Problems in Trucking Industry Threaten Economy
The business of moving products between producer and consumer faces trouble on the West Coast.
A report from the Press-Telegram in Long Beach, CA, describes a system in which 40,000 pounds of citrus can be delayed in a truck yard miles from port for as long as a month.
Bottlenecks at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles are forcing some who depend on them to reroute their shipments through other ports, ship by air, or reduce their workforce to offset losses.
Meanwhile, the industry hustles to solve the problem.
Among contributing factors:
- A shortage of containers.
- Discord between terminal operators and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.
- Consolidation in the shipping industry.
|
Did You know? The National Retail Federation and the National Association of Manufacturers estimate that West Coast ports contribute $2 billion a day to the national economy. |
As companies increasingly form partnerships to share cargo space, and ocean carriers also form alliances to load goods onto mega-ships, a greater burden falls onto the trucking industry to sort through the cargo and find what is theirs to haul.
Analysts say ships carrying 8,000 containers used to be considered big. Today, vessels carry up to 14,000 containers. Phillip Sanfield, spokesman for the Port of Los Angeles, told the Press-Telegram that over the next few years, ships will carry up to 18,000 containers.
The problems are serious enough to threaten trucking companies.
“This is the motor of our local economy, and it’s a big engine in the world economy,” said Weston LaBar, executive director of the Harbor Trucking Association. “And if this isn’t fixed soon, it’s only going to get worse.”
Among solutions are building upon a recently introduced system that streamlines container storage procedures and develops technology that updates truckers on port activity.
Mike Johnson, trucking operations manager for Port Logistics Group in Rancho Dominguez, told the newspaper that such technology is badly needed so truckers can share information already available to ocean carriers and marine terminals.
“We’re not connected to this environment,” he said. “We don’t know what they know.” S