Meeting set for SoCal truck congestion

Meeting set for SoCal truck congestion    Marine terminal operators in the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles plan to meet next week with port officials, importers, exporters and trucking companies to find a resolution for truck congestion issues outside terminal gates.
   The working group, to be organized by the same group that administers the ports' PierPass program, is being convened as truck congestion threatens to become a growing problem in the nation's busiest container complex.
   Bruce Wargo, PierPass president, told American Shipper that trucks have been bunching up outside terminal gates at three points in the day — at 7 a.m., 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. The worst bunching occurring at 6 p.m. as truckers try to avoid the PierPass fee, which is assessed on containers moving during daytime, weekday hours.

Wargo

   The morning rush appears to be a result of truckers trying to get an early start to their day as morning longshore shifts begin, while the 1 p.m. bunching likely occurs as truckers queue after lunch.
   Whatever the reasons, the bunching is sufficiently troublesome that a meeting to work on solutions has become necessary. Wargo said the meeting is planned for July 29.
   'The important expectation of the meeting is to get parties to agree on what the issue really is,' Wargo said. 'There's a fundamental disconnect about what the problem is. The general opinion is that the terminals should hire more people and work faster. The problem with that is there are huge gaps where there are no trucks there.”
   Wargo compared it to a Starbucks being asked to hire extra people for the morning pre-office rush, then having no one to serve coffee to for a few hours.
   'If you were to look at the terminals at 7 a.m. there would be a lot of trucks in line, but if you came back at 8:30 a.m. there would be hardly any trucks and at 9 a.m. you'd zoom through,' Wargo said. 'Time and overhead management is the issue for the terminal operators. But it's important to understand the other perspectives.'
   The congestion affects various terminals in different ways — particularly given that some terminals' gates are located on main roads while others empty into access roads with more space for lines of trucks.
   Potential solutions like appointment systems — where trucks are given specific time slots to enter the terminals — will likely be mooted at the meeting. Currently, only three of the 13 terminals (the Hanjin-affiliated Total Terminals International in Long Beach, and the Yang Ming-affiliated West Basin Container Terminal and Evergreen-affiliated STS terminal in Los Angeles) in the two ports require truckers to make appointments.
   Adding fuel to the fire is that an overhaul of the truck fleet in Southern California — with truckers getting cleaner, newer, but more expensive trucks — means that truckers must work more to pay off more expensive assets.
   'The increasing cost of the trucks is a new factor in the congestion,' Wargo said. 'The trucking industry has upgraded their fleet, and that has put economic pressure to keep trucks moving. The issue is the higher cost of the trucks. Those older trucks were paid with cash, so there was no asset to amortize. It's a very different environment now.'
   The average price of trucks has reportedly gone from $12,000 to $100,000, meaning larger payments and a need for truckers to maximize their time.
   Wargo added that terminal operators see the congestion getting worse when volumes rise further. The terminals were turning 35,000 trucks daily during the 2007 peak, and that number nearly halved, to 19,000 turns, during the 2009 low. The ports are back up to 25,000 turns daily.
   'The volumes are coming back,' Wargo said. 'The terminals are taking the issue seriously because they don't want to stumble when the cargo comes back and we'll be busier.' ' Eric Johnson