I actually heard about this on a podcast recently. They were talking about how not only is there a trade deficit with China, but there is also a container deficit. Not only do we buy more from China than they buy from us, but much of what they buy is intellectual property, rather than physical goods.
But, not only are the containers going one way with goods, the ships are as well. So, there end up being a number of mostly empty containers on a ship heading back to China. That increases the costs of shipping in order to pay for that deadheading.
Anyway, question to the OP: Is there any effort in increasing the logistics of getting trucks in and out?
If you know a truck is coming in, then when you pull a load for one truck, rather than putting that other truck’s trailer back on the bottom, putting it in an easier to get to location would make the loading process go a bit smoother.
I realize that it’s almost a Hamiltonian problem in many ways, but it does seem as though it would be mostly solvable with a bit of computing brute force.
Less expensive for the cargo owner. The shipping lines are responsible for transit time between ports of call. If “they” take longer than expected to get unloaded, it is on their account, even if it isn’t their fault. Once it is unloaded to the port, responsibility shifts to the cargo owner, or whomever is responsible for picking up the container for its next destination.
For example, if we have a box that is supposed to get on a train, and it sits on our property for 10 days before getting loaded, we do not get paid storage because it was our responsibility to put it on a train. If it waited 10 days to get on a truck, we get paid because it is the owner/shipper’s responsibility to pick up by truck.
They are now seriously adding up for those who are waiting at Ports of LB and LA. Due to the pollution caused by all the ships at anchor, they are now being fined by how long they wait. Fines double each day. I believe that was enacted earlier this month so citizens could breathe.
Everybody in the chain is making plenty of money, the shippers, the terminals, the railroad and the truckers. Part of what happens when demand outstrips supply, the people demanding that things get shipped from overseas are paying tons to the people who supply the shipping services. At least for now, who knows what will happen in 6 months.
I have a question for @Cheesesteak. I’ve brought in several containers over the years. Our broker arranges transport from the terminal to our warehouse (a 200+ mile trip). When it arrives, the container never leaves the trailer - we’re usually given two hours to empty it while the driver takes a nap. What happens after that? Is the container returned to the terminal or to a nearly property owned by the shipping company? I have never been asked to pay a deposit on a container. Does my broker or the truck line pay a deposit? There’s a huge demand for repurposed containers. Do a lot of them go missing and who is ultimately responsible for those losses?
We’re getting a little outside my wheelhouse, but I’ll run with it anyway.
Your broker has a relationship with one of the shippers, let’s say Hapag Lloyd. Hapag owns the container, it’s probably painted orange with their name plastered on it. After you’re done unloading it, it becomes a Hapag Empty. Ultimately, I believe Hapag is responsible for directing where the box goes at that point, it can go to a storage depot, directly to an exporter, or brought back to our facility for loading to a vessel as an empty. I don’t know at all what deposits may or may not be paid, and have never heard of containers going missing. Truckers and brokers are very tightly linked to the containers they’re carrying, Hapag will absolutely know who was carrying that container that is no longer available, and I’m sure they’d be seriously pissed about it.
We exercise a bit of control, and can refuse to accept empties if we don’t have a booking for them on an upcoming vessel. For example, Hapag tells us they want 500 40’ containers loaded on next Wednesday’s vessel, and we already have 600 in our inventory. If we don’t have space for more, we can tell truckers not to bring any Hapag 40s to our facility until further notice.
How ‘at risk’ would you be if you were in a small craft, say a dodgy boat the size of a bus, which breaks down, and you find yourself adrift in a large container port?
Risk, on a scale of 1-10, is approximately a 1. The ships coming and going are handled by tugboats and a Harbor Pilot, they are serious professionals and the very last thing they want is to run somebody over. Not that accidents don’t happen, I remember an incident from a couple of years ago where a ship came in too hot at a Vancouver port, and hit one of their cranes. They were very fortunate that nobody died, but incidents like that are very rare.
Overall, my company takes safety very seriously, and we’ve reduced our incident rate significantly. Still, working at a place like this, when you’re not just in an office like me, is dangerous. 20,000lb steel boxes are stacked 4-5 high, just sitting on each other like kids blocks, where 18 wheelers are routinely towered over by every other machine in the place, when things go wrong, they can go extremely wrong.
Speaking of truck driver shortages…with the increased demand for them, I would expect their incomes to have increased substantially, whether from greater charges for their services or higher salaries. Has that happened? If so, why aren’t people flocking to the profession to earn more money? If not, why not?
There is a learning time for truck drivers. The schools are apparently very busy currently so people are trying to get into the field.
Retention has been an issue in the field for a long time and I see little indication that pay has gone up significantly of late.
