Trucker turn times measurement is flawed, consultant says Truckers in Los Angeles-Long Beach have complained for years that turn times are lousy — oftentimes two hours or longer. Marine terminal operators are adamant that the average turn time is less than one hour. Transportation consultant Val Noronha says both claims are accurate; it’s the measurement that’s flawed. “There’s a problem with this,” said Noronha, who is president of Digital Geographic Research in Santa Barbara, California. “‘Average’ is not the appropriate statistic,” he said. Noronha has studied turn times in Los Angeles-Long Beach for the past five years using GPS technology. His studies confirm what terminal operators have been saying. The majority of truck visits, in fact, last an hour or less. However, the average turn time in the harbor means nothing to the growing number of truckers who spend two hours or longer to complete their transactions. Noronha’s GPS data for May 2014 show that 22 percent of all the truck visits in Los Angeles-Long Beach took two hours or longer. That is 50 percent higher than four years ago, he said. The growing incidence of lengthy delays can be attributed in part to construction in the nation’s busiest harbor, the transition of some operations from wheeled to grounded storage of containers and the new chassis regime, but the overriding cause is probably the tsunami of big ships that will only grow even larger in the coming years. Ports in Europe, where the ships are even bigger, have struggled all year with the huge volumes of containers that are discharged and loaded onto vessels during each call. A Sept. 1 article in JOC noted that 244 large container vessels of more than 10,000 20-foot container capacity called at Hamburg in the first half of 2014, an increase of 27 percent over the same period last year. Although the vessels calling at ports in North America are slightly smaller, the introduction of big ships of 8,000-TEU capacity or greater is occurring just as rapidly. As a result, lengthy truck turn times have plagued New York-New Jersey, the Virginia ports and Vancouver, British Columbia, as well as Los Angeles-Long Beach. Noronha said he has suggestions that could improve truck turn times noticeably. While his program is geared for Los Angeles-Long Beach, some of his suggestions would work at other ports as well, he said. Full-size chart GPS tracking of truck visits regularly shows one-hour turn times in mid-morning, but two-hour visits, or longer, at longshore lunch breaks. Noronha suggests that terminal operators stagger the lunch breaks, working half of the longshoremen from 11 a.m. until noon and the other half from noon to 1 p.m. to maintain an uninterrupted flow of trucks into and out of the terminals. Opinions on staggered lunch breaks are divided. Some terminal operators say the result is two consecutive hours of 50 percent productivity at the gates. However, Noronha said a 60-minute break in gate activity invariably turns into a 75- or 90-minute break by the time all workers are back at their stations. Also, when the gates are closed for an hour, truckers who are caught in the yard are stuck there until the gates are reopened. Another suggestion is specific to Los Angeles-Long Beach, which is the only U.S. port with a formal program of night and weekend shifts. In addition to the traditional 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. gate that is found at all ports on weekdays, the Southern California PierPass program offers up to four weekday night gates from 6 p.m. to 3 a.m., plus one Saturday daytime gate each week. Since this schedule calls for shutting the gates from 5 to 6 p.m. on weekdays, the hour downtime creates the same problems that the lunch breaks cause. Noronha suggests the night shift be moved forward one hour to begin at 5 p.m. This change would come at a cost because the West Coast longshore contract lists specific work shifts of 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. Terminals are free to “flex” the night shift start time to 5 p.m., but they must pay overtime wages to longshoremen to work the extra hour. Terminal operators in Los Angeles-Long Beach are able to afford to open their gates for five additional shifts each week because the PierPass program includes a traffic mitigation fee that is charged to cargo interests for delivering or picking up containers during the daytime shift. The revenue from the traffic mitigation fee helps terminals cover the cost of operating the night and weekend shifts. The fee is currently $66.50 per 20-foot container and $133 per 40-foot container. Noronha suggests reducing the fee in mid-afternoon, maybe from 3 to 5 p.m., to reduce one of the worst spikes in turn times that occurs each day in late afternoon. Larger retailers and importers avoid paying the mitigation fee by conducting most of their business at the ports beginning at 6 p.m., when the fee is no longer charged. Many truckers begin lining up at the terminals at 3 or 4 p.m., waiting until the night shift begins at 6 p.m. so their customers don’t have to pay the traffic mitigation fee. About 55 percent of truck traffic in Los Angeles-Long Beach now occurs at night and on weekends, according to PierPass. Many smaller importers cannot afford to keep their warehouses open at night, so they end up paying the fee during the daytime. While big shippers generally wait until 6 p.m., Noronha believes there is a segment that would send their trucks into the terminals beginning at 3 p.m. if the charge were lowered somewhat, with the trade-off being a much quicker transaction time. The key to making these suggestions work, Noronha said, is to survey the many retailers, importers and exporters who send trucks to the harbor to see how many would find a reduced fee in mid-afternoon to be attractive, and what price point is required to make the program work. “The aim is to do this on a cost-neutral basis,” Noronha said. Bruce Wargo, president of PierPass, said terminal operators may, in fact, support Noronha’s suggestions, if sufficient research is conducted to ensure support for the changes, and if the program would truly be cost-neutral. Wargo noted that during busy periods many terminals are already staggering their lunch breaks or are flexing their evening gates to start earlier. As for reducing the mitigation fee from 3 to 5 p.m., Wargo said the fee currently generates about $63,000 in revenue for an eight-hour shift. It is possible the fee could be reduced for two hours if the lost revenue could be recovered somewhere else in the process. “These are good suggestions. The first step is to do due diligence,” he said. Cargo interests who are avoiding the mitigation fee now by conducting their business after 6 p.m. must be polled to determine if they see value in sending some of their trucks to the harbor in mid-afternoon and paying a reduced fee in return for faster turn times. Marine terminal operations are quite complex and are affected each day by scheduled events, such as lunch breaks, by unexpected events such as equipment breakdowns, extended disruptions because of construction, and long-term trends such as the introduction of ever-larger vessels into the U.S. trades. Although suggested changes such as staggered lunch breaks and an earlier start to the night shift will not solve all of these problems, they would prove to be beneficial for cargo interests, truckers and terminal operators if they significantly reduce the 22 percent of truck visits that take two hours or longer, Noronha said. “If at the end of the day it is cost-neutral, it will be better than the curve we’ve been seeing,” he said.
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 20:23:41 +0000
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