Port Tariff-to-Service Architecture Director

The mandate

The port is resetting tariffs after capacity expansion, but current charges reward throughput, storage and service use without showing which behaviours improve berth reliability, yard flow or landside evacuation. Carriers seek discounts, concessionaires protect revenue and users dispute measures they cannot reproduce. The defined problem is an operationally coherent charge-and-service architecture, not statutory rate approval, competition opinion or commercial negotiation.

The deliverable is a tariff-to-service decision book covering 24 principal charges, their cost and policy rationale, measurable service condition, behavioural incentive, exceptions, authority, evidence and review trigger. It includes six customer archetypes, eight worked call and dwell cases, a service-measure dictionary and implementation sequence. Legal drafting, valuation, regulatory submission, negotiation and billing-system configuration are excluded.

The charging architecture passes five milestone decision tables. On week three, the table must reconcile the 24 principal charges with revenue and the service events said to justify them. Week seven brings the behavioural diagnosis and reproducible measure definitions. Eight worked cases across six customer archetypes are due at week twelve. Carriers and concessionaires challenge the resulting incentives in week sixteen. Month five closes with acceptance of the decision book, the deliberately unresolved policy questions and the 120-day backlog.

Acceptance requires Operations, Finance, Legal and two concessionaires to reproduce each worked case and identify the same charge, service event, exception and authority. Proposed incentives must not reward dwell, unsafe speed or displaced congestion. The steering council accepts when customer scenarios show transparent consequence, competent bodies own statutory decisions and management has a funded implementation plan independent of the consultant.

The client will provide tariff schedules, invoices, concession terms, cost and revenue data, port-call, berth, yard, storage, gate and rail evidence, customer disputes and policy objectives. It will nominate commercial and operations sponsors, secure user workshops and identify matters requiring public or competition authority. Management retains all tariff, concession, negotiation, regulatory and billing decisions.

Why this is external work

Finance can model revenue, Operations can define service and concessionaires can defend contracts, but none is neutral about the incentives embedded in current charges. The port needs a specialist who has changed operating behaviour through tariff design without acting as regulator or negotiator. External authorship separates evidence architecture from the later political rate choice.

What you will own

• Reconcile 24 principal charges to revenue, service event, user population, exception and current decision authority.
• Diagnose where charges reward dwell, repeated handling, peak arrival, cancellation or congestion displacement.
• Define reproducible berth, marine, yard, storage, rail and gate service measures with source and tolerance.
• Work eight call and cargo cases across six customer archetypes to expose cross-subsidy and behavioural consequence.
• Frame alternative charge structures and service conditions without recommending statutory legality or negotiated outcomes.
• Facilitate carrier and concessionaire challenge while recording evidence disagreement and unresolved policy choice.
• Deliver the accepted decision book, measure dictionary, case library and funded 120-day implementation backlog.

Candidate qualifications

• Designed port, terminal or marine-service tariffs linked to operating performance and user behaviour.
• Has removed a charge or incentive that unintentionally increased dwell, peak congestion or repeated handling.
• Understands harbour dues, nautical services, terminal handling, storage and landside flow at decision level.
• Can connect service evidence to economics without offering competition, regulatory or concession legal opinion.
• Managed carrier and concessionaire challenge using source-reproducible cases rather than benchmark assertion.
• Delivered an implementable architecture without retaining negotiation, billing or regulatory-submission work through live invoice and call testing.

Non-negotiables

• Can complete five port-user and concessionaire evidence reviews within the five-month term.
• Will not provide legal, regulatory, valuation, negotiation, billing-system or concession-advisory services.
• Accepts that tariff, concession, competition and commercial decisions remain with authorised bodies.
• Brings operational tariff evidence; port pricing benchmarking alone is insufficient.

1. 49 words maximum. Describe a port charge that unintentionally rewarded congestion or repeated handling.
2. 49 words maximum. How would you link a tariff condition to source-reproducible service evidence?
3. 49 words maximum. Which policy choice must remain outside an operating tariff architecture?