pack containers and road trailers is now essential," said TT Club risk management director Peregrine Storrs-Fox.

ICHCA will be repeating its successful and informative CTU Roadshow, first held in Harwich earlier this year, in Hull in the New Year, the date of which will be confirmed shortly.

Exis Technologies was commissioned by TT Club to develop the CTU pack e-learning course, which was launched in January 2014.

"This foundation course provides lessons focusing on the issues most relevant to the packers of unit loads, including forces and stresses encountered during transport and how these impinge on the safe packing and securing cargo in a CTU," said the TT Club release.

Said Mr Storrs-Fox: "Such training is clearly the number one loss prevention measure and, if adopted as a core feature of the operator's culture, can greatly reduce the number of incidents incurred globally each year throughout the industry."

The TT Club also approved of non-mandatory Code of Practice, of the Cargo Transport Unit Code and its related "informative material".

"While only some jurisdictions may enshrine the code in national legislation, the entire freight industry must recognise that this detailed guidance for the safe packing of unit loads may now be used in litigation," said the release.