HTA: Not enough moves for SoCal harbor truckers

HTA: Not enough moves for SoCal harbor truckers    The head of the Long Beach-based Harbor Trucking Association told American Shipper last week that Southern California truckers are not getting enough turns to meet their costs on new clean trucks they are required to operate by California law.
   HTA President Fred Johring also refuted claims by an organization representing terminal operators in the Southern California ports that most drayage truckers were making enough turns per day.
   In August Bruce Wargo, president and chief executive officer of PierPass, a nonprofit organization run on behalf of terminal operators in Los Angeles and Long Beach, told American Shipper that truckers were averaging three or more container pickups or deliveries per day.
   But Johring, who is also president of Rancho Dominguez-based GSL Transportation Services, said truckers need three roundtrips, not individual transactions, to make the economics of the new trucks work.
   'PierPass measures the moves one transaction at a time, and only from pedestal to pedestal,' as they put it, Johring said in an e-mail to American Shipper. 'If it's a dual transaction, they split it into two transactions. They also include movements such as chassis moves, empty terminations, and any other gate move that's not as problematic as picking up loads at a terminal.'
   Johring then explained the financial specifics facing drayage drivers.
   'If you take a $100,000 truck, and amortize it over five years at 8 percent interest, the payment is $2,027.64 per month,' he said. 'This amounts to about $100 per working day. Trucking companies are paying 'clean truck incentives' to the owner operators ranging from zero to $35 per loaded move. In our case, we pay $30. Thus, simply stated, it takes three clean truck moves, or round trips, per working day to make the payment.'
   Johring said it's difficult to estimate how many moves drayage truckers in Southern California make on average because 'every company, and every owner-operator's operation is different. Some have short-haul moves, some longer, some a mix. Some are moving 'bridge cargo' that receives special handling at the terminals to enable five to nine transactions per shift per truck.'
   Wargo, in his August conversation with American Shipper, said the terminals' efficiency was more than sufficient to allow truckers to make enough moves to meet financial requirements. He even said there's plenty of latent capacity in the ports' 13 terminals.
   But Johring said PierPass hasn't created an even level efficiency in the ports.
   'In our case, we are still seeing delays at the same terminals that were problematic from day one,' he said. 'One terminal continues to average 89 minutes per turn. That includes turns where we terminate an empty, and only take 20 minutes. There is one terminal where we have a number of transactions every week that are over five hours.
   'What is causing the delays? Certainly not traffic on the freeways. Everything is about the terminal operations. We've asked terminals to drill down on the problem transactions. Some are receptive to that, others just ignore the request.' ' Eric Johnson