Mark Solomon joined DC VELOCITY as senior editor in August 2008, and was promoted to his current position on January 1, 2015. He has spent more than 30 years in the transportation, logistics and supply chain management fields as a journalist and public relations professional. From 1989 to 1994, he worked in Washington as a reporter for the Journal of Commerce, covering the aviation and trucking industries, the Department of Transportation, Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court. Prior to that, he worked for Traffic World for seven years in a similar role. From 1994 to 2008, Mr. Solomon ran Media-Based Solutions, a public relations firm based in Atlanta. He graduated in 1978 with a B.A. in journalism from The American University in Washington, D.C.
In the end, the allure of running the whole shooting match at the Port of Oakland was
strong enough to persuade J. Christopher Lytle, the executive director of the Port of Long Beach, to jump ship.
Lytle, 67, surprised virtually everyone late last month when he announced he would leave the nation's second
busiest port in mid-July to run the Port of Oakland, Oakland International Airport, and the facility's real estate operations.
For Lytle, a maritime veteran, this represents his first crack at running an airport. The added responsibility was a
key factor in his decision to take the Oakland post, he said. "I wasn't out there looking for a job," he said, noting that
he was approached about the position.
Lytle's last day at Long Beach is July 19, and he expects to be running Oakland on July 22. The five-member
Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners is soon expected to elect an interim replacement.
Lytle worked in Oakland from 1992 to 1995 when he ran then Sea-Land Service Inc.'s West Coast operations at the port. When
Lytle leaves Long Beach, he will have been there nearly seven years. He was named executive director in November 2011.
In an interview, Lytle said he will work to convince businesses that Oakland should be the first West Coast port of call for
import traffic. To do that, he will push for improvements to on-dock rail service, he said.
Lytle's said one of his priorities will be to lessen the port's near total-reliance on containerized traffic by diversifying
into areas like break bulk and even dry bulk. Oakland is one of the few U.S. ports that processes more exports than imports, a
trend that Lytle wants to promote. Oakland benefits from its proximity to California's verdant Central Valley, a mecca for
foodstuffs that are in increasing demand from export markets.
Lytle will move from a port that handles slightly more than 6 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) a year to a
port that handles about 2.4 million TEUs annually. At the same time, Oakland's smaller size means its terminals are less
congested than Long Beach's, giving Lytle and his team more room to be agile, he said.
Lytle said he has no plans to turn Oakland into the Long Beach of the north. Instead he will, among other things, promote
Oakland's capabilities to customers whose cargo requires specialized handling.
Lytle said he is looking at converting a nearby army base into a distribution center to encourage the practice of transloading
that has gained popularity down the coast. At the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the nation's busiest complex, fewer
containers are being loaded on intermodal trains for direct transit inland. Instead, they are trucked to a distribution center
in the nearby Inland Empire to the east, where they are transferred to a 53-foot domestic box for delivery to a local DC and
then onward distribution to the customer.
On the labor side, Lytle, like other West Coast port managers, faces the specter of contract talks next year with the
International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU), a 59,000-member union that represents virtually all of West Coast
waterfront labor. The contract with West Coast ports expires June 30, 2014 but talks are expected to begin in early spring.
LONG BEACH'S FUTURE
Lytle's departure comes at a critical time for Long Beach.
The port is facing increased competition for Asian imports from Vancouver,
British Columbia's Port of Prince Rupert, and Mexico's Port of Lázaro Cárdenas on the country's Pacific Coast. Prince Rupert touts
itself as the fastest way to deliver goods from Asian producing markets to U.S. consuming points in the Midwest and mid-South. Lázaro
Cárdenas is promoting itself as a better alternative to Long Beach for getting Asian goods into the vast Texas market. This is
especially true after Kansas City Southern, the exclusive rail provider between Lázaro Cárdenas and the United States, made track improvements
that promise shippers and beneficial cargo owners (BCOs) equivalent service at lower costs.
Long Beach also faces lingering concerns that the opening of the expanded Panama Canal in 2015 will divert Asian import traffic from West
Coast ports—where goods are railed or trucked inland—to the Canal as part of an all-water route to Eastern ports. Lytle shares the
belief held by many that most of the diversion from West to East has already occurred, and any further shift will be incremental, if it happens at all.
Long Beach is in the second year of a multibillion-dollar program to upgrade its facilities. It is spending $1 billion to expand and improve its on-dock
rail capabilities. It is nearly two years into a nine-year, $1.2 billion project known as the "Middle Harbor" container terminal, designed to renovate and
combine two aging container terminals into one modern facility.
In April 2012, Hong Kong-based ship line Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL) signed a 40-year, $4.6 billion lease to be the terminal's sole occupant.
