Is Truck Congestion Higher on the Ports of Los Angeles & Lengthy Seaside?
Congestion on the Ports of Los Angeles and Lengthy Seaside hit unbelievable ranges throughout the contract negotiations between the Pacific Maritime Affiliation (PMA) and the Worldwide Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) final summer season… and fall… and winter.
Traces of vans spilled out of terminals and the dual ports. Vans ready for hours to choose up and ship cargo containers led to charges for shippers, delays in receiving items, and truckers leaving the enterprise.
Have issues gotten higher?
On the very least, issues couldn’t have gotten any worse, proper?
A latest article by Invoice Mongelluzzo within the Journal of Commerce (JOC) says that flip occasions are bettering on the Ports of Los Angeles and Lengthy Seaside, however haven’t improved sufficient for truckers. The actual query is whether or not the time it takes for vans to get in to terminals, decide up transport containers, and get out of the port ever will get quick sufficient.
The lower in time it takes for trucking transactions to be accomplished is much from environment friendly.
Right here’s the image Mongelluzzo paints of how issues stand proper now:
The common time to finish a trucking transaction at Los Angeles-Lengthy Seaside port advanced in July fell by 4 minutes from the prior month, however nobody is celebrating.
Regardless that the common flip time fell to 89 minutes, down from 93 minutes in June, the Harbor Trucking Affiliation of Southern California says flip occasions at marine terminals should get again all the way down to 60 minutes if the harbor is to function effectively. Shorter truck occasions aren’t simply wanted for brisker provide chains, but in addition to maintain drayage drivers serving the biggest North American container gateway from parking their rigs and discovering jobs elsewhere.
Numbers revealed by the HTA for July point out that the 13 container terminals in Los Angeles-Lengthy Seaside are recovering from the congestion that has been plaguing the biggest U.S. port advanced for greater than a yr now, however truck visits are nonetheless for much longer than they have been in early 2014, when flip occasions have been 60 to 70 minutes.
The best way issues have been constantly going for the final a number of months, about an hour and a half appears to be the traditional go to time for truckers visiting the Ports of Los Angeles and Lengthy Seaside.
“…the common truck go to has been caught within the vary of 93 to 89 minutes the previous 4 months, main HTA Government Director Weston LaBar to state that he fears the brand new regular for the harbor is about 90 minutes,” Mongelluzzo writes.
Whereas that’s higher than issues have been at their worst, an hour and half continues to be not good.
Nonetheless, there may be some excellent news within the JOC article. Some terminals are working rather more effectively than this 90-minute “new regular” trucking time would point out.
Right here’s how Mongelluzzo explains it:
The common truck go to occasions, nevertheless, inform solely a part of the story. Drilling down to every of the person terminals, it’s clear that some terminals are performing very effectively whereas others have flip occasions that drastically exceed the common.
For instance, the Matson-SSA terminal in Lengthy Seaside, constantly data the quickest flip occasions within the port advanced. In July, the common flip time was 43 minutes, and just one.9 p.c of the truck visits took longer than two hours. Truckers take into account a flip time of longer than two hours to be unacceptable.
Conversely, the ITS terminal in July had the longest common flip time of 126 minutes, and 45.8 p.c of the flip occasions exceeded two hours.
I suppose in the event you have been a glass half empty kind of particular person you might take a look at terminals just like the ITS one and level out the unhealthy information that there’s a terminal with common truck flip occasions unacceptably over two hours.
Nonetheless, being a glass half full kind, seeing a terminal the place the common is effectively beneath the hour customary from earlier than chassis points, contentious contract negotiations, and different elements led to congestion that price the Los Angeles and Lengthy Seaside market share is nice information that truck congestion on the ports can actually be solved.
That’s not precisely the excellent news that’s identified in Mongelluzzo’s article. Mongelluzzo’s article ends with the optimistic the HTA Government Director sees on this all:
La Bar mentioned that if there’s a silver lining within the less-than-acceptable common flip occasions within the harbor, it’s that many retailers and different shippers, anxious to retain truck capability, have agreed to pay driver ready time on the terminals.
Shippers agreed to pay driver ready occasions. Certain, as if that they had any actual alternative in shelling out money for these driver ready or port congestion charges.
The actual silver lining is that at many terminals driver ready time is getting all the way down to acceptable occasions. 43 minutes is even a fairly good flip time.
Hopefully, shippers will get to cease paying driver ready time and associated charges if the ports can hold working towards larger effectivity.
