Category Archives: Supply Chains

FMC ruling could be crucial in other ‘unfair D&D fee’ complaints

Posted on January 14, 2023 by | Leave a comment

Shipper complaints about demurrage and detention (D&D) charges by carriers have been many, especially over the Coronavirus period, when many facilities were congested and supply lines were overloaded. One of the main complaints was the uncooperative attitude of port terminals and yards when asked to release cargo.

The Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) held a hearing over one case involving Evergreen, a major container carrier, and trucker TCW Inc, in December. Evergreen was forbidden to make per diem charges on days when the motor carrier could not pick up the cargo.

The essence of the FMC argument is that you can’t charge D&D when it’s impossible to pick up the container. Frequently ports and yards may have reasons to deny a trucker from picking up, but if it doesn’t lead to congestion and is the yard or terminal problem, the carrier can’t charge D&D.

The latest case involves carrier Hapag-Lloyd and rail line CSX, versus a Wisconsin forwarder, ME Dey, and the trucker New Age Logistics. Hapag-Lloyd has already waived over $150,000 in charges, and the case is still ongoing. CSX rail may well cave in also.

The principle established by the FMC is important, and may prevent some D&D charging errors in freight bills. Carriers are going to need to be careful and monitor conditions at the facilities holding the containers.

This may go some way toward increasing communication among logistics ‘partners’. Now a carrier must keep informed about the conditions at the yard where the container is located. They will need to ask for information on a continuous basis, which they have a right to, because it is affecting their billing process. If the yard is closed for a holiday, or has the container under a big stack that cannot be moved fast, they will need to tell the carrier, so that the billing can be waived. This information exchange is a crucial part of the financial wing of the supply chain.

When there’s money involved, action often follows.

I think it’s great for the FMC to proactively insist on attention to the possibility of congestion. It will encourage yards to reduce it, and carriers to monitor it, and shippers to work to avoid it.

By Nick Savvides 03/01/2023

FMC ruling could be crucial in other ‘unfair D&D fee’ complaints – The Loadstar

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Biden climate blueprint promotes modal shift away from trucks

Posted on January 13, 2023 by | 1 comment

Building on the idea that maritime and rail generate less carbon than trucks, the blueprint for decarbonization suggests shifting transport to those means.

That’s easier said than done. The EU has been working hard for some years on a modal shift to river and rail transport for cargo inside Europe. They have actually had some success— a few percent improvement.

But the geography of the EU is a lot more conducive to waterborne transport of cargoes. There there are quite a few navigable rivers going inland from the coast where the ports are. Many EU ports have set up ‘inland ports’, large distribution areas inland that often can be reached by barge, to offload container cargoes and get them ready for distribution. This foresighted policy offers many advantages, both from an ESG standpoint, and for reducing congestion at the ocean ports. But the US has only one large river, the Mississippi, navigable for a long distance into the heartland, in a land mass much larger. Smaller rivers on the East Coast don’t go as far.

However, particularly on the Mississippi, there is a lot of potential for more barge traffic. I also suspect that maritime transport could be used along the coasts for some kinds of moves, particularly movements of products like refinery outputs, that might travel by truck otherwise.

So there is rail. The EU has a problem with rail; most rail is state-owned, and is oriented around passenger travel, not freight. And rail lines in Europe are not all compatible; not only are their practices disparate, but the physical equipment isn’t even compatible at some borders. That adds transfer delays as well as simple handling delays to transport. The EU will have a much harder and more costly time increasing rail cargo percentages.

In the US, we have seven Class I rail firms, all private, that crisscross the country and offer cargo service. Rail can provide the backbone of distribution from ports to the hinterland. But will it? Rail firms are all private, not public; they are currently focused on their most profitable segments, and have engaged in rampant cost-cutting. Sometimes, it’s referred to as PSR (precision scheduled railroading), but quite often it is more closely allied with old-fashioned cuts driven by short-term accounting. The recent reductions in staffing are claimed to result from PSR, but in fact, simply serve to reduce operating costs and improve operating ratios. They may result in reduced safety, as some of the claims in front of the STB put forward. And the popular step of running really long trains to save labor costs reduces flexibility and adjustability of rail traffic to support less predictable loads. These moves by private firms greatly increase the complexity of carrying out the proposed modal shift in the US.

