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California ports refine techniques to cut costly waterfront congestion

CALIFORNIA ports have now developed a range of techniques to counter congestion, which given the cost of labour (unskilled dockers now earn more than FBI agents and court prosecutors) has become the reigning imperative of waterfront economics.

Yusen Terminals, for instance, has ship manifests and posted forecasts on its website so truckers know what's coming and can plan routes in advance, reports the Wall Street Journal.

"The further upstream we know when a box is coming available, the better we can plan to make everything efficient," said Alan McCorkle, Yusen's vice president of West Coast operations.

Truckers need a chassis before they can pick up a container and bottlenecks form. To meet this problem, Long Beach Container Terminal opened off-dock facility for chassis, freeing dock and yard space.

Yusen installed a live dashboard showing how long each truck has been on site and where they were held up. That helped identify additional staffing needs that got slower parts of the terminal moving faster.

At Ports America's terminal in Long Beach, managers can pull up live camera feeds of the truck lines on their smartphones, and they receive hourly reports via email identifying which trucks need to be prioritised.

Some terminals now require truckers to make appointments, rather than wait while dockers extract containers. When a driver arrives, his container should be ready.

Some large retailers, have their containers stacked together so they are ready to be loaded onto company trucks.