
Container dwell times are increasing at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, further exacerbating congestion at the nation’s busiest port complex.
Truck turn times in October were the worst on record in Los Angeles-Long Beach, even though container volume growth was modest. Val Noronha, president of Digital Geographic Research, tracks turn times in the harbor using GPS technology and finds this development to be troubling.
If container volumes in October had been exceptionally strong, as they were in September, it could be assumed the ports had reached their saturation capacity. However, the ports reported combined growth of only 3 percent in October, leading Noronha to conclude that “something else was going very wrong.”
The culprit, it appears, is that containers are sitting on the docks longer, congesting the terminals, and requiring double-handling. According to a study by INTTRA, a shipping industry portal that provides container visibility in the supply chain, dwell time in Los Angeles-Long Beach was up more than 40 percent in October compared to the same month last year.
Longer container dwell times set off a domino effect of reduced productivity throughout the supply chain, Noronha said. “As turn time worsens, containers don’t get picked up on time, they remain on the dock, increasing stack occupancy, which slows down time further,” he said.
The lengthy dwell times and extra handling of containers also were reflected in man-hours worked by longshoremen in Los Angeles-Long Beach in October. According to the Pacific Maritime Association, man-hours paid to longshoremen in October averaged 489,596 per week, a 34 percent increase over the same month last year. That means it took 34 percent more labor to handle a 3 percent increase in cargo volume.
Learn how congestion problems at the marine terminals reverberate throughout the supply chain in a JOC.com article on the subject, found at: Increasing container dwell times are taking a toll at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, further exacerbating congestion at the busiest U.S. port complex.
Truck turn times in October were the worst on record in Los Angeles-Long Beach, even though container volume growth was modest. Val Noronha, president of Digital Geographic Research, tracks turn times in the harbor using GPS technology and finds this development to be troubling.
If container volumes in October had been exceptionally strong, as they were in September, it could be assumed the ports had reached their saturation capacity. However, the ports reported combined growth of only 3 percent in October, leading Noronha to conclude that “something else was going very wrong.”
The culprit, it appears, is that containers are sitting on the docks longer, congesting the terminals, and requiring double-handling. According to a study by INTTRA, a shipping industry portal that provides container visibility in the supply chain, dwell time in Los Angeles-Long Beach was up more than 40 percent in October compared to the same month last year.
Longer container dwell times set off a domino effect of reduced productivity throughout the supply chain, Noronha said. “As turn time worsens, containers don’t get picked up on time, they remain on the dock, increasing stack occupancy, which slows down time further,” he said.
The lengthy dwell times and extra handling of containers were reflected in man-hours worked by longshoremen in Los Angeles-Long Beach in October. According to the Pacific Maritime Association website, man-hours paid to longshoremen in October averaged 489,596 per week, a 34 percent increase over the same month last year. That means it took 34 percent more labor to handle a 3 percent increase in cargo volume.
Learn how congestion problems at the marine terminals reverberate throughout the supply chain in a JOC.com article on the subject, found at:
http://www.joc.com/port-news/us-ports/port-los-angeles/la-long-beach-congestion-swells-longer-container-dwell-times_20141124.html