Drayage

PierPass Inc. has been a lightening rod for criticism from cargo interests and truckers in Los Angeles-Long Beach for an alleged lack of transparency in the funding of night and weekend gates, but an initial Federal Maritime Commission review uncovered no glaring problems with the entity that manages the extended-gates program.

Truckers calling in Los Angeles-Long Beach are experiencing the lowest in-terminal service times since longshore labor issues in the fall of 2014 created the worst port congestion in more than a decade, according to the organization that represents the 13 container terminals in the largest U.S. port complex.

Reducing the amount of time that truckers spend waiting in line and being processed at North American marine terminals and off-dock facilities will have a larger impact on improving overall supply-chain efficiency than any other area, according to a study by a Vancouver transportation consultant.

Truckers at the Port of New York and New Jersey have begun applying for grants to help finance replacement of up to 80 of the several thousand older trucks that are set to be banned from port terminals in less than 14 months.

Old Dominion Freight Line is rebuilding its drayage model around company drivers to better align container hauling with its less-than-truckload business and avoid court battles over worker classification. The less-than-truckload carrier is also focusing more on East Coast ports.

Renewed flare-ups of drayage driver discontent at Port Metro Vancouver have revived concerns that trucker disruption could return to the port despite moves taken to quell unrest.

The Teamsters union is eying California, a state with drivers clamoring for representation and a regulatory climate sympathetic to work misclassification, as a launching pad for a national drayage organizing push.

The contentious debate over whether West Coast employers and dockworkers have the legal authority to perform safety inspections and repairs on chassis at marine terminals will most likely be resolved by a court, and it will be up to the chassis-leasing companies to initiate the legal action, according to freight forwarders and customs brokers.

Verbal abuse of harbor truck drivers at marine terminals by some members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union continues to happen despite efforts by the ports and the union to end the practice.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is “considering all options” for replacing thousands of older trucks in order to meet a fast-approaching deadline under the port’s clean-air plan, a spokesman said.

After months of delay, the Port of New York and New Jersey is moving to break a truck-replacement deadlock that motor carriers say threatens their continued ability to serve the U.S. East Coast’s busiest port.

The delicate balance that industrial real estate developers in Southern California’s Inland Empire hope to achieve between expansion of the warehouse and logistics sector and the desire of local communities to cap traffic congestion and pollution has come to a head with a proposed 2,600-acre project in Moreno Valley, California.

Manila’s two main terminals have launched a vehicle booking system that is expected to improve container flows into and out of the port as the Philippines’ peak shipping season approaches.

Truckers serving Conley Container Terminal at the port of Boston can use a newly-launched app to find out when containers are ready to be picked up, another sign of how technology is being tapped to improve port productivity

Harbor truckers in Los Angeles-Long Beach sincerely want terminal operators to succeed in their ground-breaking plan to develop a system of appointments throughout the harbor. But they fear that the logistics involved in coordinating as many as a dozen stand-alone trucker appointment systems will be very difficult to arrange.

National Retail Systems is putting an all-electric truck into drayage service at the Port of Los Angeles for retail shipper IKEA, which has aggressive sustainability goals.

In a high-risk, possibly high-reward attempt to manage truck flow and reduce congestion, 10 of the 13 container terminals in Los Angeles-Long Beach on Thursday adopted a trucker appointment system action plan with the goal of establishing a system of appointments throughout the harbor beginning in 2016.

The Port of Oakland “strongly supports” its marine terminals’ plans for Saturday truck gate operations but has two big concerns,Chris Lytle, port executive director, told the U.S. Federal Maritime Commission.

Oakland port terminals plan to subsidize Saturday operation of truck gates by imposing a weekday gate fee modeled on one pioneered by the decade-old PierPass program in Southern California.

Los Angeles-Long Beach is moving slowly toward a dual system of drayage in which some drivers are becoming unionized employees, while others prefer to remain independent contractors. Eventually, the result could be a sufficient pool of drivers to serve the 13 container terminals in the largest U.S. port complex, resulting in service and pricing consistency for the shippers that depend on harbor drivers.

A recently-launched Federal Maritime Commission Section 15 investigation of a terminal operators discussion agreement could have a chilling effect on the mandatory inspection of chassis by International Longshore and Warehouse Union mechanics at West Coast ports.

Drivers for the Southern California drayage company Eco Flow voted this week to join the Teamsters Union. This development is not a surprise because Eco Flow was formed on the employee-driver model, but it is nevertheless a victory by the union in its attempt to organize drayage companies across the country.

Daseke Inc., the fastest growing U.S. trucking company, is merging with Bulldog Hiway Express, an open-deck and flatbed carrier with extensive port drayage operations in the Southeast.

Chassis leasing companies and California truckers are asking federal agencies to act quickly to prevent what they say are illegal chassis inspections by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union at U.S. West Coast ports.

As chassis issues continue to haunt the West Coast, it seems increasingly likely that shippers will pay for chassis storage.

Harbor drayage companies on the U.S. West Coast feared that a provision in the new International Longshore and Warehouse Union contract mandating longshore inspections of chassis would cause uncertainty and delays for truckers, but they didn’t imagine that it would happen so quickly.

If harbor trucking companies and marine terminal operators hope to survive in the cutthroat port environment, their numbers must be reduced. The industry needs fewer, larger, better-capitalized companies, according to a Southern California trucking executive.

If marine terminal operators had their way, the days of individual truckers entering their facilities in search of specific containers would be over, replaced by a model in which containers are peeled off the top of a stack and delivered to truckers without regard to consignee or destination.

Demurrage and per-diem detention fees at gridlocked U.S. ports have turned into a multimillion-dollar hot potato. Cargo interests, truckers, ocean carriers and marine terminals are locked in noisy, seemingly nonstop argument over responsibility for the fees. It’s a complex problem with no easy solution — but plenty of finger-pointing.

In an attempt to ensure sufficient availability of chassis during the summer-fall peak-shipping season, the Port of Long Beach Thursday will meet with potential bidders interested in managing a peak chassis fleet.

While besuited port industry executives milled about hotel ballrooms at the Virginia International Trade Symposium Thursday, truck-driving men and women in shirtsleeves marched in protest on the streets outside.

Southern California truckers who said they were improperly charged late fees for containers they couldn’t return on time to gridlocked ports received mixed decisions in the first arbitrators’ rulings on their cases.

The same developers that debuted a Web app to cut down on truck drivers’ empty runs are about to launch a new truck-focused traffic app.

Direct ChassisLink has expanded its Direct ChassisLink pool in Southern California and has contributed to the pool formerly included in the Grand Alliance pool. The Direct ChassisLink pool now has 28,000 units in Los Angeles-Long Beach.

An employee-based trucking model backed by venture capital that was announced Monday in Los Angeles-Long Beach is expected to gain traction in harbor drayage, but it won’t dominate the industry any time soon.

XPO Logistics will nearly triple its drayage capacity through the acquisition of Bridge Terminal Transport for $100 million.

Eco Flow, a Southern California harbor trucking company backed by a venture capital firm in Los Angeles, on Monday announced with the Teamsters union the formation of a motor carrier with employee drivers.

Drivers who walked off their jobs on Monday at three harbor drayage companies in Southern California to protest alleged misclassification and wage theft returned to work Friday, according to a statement by the Teamsters-affiliated Justice for Port Truck Drivers.

The picketing by independent harbor truckers serving the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach got some attention in Congress after a congresswoman on Wednesday highlighted their efforts and asked whether the federal government could come to their aid.

By most standards, congestion at the largest U.S. port complex is significantly less than it was during the winter, long truck turn times persist.