Forwarder / Shipper

The opening of APM Terminals Maasvlakte II kicks off a new era in container handling. APM Terminals Maasvlakte II differentiates itself in terms of speed, reliability and safety. At Maasvlakte II, information is always ahead of the container, ensuring a flawless operation.

Optimal flow between sea and land

A smooth supply and discharge of containers from and to the hinterland is essential for APM Terminals Maasvlakte II. We therefore have a separate barge quay at our disposal, as well as a fully integrated rail terminal. We also employ slot planning for trucks. Besides, the APM Terminals Maasvlakte II terrain is split up in dedicated container stacks for barge, rail and truck haulage. After unloading from the deep sea vessel, import containers are placed according to their inland modality to make them directly available for further transportation. 

Electronic submission of customs documentation

APM Terminals Maasvlakte II exchanges information with its hinterland parties through the Port Community System of Portbase. For both import- and export containers, freight forwarders and shippers are required to submit the necessary customs documentation digitally. We subsequently ask the inland transporter to pre-announce the container ID and its corresponding visit to our terminal. Your container will then be available for delivery or pick-up at the terminal.

For more details on submission deadlines of customs documentation, we refer to the operational manuals, to be found on the bottom of this page.

Timely reporting of inland modality

If APM Terminals Maasvlakte II is informed on the inland modality of import containers in time, the containers can be placed in the correct dedicated container stack. We derive the planned inland modality from the ‘container status request’ message sent to us by barge- and rail operators through Portbase. However, these inland transporters can only send this message to APM Terminals Maasvlakte II once they have received the order from the freight forwarder or shipper. We therefore ask you to send these orders to the transporting parties as soon as possible, to make sure that they can send this message to us before the arrival of the deep sea vessel. In this way, we prevent delays together.

Online planning of intermodal transport

More and more freight forwarders and shippers are moving towards efficient, sustainable and congestion-avoiding inland transport. APM Terminals Maasvlakte II stimulates this. A right balance between incoming and outgoing containers by road, rail and barge is of great importance to us. This enables us to handle the landside logistics of ever-growing deep sea vessels fast and without delays. We therefore offer freight forwarders and shippers an overview of the available barge- and rail connections at www.liftingintermodal.com, including the corresponding inland terminals and barge operators.