A GCT Global Container Terminals Inc (GCT) business unit plans major expansion in Bayonne by developing a 28 ha (70 acre) container handling operation.

However Steven Simpkin, director of power equipment for Global Terminal & Container Services, in Bayonne, says significant technological advances will reduce the marine terminal's future forklift use.

Simpkin says the site, on the Port Jersey peninsula of Upper New York Bay, currently has three-ton forklifts primarily for maintenance functions, at least seven side-loading forklifts and four heavy-lift "top picks for container handling". He says "their usage will go down with the new project".

The expanded operation will use the next generation of container handling equipment, increase trucking efficiency and provide seamless intermodal rail connections to accommodate the increasingly larger ocean-going container vessels. The New Jersey site currently handles 12% of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey's container volume.

GCT is based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and, in addition to Bayonne, has container handling operations in Vancouver and Delta, British Columbia, and Staten Island, New York. GCT was established in 2007 as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.