The Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles performed abysmally in the World Bank’s first port efficiency study. This ranking of ports was based on performance metrics such as minutes per container movement. Currently, East Asian container ports rank as the most efficient in the world. This is mainly because their terminals are moving toward full automation. This includes remotely controlled ship-to-shore cranes (STSs), automated stacking cranes (ASCs) and automated guided vehicles (AGVs). These terminals are controlled by computers, networks, laser scanners, and positioning systems that can locate, position, and move containers 24/7 (even in the dark).
The Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles use people-operated quay cranes (instead of STSs) and people-driven trucks, stackers, and trains (instead of ASCs and AGVs). Generally, people are much slower than automation and make many more errors than automation. Also speeding up people or other container yard innovations (such as stacking containers higher) can speed up minutes per container movement, but, at the margins, there’s often a trade-off between speed and safety (i.e., increased accidents) with respect to manual labor activities.
North American West coast ports could ‘perform‘ as well as Asian ports if there were major (multi-billion dollar) investments in new equipment and software, elimination of almost all current stevedore jobs, and investment in training and hiring thousands of new logistics and maintenance personnel. Such a change, if there were the societal will, would be disruptive on many levels and would likely take many years to accomplish. To ‘fix‘ our ports would mean investing billions of dollars (in a federal legislative climate that has apparently little real will to do anything) and eliminate perhaps the most lucrative blue collar jobs in the country. This is what in social policy is called a wicked problem, a problem that is difficult to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and evolving requirements.
In the shorter term, other huge parts of the Ports of LB/LA congestion problem are what comes before and what comes after arrival in Southern California.
As far as what comes before reaching the Ports, currently the Ports have little or no control over the inflow from East Asian (mainly Chinese) ports. Smart steaming could potentially help. Increasing anchorage fees (perhaps to as much as berthing fees) could force incoming ships to slow down.
It has been recently revealed that a communications gap between U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the ports have left the ports blind to the arrival of nonscheduled charters. As of early November 2021, seventy-seven such ships currently await berths offshore in Southern California.
How could nonscheduled ships arrive blindly? The Automated Targeting System (ATS) is a United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) computerized system that, for every person who crosses U.S. borders, searches data related to that person and assigns each person a risk rating which gauges that person’s placement within a group of terrorists or other criminals. Similarly, ATS analyzes data related to cargo, the Automated Manifest System (AMS). All vessels seeking clearance to enter U.S. ports must file their manifests with AMS 24 hours before the vessel departs from the port of loading. This means, if CBP alerted ports, they would be receiving notice several weeks in advance. This system was established in 2004 as a security measure to protect our borders.
Why isn’t AMS data shared with ports as a planning tool? In 2007, the US changed its privacy law to give exemptions to the DHS ATS and AMS related to sharing information. Its scope covers “national security, law enforcement, immigration and intelligence activities.” These exemptions were implemented because:
“DHS is claiming exemption from certain requirements of the Privacy Act for … [certain information related] to official DHS national security, law enforcement, immigration, and intelligence activities. These exemptions are needed to protect information relating to DHS investigatory and enforcement activities from disclosure to subjects or others related to these activities. Specifically, the exemptions are required to preclude subjects of these activities from frustrating these processes; to avoid disclosure of activity techniques; to protect the identities and physical safety of confidential informants and of immigration and border management and law enforcement personnel; to ensure DHS’s ability to obtain information from third parties and other sources; to protect the privacy of third parties; and to safeguard classified information. Disclosure of information to the subject of an inquiry could also permit the subject to avoid detection or apprehension.”
So, instead of several weeks advance notice, a vessel only needs to give a port 96-hour advance notice before it arrives. Thus, vessels are loaded and sent from Asian ports without guaranteed slots at their destination ports, which hasn’t been a significant problem until recently. And, some unscheduled vessels have been anchored for over a month.
What could be done? The reason for the need for this manifest data is simple: port planning. AMS data, or, at least, a security modified version of AMS data, should be shared with ports immediately after its entry. This could be a first step toward smart steaming. Ultimately, real-time communications with and tracking of vessels could also enhance smart steaming goals.
As far as what comes after reaching the Ports, paying short-haul drivers for waiting time (perhaps with the money from increased anchorage fees) could reduce traffic congestion while inducing more truckers to pull containers. Shorter waiting times might also help free up the current shortage of chassis.