LA Port Congestion Relief Team on it

The Port of Long Beach-LA entered “Crisis Mode” to attack congestion last week.  The number one driving factor of the Port’s Congestion has been identified as a large shortage of chassis available.  In a recent JOC article, Bill Mongelluzzo states, ” The neighboring ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles have struggled much of the year with chassis dislocations, rail service delays, unusually long truck turn times and container terminals that are pushing their storage capacities to the brink. However, rather than seeing the congestion dissipate, it continues to get worse.”

Each sector of the transportation industry is suffering from and contributing to the congestion problem.

“We’re three to five days behind on rail,” Slangerup said. Truck turn times of two hours or longer at marine terminals, which had been accounting for about 12 percent of all truck moves in the port complex, are now double that number. Cargo interests report waits of five to 10 days until their containers are ready for pickup.

“This is an extraordinarily bad situation,” Slangerup said.

The Resolution.

Two chassis-leasing companies, DCLI and TRAC Intermodal, will add 3,000 chassis to their Southern California fleets in response to a request by the Port of Long Beach that the private sector step up its efforts to help relieve the growing chassis problem in the harbor.

The congestion relief team meets daily to measure key performance indicators in the harbor and to suggest possible fixes. The long-term goal is to develop a chassis model for the entire port complex that allows interchangeability of chassis among the parties.

Although, it seems that the LA Port Congestion Worsens, the Port’s Congestion Relief Team is doing their best to solve the problem.  Scarbrough will continue to monitor the situation and keep clients updated.

For more information or comments, please email info@scarbrough-intl.com.