Port of Oakland is testing sensors that measure wait-times for harbor truckers at marine terminal gates in an effort to increase efficiency.
The Port of Oakland is testing sensors that measure how long harbor truckers wait to enter its marine terminals.
“Armed with wait-times, drivers could avoid peak periods and shippers could collect cargo when terminals aren’t crowded,” the port said of the new program.
The port is installing “Bluetooth” sensors this week along roads in its Outer Harbor area. The readers will detect signals emitted from phones or other mobile devices in trucks. Wait times into terminal yards will then be calculated by measuring the time between the first and last signal sent.
Similar technology is used along major freeways to calculate rush-hour commute times. On roads, overhead signboards tell motorists how long it takes to travel from, for example, downtown Oakland to San Francisco. At the port, harbor truckers and cargo owners will get that information on cellphones or computers.
“This is proven technology for determining travel times and a cost effective approach for determining port drayage truck wait times,” said Taso Zografos of Reston, VA-based Leidos Inc., the firm conducting the test.
The test will last several months. If successful, it could be deployed throughout the port and also used to measure turn times within terminals.
Weston LeBar, executive director of the Harbor Trucking Association in Los Angeles, said “if they want to see a really good model they just need to look at what the Harbor Trucking Association is doing in Southern California. We have geofence gates that take into consideration queue times as well” for trucks while they are waiting outside as well as inside terminals.
“It’s gotten to the point where most of the marine terminals subscribe to our data,” said LeBar. “If they want to have an accurate turn time calculation, they need to take into consideration the entire turn time that includes queue time while the trucker is waiting outside the gate.” He said his group is exploring implementing a system for measuring drayage driver wait times in Oakland as well as Los Angeles and Long Beach.
“The terminals that have worked closely with drayage companies have been able to drastically reduce their turn times because they have been able to get information from trucking companies on what is impeding them from getting in and out of the gate,” added LeBar. “Marine terminals that have not shown an effort to work with the draymen are the ones that continue to stay stagnant and have long turn times because it seems like they don’t care what the trucker is dealing with or what the trucker has to say.”
The sensor testing in Oakland is one of several steps the port is planning to
accelerate cargo movement. Others include regular Saturday gate hours, a
common chassis pool and off-site locations for container pick-up.
Oakland seeks to speed port truckers
