The volume of operations at the Jeddah Islamic Port (JIP) is expected to increase in the coming period according to sources.

In light of this, sources in the port’s sector said three train stations serving the land flyover will be built in the JIP with the train stations catering to all the operating companies in the port.

They said that the review of the final designs for the train station inside the JIP will be completed this month following the authorities’ approval to review the station designs inside the port and to draw up and devise train routes.

Hamdi Nadra, president of strategic projects, said on Monday that the Red Sea Gate in JIP will contribute to achieving the economic purposes of the land bridge and support the logistics industry in Saudi Arabia.

He said the volume of operations and rapid growth in handling containers in the Red Sea Gate Station reached 4 million metric containers since the start of the stations’ operations and up to the end of 2013. He expected the volume of handling to exceed 5 million metric containers in 2014.

He said that the station is expected to attract young Saudis to be trained and fill vacancies in line with the nationalization policy. He confirmed that more than 26 Saudi women have been employed in the operations and customs planning departments.

Work is under way to hire more women after the extraordinary success they achieved in the station’s operations. He said that these jobs exclude field jobs and added that the JIP is the first national company to admit Saudi females in the field of port operations.

He said the company aims to employ state-of-the-art marine technology. In view of this, an infrastructure that can handle technological advancement has been established with the laying out of more than 22,000 meters of fiber-optic cable designed to withstand marine environment and 24 wireless broadcast points with a frequency of 2.44 Ghz.

The station is covered with a wireless network to accomplish operating jobs on all equipments and cranes distributing tasks electronically. Terminal units receive orders and update the database as soon as the job is accomplished. The infrastructure is also supported with giant computers, supporting equipment and informatics communications with a speed of 10 GB per second for terminal units.

“The operating system is one of the basic systems in any port or station, because it controls the movement of the containers and logistics operations from the gate to the ship’s deck. This system enables the Red Sea Gate Station to offer the needed support for its clients and increases the storage ability in the yard, as well as saving the effort to control resources,” he said.

“We chose NASDAQ, marine information technology provider and Zebra Technologies as partners for the Red Sea Gate Station, to become one of the first stations in the Middle East to use Sparcs N4, which is one of the most advanced systems in automated operations.

It is also one of the most comprehensive solutions used in the station starting from the gate and ending with the ship’s deck.