Port of Oakland unveils four-step plan to speed traffic flow at terminals
Gray chassis pool concept, regular Saturday gate hours, off-terminal after-hour drop-offs, electronic monitoring of trucker gate wait times all on table.
The Port of Oakland said today it is working on a four-step plan to speed the flow of containerized traffic through its five terminals, and to cut the amount of time truckers spend waiting for boxes.
Under the program, all four steps will be implemented or pilot-tested within the next two months, the port said. One is a "gray" chassis fleet that allows truckers to pick up and drop off equipment at any terminal. Oakland will also begin regular Saturday operations to reduce weekday crowding inside terminals; establish locations outside terminals where cargo can be picked up and dropped off after hours, and electronically monitor trucker waiting times at terminal gates.
The chassis pool concept should minimize the periodic chassis shortages that delay cargo deliveries at Oakland, the port said; a similar program began last month at the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach, the nation's busiest port complex. Regular Saturday gate operations would spread cargo pickup and delivery at Oakland over an extra day each week, relieving stress on terminal operations, officials said. Offsite locations would enable truckers to transact business without entering terminals, while electronic monitoring would provide drivers with real-time wait times so they could avoid peak periods of activity. Congestion at Oakland, the country's fifth-busiest containerport, has forced harbor truckers in some instances to wait more than two hours to pick up boxes, port officials report.
Chris Lytle, executive director of the Port of Oakland, said the initiative is aimed at accelerating cargo movements for importers and exporters, many of whom are still licking their wounds following a months-long impasse between West Coast waterfront labor and management that caused significant delays along the coast. "Our customers don't want to wait for their cargo when it comes off the ship," Lytle said in a statement. "We hear them and we understand their urgency, so we're acting on it."
In the past few weeks, a surplus of cargo, due largely to vessels that arrived at Oakland off schedule and in clusters after first being delayed at congested southern California ports due to the labor unrest, has slowed deliveries at Oakland to some importers, officials said. All inbound services from Asia first call at southern California and then sail to Oakland. However, vessel backlogs at Los Angeles and Long Beach caused three- to four-week delays in leaving the ports en route to Oakland; in some cases, vessel operators offloaded in southern California and returned to Asia, bypassing Oakland altogether.
Less than two months after the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), representing ship management, agreed to a tentative five-year collective-bargaining agreement, Oakland has cleared out the vessel backlog that occurred as alleged work slowdowns by labor dramatically reduced loading and offloading productivity. Los Angeles had three ships left unloaded as of today, according to Phillip Sanfield, a port spokesman. Long Beach has two vessels left to unload, Kathleen Charchenko, assistant marketing manager, business development at the Port of Long Beach, said yesterday at the NASSTRAC annual shippers conference and expo in Orlando. It is expected that all coastwide backlogs will be cleared by the end of April.
The labor-management impasse, while clearly disruptive, only amplified existing congestion issues that have plagued several of the large West Coast ports. The unrest also triggered a diversion of freight to East and Gulf Coast ports. Some of those cargoes are likely gone for good. About 10 percent of cargoes diverted from Long Beach during the impasse will not return, Charchenko said.
Supply chain planning (SCP) leaders working on transformation efforts are focused on two major high-impact technology trends, including composite AI and supply chain data governance, according to a study from Gartner, Inc.
"SCP leaders are in the process of developing transformation roadmaps that will prioritize delivering on advanced decision intelligence and automated decision making," Eva Dawkins, Director Analyst in Gartner’s Supply Chain practice, said in a release. "Composite AI, which is the combined application of different AI techniques to improve learning efficiency, will drive the optimization and automation of many planning activities at scale, while supply chain data governance is the foundational key for digital transformation.”
Their pursuit of those roadmaps is often complicated by frequent disruptions and the rapid pace of technological innovation. But Gartner says those leaders can accelerate the realized value of technology investments by facilitating a shift from IT-led to business-led digital leadership, with SCP leaders taking ownership of multidisciplinary teams to advance business operations, channels and products.
“A sound data governance strategy supports advanced technologies, such as composite AI, while also facilitating collaboration throughout the supply chain technology ecosystem,” said Dawkins. “Without attention to data governance, SCP leaders will likely struggle to achieve their expected ROI on key technology investments.”
The British logistics robot vendor Dexory this week said it has raised $80 million in venture funding to support an expansion of its artificial intelligence (AI) powered features, grow its global team, and accelerate the deployment of its autonomous robots.
A “significant focus” continues to be on expanding across the U.S. market, where Dexory is live with customers in seven states and last month opened a U.S. headquarters in Nashville. The Series B will also enhance development and production facilities at its UK headquarters, the firm said.