It is the largest deal of its kind in seaport history, according to the port. The terminal will also have the most sophisticated IT system ever installed at
any port, Lytle said in an interview in March of 2013.
Lytle also leaves behind more than his share of headaches. Issues like cost, congestion, and labor strife are ways of life at the San Pedro ports that
shippers and carriers have grown accustomed to. Including last year's clerical workers strike, three labor-related disturbances have plagued Long Beach in less
than 11 years.
Another headache appeared Wednesday when the city of Long Beach sued to prevent the city of Los Angeles and BNSF Railway from moving forward on a $500
million rail yard project. The City of Long Beach says the project may jeopardize the health and quality of life of its residents.
Long Beach leaders are also asking the courts to set aside Los Angeles' recent approval of the Southern California International Gateway (SCIG) project and
its environmental impact report, which Long Beach says does not comply with the state's Environmental Quality Act.
Long Beach said the negative effects of the project would be borne almost entirely by residents of West Long Beach.
Warehouse automation orders declined by 3% in 2024, according to a February report from market research firm Interact Analysis. The company said the decline was due to economic, political, and market-specific challenges, including persistently high interest rates in many regions and the residual effects of an oversupply of warehouses built during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The research also found that increasing competition from Chinese vendors is expected to drive down prices and slow revenue growth over the report’s forecast period to 2030.
Global macro-economic factors such as high interest rates, political uncertainty around elections, and the Chinese real estate crisis have “significantly impacted sales cycles, slowing the pace of orders,” according to the report.
Despite the decline, analysts said growth is expected to pick up from 2025, which they said they anticipate will mark a year of slow recovery for the sector. Pre-pandemic growth levels are expected to return in 2026, with long-term expansion projected at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8% between 2024 and 2030.
The analysis also found two market segments that are bucking the trend: durable manufacturing and food & beverage industries continued to spend on automation during the downturn. Warehouse automation revenues in food & beverage, in particular, were bolstered by cold-chain automation, as well as by large-scale projects from consumer-packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers. The sectors registered the highest growth in warehouse automation revenues between 2022 and 2024, with increases of 11% (durable manufacturing) and 10% (food & beverage), according to the research.
The Swedish supply chain software company Kodiak Hub is expanding into the U.S. market, backed by a $6 million venture capital boost for its supplier relationship management (SRM) platform.
The Stockholm-based company says its move could help U.S. companies build resilient, sustainable supply chains amid growing pressure from regulatory changes, emerging tariffs, and increasing demands for supply chain transparency.
According to the company, its platform gives procurement teams a 360-degree view of supplier risk, resiliency, and performance, helping them to make smarter decisions faster. Kodiak Hub says its artificial intelligence (AI) based tech has helped users to reduce supplier onboarding times by 80%, improve supplier engagement by 90%, achieve 7-10% cost savings on total spend, and save approximately 10 hours per week by automating certain SRM tasks.
The Swedish venture capital firm Oxx had a similar message when it announced in November that it would back Kodiak Hub with new funding. Oxx says that Kodiak Hub is a better tool for chief procurement officers (CPOs) and strategic sourcing managers than existing software platforms like Excel sheets, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, or Procure-to-Pay suites.
“As demand for transparency and fair-trade practices grows, organizations must strengthen their supply chains to protect their reputation, profitability, and long-term trust,” Malin Schmidt, founder & CEO of Kodiak Hub, said in a release. “By embedding AI-driven insights directly into procurement workflows, our platform helps procurement teams anticipate these risks and unlock major opportunities for growth.”
Here's our monthly roundup of some of the charitable works and donations by companies in the material handling and logistics space.
For the sixth consecutive year, dedicated contract carriage and freight management services provider Transervice Logistics Inc. collected books, CDs, DVDs, and magazines for Book Fairies, a nonprofit book donation organization in the New York Tri-State area. Transervice employees broke their own in-house record last year by donating 13 boxes of print and video assets to children in under-resourced communities on Long Island and the five boroughs of New York City.
Logistics real estate investment and development firm Dermody Properties has recognized eight community organizations in markets where it operates with its 2024 Annual Thanksgiving Capstone awards. The organizations, which included food banks and disaster relief agencies, received a combined $85,000 in awards ranging from $5,000 to $25,000.
Prime Inc. truck driver Dee Sova has donated $5,000 to Harmony House, an organization that provides shelter and support services to domestic violence survivors in Springfield, Missouri. The donation follows Sova's selection as the 2024 recipient of the Trucking Cares Foundation's John Lex Premier Achievement Award, which was accompanied by a $5,000 check to be given in her name to a charity of her choice.
