The report mentioned how the city-state of Singapore is spending 50 billion dollars on a new container port. Ports like Rotterdam an Hamburg are very automated, including transfer to railcars. Maybe single stack has some real advantages in turn around?
There if virtually NO single handling of containers at any container terminal. Very rarely, if ever, will a container be off loaded to a truck chassis whose driver, after the box is secured then drives out of the terminal and onto the boxes ultimate destination. By the same token a Inbound box, loaded or empty, is rarely if ever driven by the over the road driver to shipside for the container crane to loade it on the vessel.
Container terminals are ripe with multiple handlings of the boxes, on terminal property between vessel and the terminal gate - both inbound and outbound. To facilitate the multiple handlngs there has to be accessable GROUND to drop and retrieve the box at least one time and potentially multiple times between Terminal Gate and Vessel. If you have the land, you can automate to your hearts content - if you have to start stacking boxes just to ground them on terminal property you are in trouble.
So now that we have this surge of demand, we know such surges are possible. The surge may end, but we know there can be another. So the supply chain weak link has to be strengthened. The ports may be the week link.
TWO QUESTIONS:
How long will it take to upgrade the ports to meet the demand surges we now know are possible?
How long will it take for the supply chain to completely collaspse if the current demand spike continues without the ports being upgraded?
I’ve watched the video several times now. And I kept getting this strange feeling that I had seen it before, long long ago. Couldn’t get around that feeling, just couldn’t place “where?”
Then it hit me.
In the movie “Goodfellas” where after their big heist, they decide some members are more deserving of a bullet rather than their share of the loot. “Oh, so-and-so’s not right in the head” or “what’s-his-name betrayed my trust” etc…but the underlying motives are more along the lines of greed and jealousy, than principle.
None of the guys interviewed appear to be the type “driving last years model” if you get my drift. Each appear to have made a comfortable living taking jobs away from American workers. But now that somebody else has snatched their fruit, they sit there bawling and finger pointing.
[oX)]
Yeah so the point with LB and LA, when they were initially constructed and to this very day they have not been able to acquire the land that they really need to run the operation efficiently. Land has been at a premium because neither LA or LB wants to use emminent domain. Nor do they want to use fill to build out. If you ask me their biggest issue is lack of land. Rotterdam is 31,000 acres, LA and LB combined is slightly less than 8000 acres. Rotterdam serves less people than LA and LB as well. Since Hamburg, Germany is another mega-port. Hamburg can berth 320 ships at once. I don’t think LA or LB can do even 30% of that.
In answer to question one - a decade or more - it will take that long in litigation for land acquisition before any improvements are made to the land.
If your’re talking about IM trains. Clearance restrictions in Europe preclude doublestacks. European freight operators wish they could doublestack containers…
I was reading an article the other day about the ‘truck driver shortage’. It was mentioned that there is now a national clearing house of information for those that have transgressed the drug and alcohol laws. A clearing house whose data is used when it comes to checking out ‘new hires’ for such transgressions. The article basically stated that the current shortage of drivers in the industry was because drivers that previously floated between trucking companies while lying about their drug/alcohol backgrounds are now being kept out of the drivers seat by the accurate data of the clearinghouse.
Question 3: How would we ever cope if it was war and not greed (and/or) incompetence clogging ocean trade?
What are the requirements with respect to truck drivers and previous D/A convictions? Are companies federally required to avoid hiring any such individuals in any capcity, ever? Or is there a sort of statute of limitations? If someone gets a DUI when they are 20, can they drive a truck when they are 30, if the ensuing 10 years were clean? Does it cargo type (i.e. HAZMAT) factor into how much flexibility there is around a previous D/A incident?
Would like to hear Shadow the Cat Owner’s input on this.
The port authorities have announced a delay in implementing the threatened fines.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/la-long-beach-ports-delay-fines-backlogged-cargo-81192119
They claim that since the fines were announced, marked improvement in flow has taken place, resulting in a 26% decline in overdue cargo.
Proof that government intervention can serve to remedy ills within the transportation sector .
The supply chain problem would be worse if there was a war. I don’t understand your point about the supply chain problem being caused by greed or incompetence. Can you elaborate on that?
I conclude that the problem is being caused by higher demand than the basic port infrastructure can handle.
I know, but transloading to/from flat cars is much quicker when not stacked. Speeds up the flow.
My answers to question one and two would be:
Question One: 10 years minium.
Question Two: 8-1/2 months maximum. However the current demand spike may not continue past this Christmas season. Although it is not clear how much of the spike is being caused by this Chirsmas season versus being caused by a longer range trend of everyone isolating and cacooning at home.
Did you not watch the video? Cost to transport containers up from $1,000 to over $25,000 while the carriers are enjoying “record profits”? One importer forced to pay over one million dollars in penalties during September alone? “Woe is me” etc? (why allow a good crisis go to waste?)
And as for incompetence, everybody in the video with their “he started it” round-robin of finger pointing?
One thing in particular in that video resonated with me. The claim that the majority of available containers chassis were marooned under empty boxes waiting to go back on ships for the (empty) return run.
Aren’t we always told of the unenviable chore in railroading of non-revenue return of empty box cars, hoppers, tankers…etc? Wonder if something similar might be at work here?
My first hand experience is dated,… going back to my involvement in warehousing in Oakland early 90’s. But there was always a surplus of unwanted empties there, as well, The prevailing rule of thumb at the time was, if they could sell an empty box for $250. they were money ahead versus the cost to send it back to Asia empty. That’s why you tended to notice an abundence of derelict containers sitting on the ground behind businesses being used for sheds and auxiliary storage…they were a dime a dozen compared to purpose-built similar structures.
Maybe the solution to freeing up chassis might require a little “outside the box” thinking?
In some cases, dramatically. One of the promises of sideloading (as I learned about it as a kid from Kneiling’s columns) is that a whole trainload can be offloaded in the time it would take for one car, and loaded in not much more time (the extra time being mostly safety-related).
That the sideloading systems in the '60s generally ‘failed to thrive’ economically is not generally related to their technical feasibility. And in fact, where rapid asynchronous mode change becomes desirable, especially in countries that use flats for containerization… the advantage of sideloading for that reason alone may become compelling.
Convicted One,
Those cases of greed are basically the result of the supply chain failure. I thought you were referring to greed causing the supply chain failure when you referred to it clogging ocean trade.
You said:
Question 3: How would we ever cope if it was war and not greed (and/or) incompetence clogging ocean trade?
Rather than dwell on incidentals, why not focus on the main premise? War would make the billions spent to upgrade the ports a waste. Let’s invest the money on becoming LESS dependent on globalism, not more. [:D]
I don’t know about the time frames. When we look at hiring someone with a CDL (Commercial Driver’s License), our insurance company checks the national register. When someone with a CDL screws up, that goes on the register. If a driver’s record is not clean enough for our insurance company to cover, we don’t need them.