Shippers say SoCal port congestion requires measured response

As peak season container volumes arrive at the nation’s largest seaports, congestion has worsened.

Contract negotiations between dockside management and labor remain at an impasse, while some of the largest vessels in the transpacific enter the San Pedro Bay harbor with massive loads of cargo. At the same time trucking hours of service rules are slowing down drayage and intermodal services.

Shippers are understandably concerned, said Peter Friedmann, executive director of the Agriculture Transportation Coalition (AgTC), but they are hardly at fault.

“To blame shippers for not paying high enough freight rates to allow carriers to operate smaller less efficient ships, is, out of left field,” he said.  “Actually, out of the left field bleachers.”

In a letter to his constituents, Friedmann noted that one large terminal operator had stated that shippers should pay higher rates for larger vessels.

Friedmann countered this argument by noting that carriers have been investing in more fuel-efficient vessels to cut down on their own expenses. He did acknowledge, however, that container “dumps” emanating from larger ships were contributing to the problem.

Then he pointed out that congestion can be attributed to other trends as well. For example, the conversion from the traditional carrier ownership/operations of U.S. chassis can complicate throughput. “unworkable safety-rating rules” and limitations on truck weight limits are an ongoing problem, as is the lack of “heavyweight corridors” to the largest ports.

“Furthermore, terminal operators are imposing a dysfunctional and inequitable PierPass or unrealistic detention/demurrage penalties,” he said.

Finally, there are the avalanche of burdensome federal mandates for import and export documentation and inspections,” added Friedmann.

He told shippers that “uninformed legislative proposals” to physically scan every container is unrealistic, as are federal, state and local governments imposing decades-long delays in permitting the construction of new more efficient terminals. 

“The solution is to continuously work to provide better, innovative, more efficient service/product at less cost,” concluded Friedmann. “This is what importers, exporters, ocean carriers, freight forwarders, customs brokers, and truckers must do every day.”

Otherwise, he cautioned, the congestion crisis is “going to be with us for a long time.”