With the help of gate scheduling provider Pier Pass, marine terminals at both the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach moved 46% more cargo containers by truck during the first half of March, 2015, compared with the same period in February.
The move was a positive step for both ports that saw a massive increase in congestion as a result of the recent labour dispute at 27 US West Coast Ports.
From March 2 through to March 15, more than 300,000 import and export containers moved by truck into or out of the terminals, compared to nearly 207,000 from February 2 through to February 15.
PierPass’s ‘OffPeak’ program diverts around half of port truck trips out of Monday-through-Friday daytime traffic while roughly doubling the capacity of the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports.
John Cushing, President of PierPass, said “the terminals are intensely focused on returning to normal operations as quickly as possible. While much work remains to be done, we can report progress in accelerating cargo movement by mid-March.”
PierPass also reported some progress in reducing transaction times for trucks at the terminals. Average truck turn times dropped during the month of February, 2015 compared with January.
Terminal operators continue to work with trucking companies and cargo owners to increase the use of free-flow, sometimes known as peel-off, a practice PierPass has promoted to reduce truck waiting times.
Free-flow enables bulk delivery of large groups of containers destined for the same location, typically to a single cargo owner.
On March 1, 2015 three of the largest chassis leasing companies at the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports formed a gray chassis ‘pool of pools’ intended to solve the chassis supply disruption that emerged in 2014 after shipping lines sold their chassis to private leasing companies. The new system makes chassis interchangeable for truckers and terminals.
