Today at TOC Europe 2013 in Rotterdam, Konecranes introduces its Automated RTG (ARTG) system to the container handling industry. This new system provides RTG terminal operators with all the benefits of automation: operational cost savings, greater productivity, increased predictability and increased safety.

The Konecranes ARTG system is built around Konecranes’ market-leading 16-wheel RTG, which has a unique ability to tolerate rough yard surfaces. The system includes a complete package of truck guidance infrastructure, a Remote Operating Station with a specially developed Graphical User Interface (GUI), and an IT system that interfaces with the customer’s Terminal Operating System (TOS).

With its new ARTG system Konecranes has solved the problems that have been preventing the adoption of automated RTG operation. The Konecranes ARTG crane can handle the wide range of yard surface variations. The Konecranes ARTG system can handle the multi-dimensional complexity of truck traffic, which flows along the container stacks in an automated operating model.

The system is built around the Konecranes 16-wheel RTG, which is ideally suited to automation. The holistic combination of its intelligent steel structure and Active Load Control system copes with the wide range of surface variations inherent in RTG container yards, and with the variations inherent when a crane of this size runs freely on rubber tires. Customers can start with their current yard infrastructure as they move to automated RTG operation.

On the process side, Konecranes offers a model for handling truck traffic that includes special safety infrastructure and intelligent stack gates. This model is the foundation for designing customer-specific operating models.

With this full-scale introduction of Automated RTG operation, owners and operators of RTG-based container terminals have a secure growth path to fully automated operation.

Konecranes is a world-leading group of Lifting Businesses™, serving a broad range of customers, including manufacturing and process industries, shipyards, ports and terminals. Konecranes provides productivity-enhancing lifting solutions as well as services for lifting equipment and machine tools of all makes. In 2012, Group sales totaled EUR 2,170 million. The Group has 12,100 employees, at 626 locations in 48 countries. Konecranes is listed on NASDAQ OMX Helsinki (symbol: KCR1V).