Employees of dedicated contract carrier Lily Transportation donated dog food and supplies to a local animal shelter at a holiday event held at the company's Fort Worth, Texas, location. The event, which benefited City of Saginaw (Texas) Animal Services, was coordinated by "Lily Paws," a dedicated committee within Lily Transportation that focuses on improving the lives of shelter dogs nationwide.
Freight transportation conglomerate Averitt has continued its support of military service members by participating in the "10,000 for the Troops" card collection program organized by radio station New Country 96.3 KSCS in Dallas/Fort Worth. In 2024, Averitt associates collected and shipped more than 18,000 holiday cards to troops overseas. Contributions included cards from 17 different Averitt facilities, primarily in Texas, along with 4,000 cards from the company's corporate office in Cookeville, Tennessee.
Electric vehicle (EV) sales have seen slow and steady growth, as the vehicles continue to gain converts among consumers and delivery fleet operators alike. But a consistent frustration for drivers has been pulling up to a charging station only to find that the charger has been intentionally broken or disabled.
To address that threat, the EV charging solution provider ChargePoint has launched two products to combat charger vandalism.
The first is a cut-resistant charging cable that's designed to deter theft. The cable, which incorporates what the manufacturer calls "novel cut-resistant materials," is substantially more difficult for would-be vandals to cut but is still flexible enough for drivers to maneuver comfortably, the California firm said. ChargePoint intends to make its cut-resistant cables available for all of its commercial and fleet charging stations, and, starting in the middle of the year, will license the cable design to other charging station manufacturers as part of an industrywide effort to combat cable theft and vandalism.
The second product, ChargePoint Protect, is an alarm system that detects charging cable tampering in real time and literally sounds the alarm using the charger's existing speakers, screens, and lighting system. It also sends SMS or email messages to ChargePoint customers notifying them that the system's alarm has been triggered.
ChargePoint says it expects these two new solutions, when combined, will benefit charging station owners by reducing station repair costs associated with vandalism and EV drivers by ensuring they can trust charging stations to work when and where they need them.
New Jersey is home to the most congested freight bottleneck in the country for the seventh straight year, according to research from the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI), released today.
ATRI’s annual list of the Top 100 Truck Bottlenecks aims to highlight the nation’s most congested highways and help local, state, and federal governments target funding to areas most in need of relief. The data show ways to reduce chokepoints, lower emissions, and drive economic growth, according to the researchers.
The 2025 Top Truck Bottleneck List measures the level of truck-involved congestion at more than 325 locations on the national highway system. The analysis is based on an extensive database of freight truck GPS data and uses several customized software applications and analysis methods, along with terabytes of data from trucking operations, to produce a congestion impact ranking for each location. The bottleneck locations detailed in the latest ATRI list represent the top 100 congested locations, although ATRI continuously monitors more than 325 freight-critical locations, the group said.
For the seventh straight year, the intersection of I-95 and State Route 4 near the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee, New Jersey, is the top freight bottleneck in the country. The remaining top 10 bottlenecks include: Chicago, I-294 at I-290/I-88; Houston, I-45 at I-69/US 59; Atlanta, I-285 at I-85 (North); Nashville: I-24/I-40 at I-440 (East); Atlanta: I-75 at I-285 (North); Los Angeles, SR 60 at SR 57; Cincinnati, I-71 at I-75; Houston, I-10 at I-45; and Atlanta, I-20 at I-285 (West).
ATRI’s analysis, which utilized data from 2024, found that traffic conditions continue to deteriorate from recent years, partly due to work zones resulting from increased infrastructure investment. Average rush hour truck speeds were 34.2 miles per hour (MPH), down 3% from the previous year. Among the top 10 locations, average rush hour truck speeds were 29.7 MPH.
In addition to squandering time and money, these delays also waste fuel—with trucks burning an estimated 6.4 billion gallons of diesel fuel and producing more than 65 million metric tons of additional carbon emissions while stuck in traffic jams, according to ATRI.
On a positive note, ATRI said its analysis helps quantify the value of infrastructure investment, pointing to improvements at Chicago’s Jane Byrne Interchange as an example. Once the number one truck bottleneck in the country for three years in a row, the recently constructed interchange saw rush hour truck speeds improve by nearly 25% after construction was completed, according to the report.
“Delays inflicted on truckers by congestion are the equivalent of 436,000 drivers sitting idle for an entire year,” ATRI President and COO Rebecca Brewster said in a statement announcing the findings. “These metrics are getting worse, but the good news is that states do not need to accept the status quo. Illinois was once home to the top bottleneck in the country, but following a sustained effort to expand capacity, the Jane Byrne Interchange in Chicago no longer ranks in the top 10. This data gives policymakers a road map to reduce chokepoints, lower emissions, and drive economic growth.”