Wednesday, September 17, 2014
PierPass pilot to improve trucker turn times at L.A.-Long Beach ports
Last week PierPass, a nonprofit created in 2005 to address congestion, air quality and security issues at port terminals, started testing a faster way for trucks to pick up containers at the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach, according to a company statement.
PierPass says the Free-Flow pilot program, which will be conducted at three terminals, stacks containers by owner, trucking company or logistics provider so that truckers can go directly to a terminal via a special lane to pick up the containers in bulk.
"To keep cargo flowing quickly as ships grow ever larger, we need to change how we move containers," said PierPass President and CEO Bruce Wargo. "Doing the same things incrementally faster won't solve congestion pressures."
West Basin Container Terminal at the Port of Los Angeles and SSA Marine and Total Terminals International at the Port of Long Beach will participate in the pilot, which will continue into the fall, the statement said.
Currently, truckers arrive at a terminal anytime to pick up containers, which are often buried under a stack of other containers. A gantry crane has to move an average of three containers to retrieve a specific container for a truck, which could wait as long as 45 minutes to receive the container. In this situation, the statement said, a crane typically delivers eight to 10 containers an hour.
PierPass says that the Free-Flow method allows crane to retrieve up to 20 containers per hour, and that trucking companies have reported turn times as fast as 11 minutes.
PierPass said it is attempting to improve a business process that has been in effect since the 1960s, and that the Free-Flow process could be a solution to meeting the increased container handling demand of super-sized container ships.
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