The change to an appointment-based system for drayage drivers picking up or dropping off cargo at the ports will take effect immediately at five terminals (for imports initially) and five more will make the switch next year.
Appointments have long been required by doctors and restaurants, and now draymen will need one to pick-up a container a many terminals in the Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach.
PierPass announced today that 10 terminals in the two ports “have agreed on a coordinated initiative to establish appointment systems for trucks delivering containers to and from the terminals at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The terminals have adopted an appointment system action plan and committed to a set of common requirements.”
“For truck drivers, trucking companies and cargo owners, the appointment systems will add predictability to the supply chain,” said PierPass, predicting that “the variable queue lengths at different times of the day will be flattened out, which is expected to reduce the longer truck turn times. Appointment systems also allow terminals to group appointments for specific stacks of containers, reducing the time spent waiting for container-moving yard equipment to move between stacks.”
Five terminals that currently operate appointment systems have agreed to adopt the requirements, and five more terminals plan to introduce appointment systems in 2016 that will follow the same guidelines.
PierPass — the same entity that collects fees from draymen doing business at the Los Angeles and Long Beach container terminals during the day in order to fund night and weekend operations — said all the terminals have agreed that their individual appointment systems will share these rules:
- Appointments will be mandatory at all participating terminals. At times, appointments have been treated as optional, which has reduced the intended benefit of smoothing out truck traffic flow, according to PierPass.
- The appointment systems will apply to import containers at all terminals. Appointments for exports are being evaluated as a potential future requirement.
- All individual terminal appointment systems will be accessible via links from PierPass’ websites.
John Cushing, the president of PierPass, said of the new requirements, “The increasing number of containers unloaded by larger new ships has put the traditional random access system – where any truck can arrive at any time to pick up any container – under strain. Appointment systems are part of the growing set of tools terminals are embracing to fight congestion and reduce turn times, alongside innovations including free flow and the OffPeak program of night and Saturday truck gates.”
“Since we updated our appointment system in 2014, we have seen a marked decline in queuing at our gates and better turn times for our truckers,” said Mark Wheeler, vice president and general manager at West Basin Container Terminal (WBCT) in Los Angeles.
Sean Lindsay, chief operating officer of International Transportation Service (ITS) terminal in Long Beach said, “Coordinating pick-ups and deliveries with the trucking companies will increase productivity for the truckers and for our terminal operations. Therefore, we will be implementing an appointment system in 2016 to achieve this.”
Cushing said terminals have had appointment systems for many years, but that some have made changes in the past year to improve them.
It was unclear if the decision to immediately make appointments mandatory at five of the terminals will create any short term problems for truckers at the two ports.
Weston LaBar, executive director of the Harbor Trucking Association, which represents many of the drayage companies in the two ports, said he hopes they will be included in the discussion. “We have met with a couple of the terminals that were listed to discuss some of our preferences when it comes to the implementation of appointment systems if one needs to be put into place,” said LaBar. “That is our hope moving forward, that we have that opportunity to have a dialog with each and every one of them and be part of the process.”
“If they want to put together an appointment system we want to be successful for all parties involved,” he added. “Our big concern is that it is not always easy to keep appointment due to congestion and so if a terminal only has a one or two hour window, a lot of times they may miss that window because they are stuck at another terminal or stuck in line in the queue line for the terminal they are trying to get into.”
Cushing said, “It is like any appointment that someone makes whether it is a dinner reservation or doctor appointment — there are always going to be issues on roadways and things like that. Optimally, users of the appointment system will factor all of the variables in when they are dispatching drivers to meet the appointments they are making at the various terminals.”
LaBar said another concern of drayage providers was the lack of requirements for terminals to get truckers in and out in a certain amount of time.
“If you want to introduce an appointment system, we just ask you get us in and out of the terminal in an hour,” said LaBar.
For their part, shipper groups were withholding judgment until they see how the appointment system works under real conditions.
“It’s not a panacea and there’s always a danger in re-engineering only one element of a complex system. We need to withhold judgment on this until they’ve had time to work out the kinks; some misfires are a near certainty,” said Bruce Carlton, president of the National Industrial Transportation League, the nation’s largest shipper organizations. “Draymen will need time to adjust and no doubt much more information than they are getting now. How well this is integrated with all of the other moving parts is key.”
Jonathan Gold, vice president of supply chain and customs policy at the National Retail Federation said, “Hopefully PierPass will work with all of the stakeholders throughout the implementation to make sure it works for everyone and actually addresses the congestion issues. Hard to say if there will be glitches, but if any arise hopefully they will be quickly worked out.”
PierPass said the following five terminals currently have appointment systems:
- APM Terminals (APMT)
- Eagle Marine Services (EMS / GGS)
- West Basin Container Terminal (WBCT)
- Seaside Transportation Services (STS / Evergreen)
- Total Terminals International (TTI)
The five terminals planning to implement appointment systems in 2016 are:
- Trapac
- Long Beach Container Terminal (LBCT)
- SSA Terminals (Long Beach) (Pier A)
- International Transportation Service (ITS)
- Pacific Maritime Services (PCT)
Cushing said during congestion at the two ports earlier this year, a lot of the terminals that had appointment systems experienced difficulties “but now that we are back to normal operations what we are doing is trying to coordinate the activity between all of them so that we can start working in a more standardized way.”
He said each terminal has its own appointment system today and that there may be variations on how far in advance a trucker must or can make an appointment or the size of their appointment window.
The appointment system, wherein a terminal can anticipate where a container will have to be located, should be more efficient than having a truck arrive unannounced and yard workers having to go to a location that could be anywhere on the terminal to find and “dig out” a container, according to Cushing.
“This is the first step and terminals working to standardize the appointment system for the benefit of its users,” he said.
