Referring to the revival by some acronyms of the world of road haulage of surcharges on the invoice determined by ordinary serious criticalities that can be found in the operating cycles in some Italian ports, the Italian Association of Port Terminal Operators (Assiterminal) highlighted in a note that "The affair seems to us to have already been governed by the recent Introduction of the extra-time fee rule of the Decree-Law infrastructure which, moreover, would require some precautions to avoid risks of unconstitutionality: which is why We have proposed a specific amendment".

In addition, the association recalls "that the Authorities of Port System may well adopt regulatory and/or control aimed at ensuring performance levels (of the carriers and terminals) in compliance with the on the quality of regulation envisaged at OECD and EU level. In particular - specifies Assiterminal - the activity regulatory framework "should" follow a precise procedure that includes: collection of the need (which can be inferred by the requests of road haulage associations); Verification of its objectivity and genuineness; The experiment of a market analysis aimed at identifying the "distance" between the need and the market, ordinarily understood as normal Meeting between "supply and demand" for each type in the reference area; the identification of measures to remedy the aforementioned distance (suitability check); the verification of the proportionality of the measures (i.e. lack of alternative measures less detrimental to the freedom to conduct a business)".

"We are not aware - continues the note of the association - that, to date, most of the Authorities have put in place be the appropriate investigation described above and have undertaken consequent actions through the appropriate tools. Notice instead the succession of initiatives on the individual territories, fragmented if not sometimes even aimed at specific Operators; initiatives in any case solely focused on operational dynamics of the ports and not on the supply chain, with the obvious risk of instrumentalization and fueling a non-transparent competitiveness of the system as a whole".

According to Assiterminal, "the evolution of PCS and systems of booking slots used by most operators already allows a planning of withdrawals and deliveries net of the problems that the haulier experiences, on his skin, in the entire cycle of his journey (relationship and negotiation dynamics between customer and shipper, critical issues infrastructural ...). The terminals - underlines the association - are "one" of the ganglia of the logistics chain: which tends too often to identify them as "the" cause of Any system dysfunctions are not good for us."

"It is obviously in the interest of terminal operators - concludes the note - that logistics flows are orderly and regular and Assiterminal, like the other associations in the sector, wants to be An interlocutor always available to actively improve the efficiency of port logistics, without penalizing users with further increases in costs, especially in a context in which The extra costs on the goods add up for very different reasons from Italian port operations".