The “series B” funding round was led by DTCP, with participation from Latitude Ventures, Wave-X and Bootstrap Europe, along with existing investors Atomico, Lakestar, Capnamic, and several angels from the logistics industry. With the close of the round, Dexory has now raised $120 million over the past three years.
Dexory says its product, DexoryView, provides real-time visibility across warehouses of any size through its autonomous mobile robots and AI. The rolling bots use sensor and image data and continuous data collection to perform rapid warehouse scans and create digital twins of warehouse spaces, allowing for optimized performance and future scenario simulations.
Originally announced in September, the move will allow Deutsche Bahn to “fully focus on restructuring the rail infrastructure in Germany and providing climate-friendly passenger and freight transport operations in Germany and Europe,” Werner Gatzer, Chairman of the DB Supervisory Board, said in a release.
For its purchase price, DSV gains an organization with around 72,700 employees at over 1,850 locations. The new owner says it plans to investment around one billion euros in coming years to promote additional growth in German operations. Together, DSV and Schenker will have a combined workforce of approximately 147,000 employees in more than 90 countries, earning pro forma revenue of approximately $43.3 billion (based on 2023 numbers), DSV said.
After removing that unit, Deutsche Bahn retains its core business called the “Systemverbund Bahn,” which includes passenger transport activities in Germany, rail freight activities, operational service units, and railroad infrastructure companies. The DB Group, headquartered in Berlin, employs around 340,000 people.
“We have set clear goals to structurally modernize Deutsche Bahn in the areas of infrastructure, operations and profitability and focus on the core business. The proceeds from the sale will significantly reduce DB’s debt and thus make an important contribution to the financial stability of the DB Group. At the same time, DB Schenker will gain a strong strategic owner in DSV,” Deutsche Bahn CEO Richard Lutz said in a release.
Transportation industry veteran Anne Reinke will become president & CEO of trade group the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) at the end of the year, stepping into the position from her previous post leading third party logistics (3PL) trade group the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA), both organizations said today.
Meanwhile, TIA today announced that insider Christopher Burroughs would fill Reinke’s shoes as president & CEO. Burroughs has been with TIA for 13 years, most recently as its vice president of Government Affairs for the past six years, during which time he oversaw all legislative and regulatory efforts before Congress and the federal agencies.
Before her four years leading TIA, Reinke spent two years as Deputy Assistant Secretary with the U.S. Department of Transportation and 16 years with CSX Corporation.
Serious inland flooding and widespread power outages are likely to sweep across Florida and other Southeast states in coming days with the arrival of Hurricane Helene, which is now predicted to make landfall Thursday evening along Florida’s northwest coast as a major hurricane, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
While the most catastrophic landfall impact is expected in the sparsely-population Big Bend area of Florida, it’s not only sea-front cities that are at risk. Since Helene is an “unusually large storm,” its flooding, rainfall, and high winds won’t be limited only to the Gulf Coast, but are expected to travel hundreds of miles inland, the weather service said. Heavy rainfall is expected to begin in the region even before the storm comes ashore, and the wet conditions will continue to move northward into the southern Appalachians region through Friday, dumping storm total rainfall amounts of up to 18 inches. Specifically, the major flood risk includes the urban areas around Tallahassee, metro Atlanta, and western North Carolina.
In addition to its human toll, the storm could exert serious business impacts, according to the supply chain mapping and monitoring firm Resilinc. Those will be largely triggered by significant flooding, which could halt oil operations, force mandatory evacuations, restrict ports, and disrupt air traffic.
While the storm’s track is currently forecast to miss the critical ports of Miami and New Orleans, it could still hurt operations throughout the Southeast agricultural belt, which produces products like soybeans, cotton, peanuts, corn, and tobacco, according to Everstream Analytics.
That widespread footprint could also hinder supply chain and logistics flows along stretches of interstate highways I-10 and I-75 and on regional rail lines operated by Norfolk Southern and CSX. And Hurricane Helene could also likely impact business operations by unleashing power outages, deep flooding, and wind damage in northern Florida portions of Georgia, Everstream Analytics said.
Before the storm had even touched Florida soil, recovery efforts were already being launched by humanitarian aid group the American Logistics Aid Network (ALAN). In a statement on Wednesday, the group said it is urging residents in the storm's path across the Southeast to heed evacuation notices and safety advisories, and reminding members of the logistics community that their post-storm help could be needed soon. The group will continue to update its Disaster Micro-Site with Hurricane Helene resources and with requests for donated logistics assistance, most of which will start arriving within 24 to 72 hours after the storm’s initial landfall, ALAN said.