Commentary

Shippers should thoroughly vet their current carrier’s logging platforms, and if they aren’t utilizing electronic logging devices or plan to, create a transition plan. Carriers suggesting ELDs are a negative should be a red flag.

When Ghana’s Transport Minister Franklin Fiavi Fifi Kwetey took to the podium at a recent international ports and supply chain conference in the country’s capital of Accra he was forced to preface his speech with an apology. The lights in the five-star venue were misbehaving badly and the windowless room was plunged into darkness every few minutes, forcing speakers to read notes using a small torch attached to the podium.

When the 3,351-TEU container ship Rena grounded off New Zealand in 2011, the cargo losses totaled $1 billion, and the salvage operation took seven months. The loss pales in comparison to what’s at stake as the latest generation of container ships approach 20,000 20-foot-equivalent units.

Nothing short of an extension to the existing West Coast labor agreement, without the disruptions of 2014-15, will be sufficient to earn back the trust of shippers. But how serious is the ILWU in achieving that? We’ll find out soon.

Though shippers can file notice of a loss-and-damage claim within the nine-month time limit prescribed by statute, with determination of damages to come, it’s important to remember there is another time clock to consider. You have two years and a day from the date of the carrier’s initial offer of settlement to file suit if you can’t later reach agreement.

Accelerating economic growth across the U.S. depends on the ability of our rail system to meet current and future shipping demands. As our nation’s economy has grown in recent years, our rail system must strive to keep pace. 



Port metrics and key performance indicators are popular topics often discussed in Washington D.C. and by local port authorities, but while metrics and KPI’s are good goals, they come with a cautionary note.

One of the major takeaways from this year’s TPM Conference in Long Beach was that global supply chain volatility and uncertainty continue to pressure beneficial cargo owners to demand best practices from their freight transportation stakeholders. The operating models at a majority of container ports don’t provide a sustainable strategy to meet these critical demands. It’s time for ports to consider implementing best practices.

Duluth has developed a solid business in heavy-lift and project cargo at the western end of Lake Superior, 2,340 miles from the Atlantic. This fall, the port will open 28 acres of additional open storage and a new dock that will handle loads of 2,000 pounds per square foot.

The extent to which beneficial cargo owners are controlling the discussion in trans-Pacific contract negotiations is becoming more evident, and that leverage is greater now than at any time since the 2008-09 recession.

As with similar matters involving revenue, costs and other things that affect the bottom line, ocean carriers are their own worst enemies at times. Unfortunately for the carriers, it’s one of those times.

For the first 10 weeks of 2016, North American Class I railroads originated 3.3 million carloads of freight (excluding intermodal). That’s 427,000 fewer carloads than the same period last year, or a decline of more than 11 percent.

With the industry just just more than three months away from the July 1 implementation date of the new container weight verification rule under the Safety of Life at Sea convention, fears of disruptions have abated somewhat. The industry seems to have come a long way from last fall when panic-stricken shippers, carriers and forwarders wondered how a new type of rule applied to container shipping would have any hope of being implemented without disrupting trade.

The intermodal industry finds itself in a perfect microeconomic storm. Energy is a primary driver. The price of diesel has dropped by approximately one-third in the past year, greatly reducing intermodal’s secular price advantage over truck.

A shipper should regard set-off as a last-resort measure where a carrier is being insupportably obdurate about paying claims and the shipper is confident of prevailing if the carrier challenges you. It’s not a proper substitute for resolving claims out of hand without clear provocation.

CMA CGM’s announcement this month that it would deploy six ships with capacities of up to 18,000 TEUs to the West Coast beginning in May is the latest indication that the French carrier believes Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland are up to the task. But will the ports be ready?

Despite the calm market in early 2016, a storm is forming that is going to hit the trucking industry. New regulations coming into play in the next several months and the increasing influence of a major retailer are prepped to cause significant turbulence in the U.S. trucking market.

Satellite offers numerous benefits, including the ability to provide coverage in remote regions where trucks and oceanic vessels often travel.

Ahead of the SOLAS container weight mandate its important to ask yourself these questions: Will you purchase weighing equipment to use Method 1 or 2? Will you purchase a service from others and pay by the container? Will you purchase the equipment and provide the service for others and potentially yourself?

