In 2016, we will continue to see industry stakeholders working together to address supply chain efficiencies and are optimistic their efforts will bear fruit. This will occur in spite of recent efforts by the federal government to intervene in the matter.
An agreement by House and Senate conferees on a port performance statistics program to be part of the new transportation bill, known as the “Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act” or the “Fast Act,” will not be a silver bullet for obstacles to efficient port operations. This is a reactive measure with admirable intentions to quantify port capacity and performance measures but with typical governmental bloat of creating a large working group of federal agency personnel and certain industry stakeholders. The working group has a relatively short one-year time line for its required deliverables, which are to provide recommendations on measuring port performance and to devise a methodology to collect data.
However, what we need now are viable solutions. Stakeholder groups convened at regional port levels have already identified key chokepoints and potential solutions. Most significantly, participants in these groups understand there is more than one root cause for the problems we face and, accordingly, potential solutions are complex.
In particular, the work of the Council on Port Performance, a group of port stakeholders doing business in the Port of New York and New Jersey, has been successful in identifying issues, providing recommendations for potential solutions, and seeking ways to implement solutions.
In response to a recommendation by the CPP, terminal operators acting through a Federal Maritime Commission-filed agreement, implemented a first-of-its-kind portwide terminal information portal, referred to as “TIPS,” to facilitate information flow on container availability to motor carriers and cargo interests. TIPS has been well-received and, while not a cure-all for terminal congestion, it has resulted in fewer trouble-window visits. What is more significant about TIPS is that it is one step in a multilayered approach to enhance port efficiency that was driven by private-sector actors committed to addressing issues. It is expected that in 2016 viable solutions for chassis management and a truck reservation system, also CPP recommendations, will be implemented.
Carol Notias Lambos, Partner, The Lambos Firm