Today’s pick-up: U.S. Navy goes to the cloud for logistics; NYC tries to get a grip on truck congestion

Quotable:

“From 1992 to 2009, the proportion of the population living on less than US$1.25 a day, the international measure of extreme poverty, fell from 69 percent to 12 percent, while GDP grew at…more than 8 percent a year, often hitting double digits. During this time, some 700 million people were pulled out of poverty.”

– Devashish Mitra, professor of economics at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, in a 2016 paper noting world trade’s impact on the standard of living in China and India. The paper was cited on the website of the logistics IT company Flexport.

In other news:

South Korean logistics companies enter Southeast Asia

The country’s three biggest logistics companies, CJ Logistics, Lotte Logistics and Hanjin, are aggressively targeting Southeast Asian businesses. The idea is to escape their saturated home market and find less-mature ones. (Hankyoreh)

Spot rates to stay flat through balance of year-Transplace

Ben Cubitt and Matt Harding, two top executives at the Texas-based third-party logistics provider (3PL), told consumer packaged goods shippers in Bentonville, Arkansas last week that soft demand and overcapacity will keep a lid on spot rates. (Talk Business)  

DoorDash gets surplus food where it’s needed

Through Project DASH, DoorDash provides drivers to transport surplus food from restaurants and other businesses to hunger relief non-profit groups that that have partnered with the delivery service. The service is powered by Drive, DoorDash’s fulfillment platform that lets organizations use the DoorDash fleet to deliver what and where they want. (The Spoon)

Japan’s air freight recovery could be curbed by trade spat

Japan’s once-mighty air cargo industry is showing signs of a rebound after nearly two decades in hibernation. However, the U.S.-China trade war is already dampening airfreight demand. (Japan News)

Congress seeks to curb cities’ funding for Chinese transit equipment – be careful what you legislate for

Congress is considering a bill to stop cities’ from buying Chinese transit rail cars and buses on economic and national security grounds. The only problems are there are no U.S. builders of transit equipment, and the Chinese manufacturer, CRRC, has already won bids from transit agencies in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. The Chinese company has two production plants in the U.S. (NPR).

 Final Thoughts:

New York is coming to grips with the realities of moving freight in and through an increasingly crowded city, clogging neighborhoods where in the past tractor-trailers, straight and box trucks were little more than minor inconveniences. In a story published last week by the City Limits Accountability Reporting Initiative for Youth (CLARIFY), a program for aspiring public-interest journalists, rational heads recognize that there are no bad guys, that people want stuff that has to be delivered, and that any sustainable solution must involve all stakeholders, not punish them. For example, a lack of dedicated street parking and loading/unloading areas forces trucks to double-park, not because they want to but because they have to. The complexity of another issue, nighttime deliveries, was summed up by Arthur L. Miller, a transportation attorney, who said trucking firms are willing to deliver at night, but that business owners – those receiving the stuff – have a hard time providing the resources to accept them.

Hammer down everyone!