Is Port Congestion a Permanent Problem?

David Arsenault, President and CEO of the Americas for Hyundai Merchant Marine has said that North American ports would most likely have congestion issues, even without the larger mega-ships that are coming into operations, with many ports struggling with issues that were present before the global recession, according to the Journal of Commerce.

Intermodal complexity was cited as a contributing factor to causing higher levels of congestion within the port environment, as well as the growing number of imports from China in 2002.

Arsenault said: “China could pitch more than we could catch,” adding that this was exacerbated by the increasing number of calls from mega-ships.

Technical Paper: How the US West Coast tackled congestion

Congestion was exacerbated at a number of US West Coast ports at the beginning of 2015 as a result of the labour dispute between the Pacific Maritime Association and the International Longshore Workers Union.

Ports along the USWC and East Coast are currently working to boost their infrastructure in a bid to handle the surge in container volumes coming in from up to 14,000 post-Panamax ships.

It was previously reported that ports in the US may require a rethink as to which solutions will be best for resolving congestion issues that have been made worse by mega-ships and that an outside-of-the-box solution is required to alleviate congestion.