I know in the 70s Long haulers made very good money for a crappy job. My understanding is the industry has picked away at this decade after decade and the current rate of pay is nothing great. Maybe $60k per year for a really shitty job where you’re away from home most of the time. Top salary is around $85,000 but I think that is for owner operators and they have to subtract the cost of the tractor.
I know a few drivers and my Dad was in trucking for 30+ years on the dispatch/management side.
At what point do you know that a certain container needs to go on a certain truck? Is it when the truck turns up at the gate and asks for container ABC123?
Or does the freight forwarder have a way to say ’ hey a truck is coming get this container queued up?
I can understand why you don’t want to use twist-locks on something that’s supposed to be stacked only a day or two when things are going right but is there any thing but careful placement keeping the containers lined up? Otherwise I’m seeing a disaster in Long Beach or Oakland when an earthquake strikes.
I can comment some on this, from the perspective of a truck driver. I have a friend, a neighborhood kid who used to do my lawn, who is now an OTR long-haul truck driver. He calls me regularly, bored while driving, and talks.
First, hardly any long-haul truck drivers are on salary any more. They are paid by the mile. And the listed mileage, not actual – so any detours, accidents, avoiding traffic, etc. are at the drivers expense. And paid only for mileage, mot hourly – so hours spent waiting around to be loaded or unloaded (like OP mentioned before) is time the driver is on duty but not paid. (Though ICC considers it as working time, and it counts toward the maximum hours before the driver is forced to take a rest break.)
Also, it’s not unusual to arrive at a receiver at the scheduled time, yet be told they are busy and have to wait for hours until they can unload you. Driver is paid nothing for that unscheduled wait time (but if they are fined if they are late from the scheduled arrival time).
Drivers work with brokers, who find loads for them to haul (and collect a percentage for that service). So drivers seldom know what they will be hauling after the next load, or where they are hauling it to. Also, it’s fairly common for the next load the broker finds to start from another city a couple hundred miles away. The driver ‘deadheads’ to that city, with no load and no pay for going there. Or the driver can decline that load, and sit around in the first city, hoping that the broker finds another , closer load for him. (But brokers don’t like drivers who decline too many loads.)
And all this time, the driver is paying for all the fuel for his truck (and whatever price the gas companies & truck stops charge – not much competition on diesel prices).
Also, the driver is also paying for the truck all this time. Most don’t ‘own’ their own truck; it is leased from a truck leasing company. The leasing contract is rather one-sided, not much negotiation involved. Usually a long term lease, hard to get out of (about as bad as a cellphone contract, it’s said). Often requires repair work to be done in their company shop, and all needed parts purchased from them.
I’ve often told my friend that it seems to me that he is working long hours, and not getting to keep much of the money after all these expenses. And being gone from his family except for 3-4 days a month. That he should look for a local driving job, as a salaried employee of one company, or the post office or similar. Because it looks to me that he is slowly going bankrupt in OTR truck driving, and the way the system is set up, that will just continue. Everybody in the transportation industry is making money, but most of the risk ends up on the driver, who might maybe make some money.
I’ve heard that this is true for about half of the truck drivers on the road. Maybe that accounts for the high turnover that is reported in the industry.
That is pretty much exactly what this Planet Money episode from a year ago said (link to transcript). The schools and setup is incredibly predatory. Students are trapped with loans, expensive trucks, and can only buy from the company store, so they can’t stop working, but when they work they can’t make any money.
One person in the story made something like $90 net in three months, and ended up quitting soon after.
If even a significant fraction of truckers are being treated like that, it’s no order there is a shortage. I guess it’s too much to ask to just pay people a fair wage for their work.
I read an article some time ago about how truck driving was one of the well-paying few blue collar jobs left and lamenting how it would be eliminated once AI driving programs were working well enough. Looks like the writer was either blowing smoke or ignorant on what being an OTR driver is like.
It would seem that the market has been set up, or evolved , to apply zero value to the truck drivers time, so there is no incentive for anyone to minimize truck wait time. So we end up with basically a chunk of an already constrained resource ( drivers and trailers) being under utilized as they wait for loading and unloading so effectively reducing the availability of trucking further.
No one has an incentive to reduce the wait times as they would take on a cost for something that is currently free, and there is minimal incentive to increase capacity through people joining the trade as it seems to not pay well.
The market may not see a reason to fix the problem and pay drivers more or change terms and conditions as the lack of drivers and goods on the shelf just drives up the price anyway so things work out for the companies.
Seems like the kind of problem that would need worker organization or government action to force recognition of the drivers time eing of value which would then incentivize companies to fix the bottleneck.
Nope. They do plan to have the edges at lower heights than the interior of a stack, and avoid creating ‘chimneys’ when shuffling boxes around, but it’s just a stacked pile. High winds can frequently knock over empties, so it’s important to be cautious when storms come through.