That is no surprise as the consequences of unsafe and badly secured cargo are serious.  According to freight transport insurer TT Club, some 65 percent of all its claims feature cargo loss or damage and of these over one-third result from poor packing.

TT Club and Exis Technologies have come together to develop CTUpack e-learning, an online training tool for those involved in the loading and unloading of containers or cargo transport units.

Designed and produced by Exis Technologies on the initiative of TT Club, and with its financial investment, the CTUpack e-learning course is aligned with International Labour Organisation/International Maritime Organisation/United Nations Economic Commission for Europe guidelines for packing containers. Beginning with the foundation course, which will be launched later this year, it will comprise modules that include topics such as cargo or transport and elements that are the equivalent of lessons, covering areas like forces and stresses.

In the future, the course will evolve to reflect developments and updates to the ILO guidelines and there is a capacity for additional modules to incorporate cargo specific and more advanced training elements.

The CTUpack e-learning foundation course will be available for the web or intranet, in both cases providing administrator functions for setting up and monitoring students' records. There will also be a version that is compliant with SCORM, the internationally recognised collection of standards and specifications for web-based e-learning, for use within standard learning management systems.

Peregrine Storrs-Fox, TT Club's risk management director, said: "CTUpack e-learning follows the well established IMDG Code e-learning training course from Exis, which is also sponsored by TT Club. Both courses are relevant to the risk management approach that the Club has always fostered within the global freight transport community. As in other operational sectors of the industry, training is clearly the number one loss prevention measure and, if adopted as a core feature of an operator's culture, can greatly reduce the number of claims that we see each year."

Source: British International Freight Association