Looking into the new year, the big question on the minds of all US importers and exporters must be when the disrupted supply chain will return to a semblance of normality. Will a solution be found relatively quickly, or will it be a long wait for infrastructure improvements?
An examination of the near-gridlock situation at the Los Angeles–Long Beach gateway indicates that the real problem is not inadequate berths or cranes but an inability to move inbound containers out of the marine terminals quickly enough. The industry, therefore, must find a solution for the inadequate warehousing and trucking capacity before pouring billions of dollars into improving infrastructure at the ports.
It’s football season, and I see an improvisation brought into the game in the 1980s that could serve as an analogy for a solution to the world’s transportation woes: the spread offense.
For shippers routing cargo through the West Coast, this would mean a greater use of the Northwest Alliance Seaport Alliance (Seattle and Tacoma) and Oakland, as well as the development of the Port of Portland in Northern Oregon. To the south, San Diego could provide additional capacity, if sufficient space could be found to expand the port’s existing container yard.
The spread of the points of entry would invariably lead to the creation of more distribution centers and the conversion of a segment of long-haul trucking with local and port drayage.
Similarly on the East Coast, the ports of Boston; Philadelphia; Baltimore; Wilmington, North Carolina; Jacksonville, Florida; and Miami need to be better served to eliminate dependence on the big four — New York and New Jersey, Savannah, Charleston, and Norfolk — with a similar spread in warehousing and trucking.
In Europe, short-sea shipping is at the forefront of the EU’s transportation policy, accounting for close to 40 percent of all freight moved within the continent, but the antiquated Jones Act stands in the way of developing a similar coastal shipping network in the US. It’s time for industry leaders to step up and not be bashful about upsetting the old boys’ network by advocating for changes to the Jones Act; allowing coastal feedering of laden containers by foreign-built ships could change the entire transportation and distribution landscape in the US.
The US Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) and Department of Transportation also need to engage the ocean carriers in structuring vessel deployment to meet demand, in exchange for continuing the regulatory approval granted for the operation of carrier alliances.
Coach Jack Neumeier’s spread offense changed football forever, and the same concept could change freight transportation as well!