An often overlooked and increasingly relevant form of intermodal transport is truck to barge or train to barge. The Mississippi River is really a “free railroad” for the U.S. whose potential for intermodal transport has not been fully exploited.

A year after the Feb. 20, 2015, deal that ended months of catastrophic West Coast port disruption, what lessons have been learned? And what is the likelihood the events will be repeated?

As members of the supply chain we should all be focused on safe, secure, and reliable global marine transport, but from my perspective, there are too many parties looking for a reason to not provide verified weights.

It’s safe to say that most everyone has heard the word “cloud” used in connection with at least some aspect of supply chain technology. But while most may have heard the term, it’s also safe to say that many wouldn’t be able to fully explain exactly what it is, how it works or, for bonus points, where the term “cloud computing” originated.

There’s nothing in general or transportation law to preclude contracting parties from reaching agreements to be applied retroactively. But there’s also nothing in the law to preclude the parties from agreeing to alter an effective date.

Damage from poor rail performance can be severe and long-lasting. Once incurred, that damage isn’t easily reversed.

The analysts that process trade transactions for commercial banks are the front lines of defense against global financial crime and they must be taught to look beyond just the trade documents in front of them and consider a wider context.

As we descend on Long Beach, California, for the 16th Annual TPM Conference, a slew of issues threatens to disrupt shipper supply chains. Long-awaited consolidation among container carriers is under way, with dramatic changes to alliances likely. But the biggest concern for shippers is the looming container weight policy mandated by the International Maritime Organization, an issue that will resonate through TPM and beyond.

Although communications have improved between stakeholders dealing with ports and terminals, and congestion has eased, much still needs to be done, and port productivity remains a concern. Progress that could be made hasn’t been because much of the design, infrastructure and equipment in ports don’t meet the requirements of today’s environment and markets.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's decision to post “absolute performance measures” for BASIC scores in early March represents an affront to the intent of Congress when it passed the FAST Act.

Amazon is reimagining the modern supply chain, and we have to use our own imaginations to follow along. The company that simultaneously built the world’s largest cloud computing business and became a digital entertainment giant has grown uncomfortable with traditional freight transportation offerings, thus dabbling in trucking, air freight and now ocean.

While other segments of the transportation industry have consolidated to gain network efficiencies, the railroads continue to operate with the structural constraints of a bygone era.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' channel assessment methodology based on national benefit/cost ratio is speculative and, in some areas, flawed, especially on the benefit side.

A shipper’s failure to file a timely loss-and-damage claim with a motor carrier will bar recovery on the claimant’s part.

2016 is a test year for LTL carriers in how they react to reduced demand and the new aspects at play. Carriers should recall the difficulties in 2009-10, and that it took more than four years to regain lost profit. They must avoid price discounting to fill trucks with freight.

If you’re keeping up with the news on self-driving vehicles, you’d be forgiven for being confused whether their arrival is right around the corner or years away. Looking closely at the technology, we can see that both views are correct, and it will have wide-ranging implications for freight brokers.

Many U.S. importers regard procurement cost and pallet vendor selection as the shippers' burden, but this is risky and exposes an importer to severe supply chain disruptions should their pallets not be compliant with local requirements and face rejection by border officials.

The average U.S. diesel pump price dropped below $2 per gallon for the first time since 2005 this week. With prices this low, perhaps its time for shippers and carriers to rethink fuel surcharges.

High inventories impede GDP growth and depress freight demand, and often are seen as an omen of economic downturn and recession. Inventory-to-sales ratios “are approaching pre-recession levels, with retail, manufacturing and wholesale all trending in the wrong direction,” Deutsche Bank Markets Research said in a late-January report.

While other transportation modes have long since adopted simple and sensible rating processes, the less-than-truckload industry has continued to wade through a mire of weight/class formulas that, in many cases, are inaccurate, obsolete, and baseless and, in all cases, costly to maintain and execute.

A cooperative win-win attitude from longshoremen, which has long been present throughout the South Atlantic and U.S. Gulf regions, is a key reason shippers seeking predictability are gravitating to Georgia and other ports in the region.