L.A., Long Beach Ports Sign Shippers for OffPeak
OS ANGELES — The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have started signing up cargo owners, or shippers, to their recently launched OffPeak program, which is designed to reduce traffic congestion in the ports, said operator PierPass Inc.
“By allowing cargo to move on nights and weekends, OffPeak will play an important role in mitigating traffic congestion and air pollution around the ports, while helping the industry and community cope with growing cargo volumes,” Richard Steinke, Port of Long Beach executive director, said in a statement.
“By using the existing transportation infrastructure more efficiently and shifting traffic out of peak commuting hours, OffPeak is a landmark effort to address chronic port congestion and air quality issues,” Bruce Wargo, president and chief executive officer of PierPass, said in a June 7 statement.
“They are asking people to work nights and they are not going to pay them more,” said Stephanie Williams, senior vice president of California Trucking Association. “They need to offer a monetary incentive to get people away from their kids and families at night. It’s called overtime.”
Under the new program, officially scheduled to be launched July 23, importers would be charged extra fees for using ports during the daytime.
During the first month of the program, cargo owners or the logistics companies they’ve hired would pay $40 for every 20-foot container and $80 for a 40-foot container moved during the day.
PierPass said that originally, the program was designed to return the fees to cargo owners and movers for each container moved at night or during the weekend. But because marine terminals said the OffPeak program would cost about $160 million, the reimbursement clause was dropped, leaving no money for incentives to trucking companies to give their drivers extra pay.
Williams said that so far the marine terminals have refused “to work with the trucking industry” by sharing financial incentives to work at night with truck operators.
“They are not willing to treat us as equal business partners,” Williams said. “We are not their labor, we are their equal business partners that need to be treated with mutual respect.”
Messages left with Wargo seeking comment were not returned. PierPass is a nonprofit company that oversees the OffPeak program.
Supporters of the program say that despite a lack of an overnight differential, truckers would benefit from less traffic, which would allow them to make one or two more round trips per shift.
“I understand the truckers’ concerns working 6 p.m. to 2 a.m.,” said Ezra Finkin, a spokesman with the Waterfront Coalition, Washington, D.C., a retailers’ trade group.
However, Finkin added, “if you do work these hours you can take advantage of the roads when there aren’t many commuters on them, which means you are not fighting with other cars and vehicles and you will be able to perform more turns per day.”
Currently, truckers are paid between $75 and $150 a load, depending on destination. Finkin said being able to make two or three turns a day instead of one could mean a substantial increase in pay for many truckers.
Since registration began May 23, several hundred cargo owners have signed up for the program. PierPass said it hoped to get 4,000 cargo operators to sign up for the program.
Logistics companies and retailers would have to absorb additional costs in their nighttime warehouse and distribution operations, said John Husing, an economist in Redlands, Calif.
PierPass said its goal was to move 10% to 20% of the ports’ containers during off-peak hours after one year, 30% to 35% in the second year and 40% to 45% in the third year.
This story appears in the June 13 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.
