The port authority is instituting a series of measures to improve cargo fluidity in response to a spike in congestion at its Virginia International Gateway terminal.
Still feeling the effects of lost productivity from shutting down for bad weather last month, the Port of Virginia on Thursday announced a series of immediate and long-term steps to address a spike in congestion at its Virginia International Gateway terminal. The news is a reminder that congestion at the nation’s ports isn’t limited to the West Coast, where a contract dispute between dock workers and employers attracted widespread attention.
The situation has gotten so bad at VIG that the line of trucks waiting to get into the privately-owned terminal has spilled onto the shoulder of Highway 164. Drivers are often forced to wait seven to eight hours to pick up or deliver a load, George Berry, an independent owner-operator and activist in the trucking community, said in a phone interview.
Turn times for motor carriers has been an issue at the Port of Virginia for more than a year as cargo volumes have increased rapidly, although there are reports that conditions have improved lately at the other main container facility, Norfolk International Terminal.
The snowstorms that hit the East Coast this winter caused five vessels with about 7,000 containers to miss their scheduled arrival date. The vessels instead bunched up in early March and piled more cargo on terminals that were already near capacity after almost four days being closed and below-normal productivity afterwards as longshoremen dealt with ice, piles of snow and sub-freezing weather in the yards.
In a memo to stakeholders, the Virginia Port Authority said it will take advantage of extra capacity at the nearby Portsmouth International Terminal, including arranging for barge service as needed to ferry containers in blocks to PMT instead of moving them by truck from VIG because there is so much traffic.
The port authority re-opened the idle PMT facility last September to serve as a relief valve for VIG and NIT. A 30-acre section is already being used for upland storage of containers directly on chassis. Now containers will also be stored in stacks. Officials had said they planned to route some small-to-midsize vessels from the other terminals to the shallower PMT and process about 100,000 TEUs there this year. Spokesman Joe Harris said it has taken time to convince ocean carriers to relocate calls and work out implementation details, but that several arrangements are close to being finalized.
The port authority also recently began moving containers between VIG and NIT via the 64 Express barge service, which also makes three weekly runs between Norfolk and Richmond on the James River, to minimize truck traffic on local roads and at terminal gates. Containers need to be relocated from VIG to NIT to catch intermodal service provided by Norfolk Southern Railway and from NIT to VIG for shipments that are booked on CSX, which has a short-line connection to a nearby intermodal yard.
The port, which leases VIG, also plans to separate rail and truck cargo to increase efficiency in the yard. A chunk of land is being set aside to collect rail cargo so longshoremen operating cargo handling equipment won’t have to pull out rail boxes from the stacks full of truck-designated cargo.
The land and contractor are ready to go, and construction to lay down a base for the cargo will begin once permits are finalized, Harris said. The project should only take a couple of months and will provide more long-term capacity because “we don’t see volumes letting up any time soon,” he said.
Effective March 13, 2015, shippers will only have nine days instead of 10 to store export containers on all docks, the VPA said.
Ocean carriers were also notified that free time for inbound containers at Virginia International Gateway would be extended by two days. During a two week period last October that featured major congestion, the Port of Long Beach extended the storage time for cargo owners before they are charged a penalty from four business days to seven business days. Shippers around the nation are complaining that they are getting hit with fees when they are unable to retrieve their boxes because of the congested conditions at several ports.
Sunday truck gates will be available through the end of the month to allow truckers more opportunity to make deliveries.
The port authority has long encouraged motor carriers and container lines to use its off-dock empty yard to preserve valuable terminal space for loaded containers, but will now make use of the empty yard mandatory.
Berry, one of the organizers of For Truckers by Truckers, said drayage drivers are very frustrated by the ongoing congestion that makes it difficult for them to make several trips a day and earn a decent living. A video posted on the For Truckers by Truckers Facebook page shows a line of 40 to 50 trucks waiting on the side of the road to enter VIG.
He suggested that the decision to use PMT to reduce the density of the VIG stacks was reactive.
“If they knew this [higher volumes] was coming some of the mitigation should have been done sooner,” he said.
The port authority recently put a half dozen portable toilets in a cul-de-sac by the VIG gate so truckers wouldn’t have to relieve themselves in a bottle, said Berry. The toilet’s improve working conditions, but aren’t really an answer, he said.
Berry also complained about an ongoing chassis shortage because many of the wheeled frames haven’t been repaired or been returned and there are insufficient straddle carriers operating during the morning shift.
On the bright side, he said operations at NIT have improved since the port installed an automated gate at the south end of the terminal, which has eliminated a lot of manual transactions with clerks. The port authority is scheduled to break ground this year on a $29 million intermodal gate complex with 22 lanes at the north end of NIT. The project is supported by a $15 million TIGER grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation.
New lighting installed in the NIT truck transfer zone has also helped drivers from backing into kiosks and other structures, Berry said.
Virginia International Terminals, the port’s operating arm, is incurring significant labor and other expenses to mitigate the effects of the winter weather and chronic congestion. Harris wasn’t able to provide an exact figure off hand, but said the expenses are necessary to restore good operations and are built into the budget.
The weather conditions led to a 1 percent year-over-year decline in February container volume to 178,105 TEUs at the port.
Congestion flares up again at Port of Virginia
