Category Archives: Ports

California Sustainable Freight Action Plan

California has released its Sustainable Freight Action Plan. It’s a great project, and as usual, the state is a leader, here making significant moves guiding improvement in the freight transportation triple bottom line.

screenshot-dot.ca.gov 2016-05-23 10-27-38

Source: California Sustainable Freight Action Plan  Read it online at the link. Here’s the actual plan:  pdf-icon-logo1  cfmp_appendix-complete

screenshot-metrans CITT logo 2016-05-23 10-59-49   Here’s a white paper from California State University Long Beach which was used in the deliberations.  PDF icon logoFreight Efficiency White Papers_Final Version

Productivity is declining at the world’s biggest ports, ‘mega-boxships not to blame’

This study is provocative, but may not tell the whole story. It is not clear to me that productivity should fall in direct proportion to the size of the call.  That’s a rough approximation, and captures the direction, likely.  But I suspect a nonlinear effect.  It’s basically a scheduling issue, and scheduling response rates are notoriously nonlinear.

It is complicated by the fact that a ship is usually only able to be scheduled at one terminal, even though another terminal may have excess capacity and be able to handle it exactly on time. That depends on the degree of cooperation possible among terminal operators.  An interesting study would be to look at calls at a single port with multiple terminals and see how often there is a berth available for an ULCV but the specific ship cannot use it because it is required to use a different terminal.

I don’t see an easy way for port management or terminal management or ocean carriers and alliances to solve that one.

That said, I agree with the conclusion: it’s not mega-calls. I don’t think we should be blaming the mega container ships for the problems.  Those ships will come, so ports need to innovate. A goal like 6000 moves in 24 hours is reasonable.

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New analysis suggest that port productivity levels are dropping, but ultra-large container vessels are not at fault

Source: Productivity is declining at the world’s biggest ports, ‘but mega-boxships are not to blame’ – The Loadstar

Rx: Port Decongestant

Fascinating viewpoint on the federal efforts to address problems at ports.  To me, it’s right on target. Wrong folks involved.  Think bigger, wider.

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The Secretary of Commerce received recommendations from her department’s Advisory Committee on Supply Chain Competitiveness (ACSCC). The paper: Recommendations to the Secretary of Commerce Re…

Source: Rx: Port Decongestant | MTS Matters