I think that there’s a misunderstanding here: the rule did not apply to the Port of Long Beach, which has always stacked to reasonable heights, but to container yards in surrounding areas. On top of this I assume it applies only to small container yards (the kind owned by a trucking company that’s little more than a patch of dirt to park their truck fleet), because you can’t possibly operate a dedicated yard (the kind where major shipping companies keep their stock at, thousands of boxes) while stacking only two high.
This is not a nitpick, since the images of containers stacked 5 high make you imagine that storage capacity in the whole area just increased 250% overnight. I am highly confident this is not the case. The increase might only have been a few percentage points. Can’t tell without more details on the local conditions.
Given this, I’d like to see some actual evidence that this is a panacea, as opposed to just a first step (still important!) in the long tower-of-hanoi logistics nightmare that clearing the bottleneck actually is.
One thing that is clear to me: untying this kind of knot almost certainly requires coordination from a higher authority than the individual companies (shipowners, truckers, exporters/importers), because those groups have goals and incentives that are at odds with each other in a situation like this.
(Source: I worked in the container shipping industry)
to confirm what Vitor said, it’s the logistics companies not the port that had a rules change: “The rule change does not apply to terminals at the Port of Long Beach, which routinely stack containers up to six high. Many media reports over the weekend didn’t make a distinction between the port and inland zone, making it appear the port had new authority to increase vertical storage.” - https://www.freightwaves.com/news/city-of-long-beach-allows-logistics-companies-to-stack-containers-higher
Yes, there are corridors between the stacks to allow access to the containers. And you’re proposing to get rid of them and just make one huge, contiguous block of boxes, yes?
Not all those containers are empty (I’d actually expect most of them to be full if we’re seeing historically high import volumes). Even if the boxes were empty, they wouldn’t be fungible. They belong to different shipping companies, there are different types of containers, and even within the same type they have different ratings in terms of being foodgrade, maximum weight, etc. Sometimes they’re also rented, which can affect priorization and where you want to send them.
But the biggest problem I see is that not all the empties at the port can be in the same place, because there are many ships docking at different quays, and the containers to be loaded must be pre-stacked (in a specific order) before the ship arrives, to make the operation fast and efficient.
It’s an interesting idea though, I’m sure some amount of improvement is possible.
Not all those containers are empty (I’d actually expect most of them to be full if we’re seeing historically high import volumes).
I would expect that high import volumes result in the containers being empty after unloading and then the empty containers are stuck somewhere and have to be dealt with because not enough containers get exported again?
I think that there’s a misunderstanding here: the rule did not apply to the Port of Long Beach, which has always stacked to reasonable heights, but to container yards in surrounding areas. On top of this I assume it applies only to small container yards (the kind owned by a trucking company that’s little more than a patch of dirt to park their truck fleet), because you can’t possibly operate a dedicated yard (the kind where major shipping companies keep their stock at, thousands of boxes) while stacking only two high.
This is not a nitpick, since the images of containers stacked 5 high make you imagine that storage capacity in the whole area just increased 250% overnight. I am highly confident this is not the case. The increase might only have been a few percentage points. Can’t tell without more details on the local conditions.
Given this, I’d like to see some actual evidence that this is a panacea, as opposed to just a first step (still important!) in the long tower-of-hanoi logistics nightmare that clearing the bottleneck actually is.
One thing that is clear to me: untying this kind of knot almost certainly requires coordination from a higher authority than the individual companies (shipowners, truckers, exporters/importers), because those groups have goals and incentives that are at odds with each other in a situation like this.
(Source: I worked in the container shipping industry)
to confirm what Vitor said, it’s the logistics companies not the port that had a rules change:
“The rule change does not apply to terminals at the Port of Long Beach, which routinely stack containers up to six high. Many media reports over the weekend didn’t make a distinction between the port and inland zone, making it appear the port had new authority to increase vertical storage.”
- https://www.freightwaves.com/news/city-of-long-beach-allows-logistics-companies-to-stack-containers-higher
If anyone wants to double-check this without dealing with the paywall, here’s the 12ft link.
Note: I have offered Vitor a $200 reward for this contribution. There’s a high likelihood I offer more in this area but am still operationalizing.
If these containers are empty and thus fungible, this looks to me like there’s lots of space between the rows.
Yes, there are corridors between the stacks to allow access to the containers. And you’re proposing to get rid of them and just make one huge, contiguous block of boxes, yes?
Not all those containers are empty (I’d actually expect most of them to be full if we’re seeing historically high import volumes). Even if the boxes were empty, they wouldn’t be fungible. They belong to different shipping companies, there are different types of containers, and even within the same type they have different ratings in terms of being foodgrade, maximum weight, etc. Sometimes they’re also rented, which can affect priorization and where you want to send them.
But the biggest problem I see is that not all the empties at the port can be in the same place, because there are many ships docking at different quays, and the containers to be loaded must be pre-stacked (in a specific order) before the ship arrives, to make the operation fast and efficient.
It’s an interesting idea though, I’m sure some amount of improvement is possible.
I would expect that high import volumes result in the containers being empty after unloading and then the empty containers are stuck somewhere and have to be dealt with because not enough containers get exported again?