Short sea shipping conference discusses shipper apathy

Short sea shipping conference discusses shipper apathy    Attendees at the U.S. Maritime Administration's third annual Short Sea Shipping Conference heard a frank discussion Thursday of how to overcome indifference shown by shippers thus far to the 'short sea' concept of moving containers on barges and feeder vessels via coastal and inland waters to ease congestion on highways.
   'Shippers don't care what mode of transportation they use. If the value's there, it doesn't matter if the journey is slightly longer by short sea than by truck, so long as the service is consistent,' said Edward M. Emmett, president of TransSystems Advisors and a former president of the National Industrial Transportation League.
   Asked by Shippers' NewsWire why shippers would want to pay at least three times their present trucking costs to move containers on short sea routes, Joel R. Hoiland, president of the International Warehouse and Logistics Association and member of a panel moderated by Emmett, replied, 'setting short sea rates which would be equal or lower to trucks is a major challenge.'
   Craig Fuller, vice president and general manager of XpressDirect, a unit of U.S. Xpress Inc., said trucking companies are willing 'to explore ways to defer unfriendly freight' from highways, 'unfriendly' describing freight traveling on high-cost routings to destinations such as New York.
   Emmett, at one point, asked how many in the audience of about 250 were actually shippers, meaning they were possible users of short sea services. Only one person stood up. 'You see?' Emmett said. 'That's the problem. We have to get more shippers interested.'
   The conference, being held at the New York Hilton through today, has been attended predominantly by representatives of federal agencies, ocean carriers, labor unions, transportation consultancies, port authorities and intermodal associations.
   Peter Shaerf, senior vice president of American Marine Advisors, warned short sea advocates: 'if you don't have any cargo, you won't have any revenue.' Other participants in the conference said it would be unfortunate if millions of dollars were spent developing a U.S. short sea infrastructure that few shippers would then use. 'It's like the proverbial ballpark,' one source noted. 'If you build it, and 'they' come, fine. But if 'they' don't come, then you have more than mud on your face.'
   Practically and politically speaking, 'much more evidential support from shippers is going to be necessary before this takes off,' said Ed Kargl, vice president, business development, for the Fraser River Port Authority in British Columbia.
   Capt. William G. Schubert, U.S. maritime administrator, told the conference that short sea shipping was 'an exciting option for expanding capacity and relieving congestion.' To avoid confusion with Jones Act ocean shipping operations, Schubert said the term 'short sea shipping' might plausibly be changed to 'national waterways highway system.'
   Schubert presented a check from the Maritime Administration for $50,000 to the Short Sea Shipping Cooperative Program (SCOOP), a non-profit organization of 65 maritime industry members founded in the fall of 2003.
   Charles G. 'Chuck' Raymond, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Horizon Lines, said 'the trilogy of water, rail and highway systems should compliment and not compete with each other' in promoting a U.S. short sea shipping initiative.
   Raymond explained that in Europe short sea shipping has been used 'to mitigate significant surface transportation problems for more than 10 years ' today, in excess of 44 percent of all freight movements in the European Union are waterborne.'
   Attendees were visibly puzzled when Christopher Ward, commissioner of the New York City department of environmental protection, referred repeatedly to sewage seeping into the Hudson River during remarks welcoming the conference on behalf of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. Ward then realized that it wasn't an environmental event and quickly sat down.