L.A. & Long beach ports are set to begin working together to deal with ongoing congestion issues.

The ports of L.A. & Long beach are spearheading plans to speed up cargo vessel unloading and truck turn-around times in both ports in order to relieve some of the congestion pressure both ports are facing.

One of the measures they are discussing is addressing a petition to the FMC (Federal Maritime Commission) which would allow the ports to work together, rather than their current solo operating status.

Readers may think – whats the problem with two ports working together? In practical real life logic, it is not a problem, but United States anti-trust laws prohibit ports from working together, so they must ask the FMC (Federal Maritime Commission) for permission, and be approved for permission, if they do not receive regulatory approval from the FMC the ports may not begin working together.

Not just the ports of L.A. and long beach are facing congestion issues; ports around America are facing these problems due to new Mega-Vessels offloading more containers than ever before.

The only way we can solve these problems is by working together with everyone all the way down the supply-chain and hammering out these problems.

Port Congestion and peak season surcharges are simply a result of all parties working separately against each other, rather than working towards long-term solutions.

This fall we saw a record amount of cargo volume coming through our ports, and we were not equipped to deal with this volume – we want to make sure next holiday season we are not struggling to deal with this problem again.

One idea to solve the congestion that the port of Long Beach has been contemplating is creating a group of truck-trailers (chassis) that are available to be directly injected into the port chassis volume at peak times in order to address port congestion if the problem at the time lies with lack of chassis to transport the containers, which has been one of the driving problems behind the port congestion this holiday season.

Yet another idea being kicked around by the L.A. / LB port authorities is limiting the amount of days that vessels are charged for being berthed at the port.

Currently there is no cap, and vessels that languish at the port due to port slow down and congestion problems face ever growing dockage fees that continue to push the profitability boundaries of ocean carriers that already face razor thin profit margins.

According to the new plan that is being drafted up, vessels would only have to pay fees for 4 days, and if the vessels remain at berth longer than the 4day limit, they will not face additional fees and penalties.

And finally, the last rabbit that the Harbor Commission is planning on pulling out of it’s hat to solve the “congestion crisis” is by opening up the long Beach Port Empty Container Depot to allow truckers more space to offload empty containers. The Container Depot is scheduled to open on December 29th, and will tentatively remain open until April 2015, after which it will either be closed again, or the Harbor Commission may decide to keep the Container Depot open on a permanent basis.

Questions / Comments? Contact: Mark@cmaritime.com.cn