But certainly a modal shift will reduce carbon output. And there is actually a lot that a government push could accomplish. Some of these things are:

  • Infrastructure improvements for inland maritime operations;
  • Streamlining projects for on-dock rail at ports large and small;
  • Inducing rail lines to improve their rail yards and lines to support a more flexible cargo mix and customer set;
  • Driving rail common carrier rules that will induce or force rail lines to accommodate cargoes from a broader set of customers, even though the traffic will not be as profitable as long steady coal or grain trains.
  • Keeping pressure on the rail lines to serve a broad base of customers, particularly intermodal (container on flat car or trailer on flat car). A move to transport this type of cargo long distances to inland container terminals would help with emissions and get trucks off the major interstates.
  • Supporting inland terminals and distribution points that are rail connected.

There are probably more, and Pete Buttigieg and the President’s commission on supply chain probably are thinking of them.

The biggest problem is how to get private industry and investors on board to finance and support the projects.

US National Blueprint for Decarbonization

John Gallagher·Tuesday, January 10, 2023

Biden climate blueprint promotes modal shift away from trucks – FreightWaves

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Surface Transportation Board (STB) Brings Baseball-style “FINAL OFFER” Game Theory to Railroading Rate Disputes

Posted on January 3, 2023 by | Leave a comment

By Jeff Hartman – January 3, 2023

The STB, struggling since inception in 1995 to develop a fast, affordable, and reasonable method that provides relief to rail shippers challenging unfair rates in “small” zero-sum disputes in which a single railroad dominates the market, will shortly employ Final Offer arbitration to make a binary choice between competing final proposals from railroad and shipper that make the case for what each considers the highest reasonable shipping rate.

Previous efforts by the STB to provide tools for addressing smaller disputes were rarely used by shippers.

The STB’s Final Offer rule is designed as a backup in the case of the failure of a companion STB rule that provides for speedy voluntary, affordable arbitration to resolve rate challenges by stakeholders of any size where the dispute is less than $4M within a two year period—if all Class I railroads agree to use it.

Final Offer theory, developed in the 1940s in the United States, has notably been used by Major League Baseball to resolve disputes as well as state and local governments dealing with unions that are not legally permitted to strike.

In a Final Offer situation, stakeholders do not know what maximum reasonable rate the other side will propose and are thus incentivized to submit proposals that are more rather than less reasonable, and, thus, more likely to be chosen by the arbitration entity. This is markedly different from traditional reasonableness disputes, in which arbitrators would typically split the difference between rate proposals, encouraging participants in the dispute—who knew how the system worked—not only not to be reasonable from the git-go, but specifically to start by proposing unreasonable rates, figuring that whatever they proposed—reasonable or not—was likely to be averaged away.

If—and only if—all seven Class One railroads agree to STB-specified voluntary arbitration proposed in the new rules, the STB’s voluntary arbitration rule will be implemented and the railroads will be exempt from the Final Offer Rate Resolution (FORR) rule for five years.

The FORR rule has been in the works since 2019, when the STB issued a notice of proposed FORR rulemaking and solicited public comment. Five of the Class One railroads filed a petition promising to submit to binding arbitration—a methodology they had refused to participate in for many years—in return for exemption from Final Offer procedures. In response, the STB explored the viability of voluntary arbitration as a practical alternative for smaller rate disputes, and in November 2021 advanced rulemakings for both FORR and voluntary arbitrations, and issued the rules in December 2022 for implementation in early 2023.

Under the voluntary arbitration rule procedure, Class I rail carriers must all commit to five years of arbitration under an expedited schedule. Under the FORR rule procedure, if the STB finds a rate being challenged is unreasonable, both sides submit their case in an “expedited procedural schedule that adheres to firm deadlines.” The voluntary arbitration rule becomes effective 30 days after being published in the Federal Register, the FORR rule after 60 days.

According to STB Chair Martin Oberman, most of the shipper community has expressed a preference for FORR and most of the railroads for voluntary arbitration, but, according to Oberman, both have much in common, including timeframes, flexibility, and monetary limits, and provide shippers with access to more meaningful rate relief than was previously available to them.

“I am optimistic,” Oberman states, “that this time the Board’s efforts will achieve this long-desired goal.  I encourage the Class I railroads to accept the opportunity afforded by the new rule and sign up for the arbitration program they clearly prefer.  However, if they do not, in my view, FORR also provides a strong rate relief mechanism, and its availability would also streamline rate review processes in small rate cases.  To be clear, regardless of some differences of opinion about the most preferable way forward, all Board Members are committed to ensuring review of rate challenges are practical and affordable.”

Joanna Marsh·Tuesday, December 20, 2022

STB’s new rules attempt to ‘strike a balance’ between railroads, shippers – FreightWaves

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