Ports across the United States are shattering monthly and yearly records for the amount of cargo being shipped, and transportation industry experts say the trend likely will continue as the U.S. economy remains on a steady pace.
Beginning in 2016, and through 2020, U.S. ports plan to spend an estimated $155 billion in public and private sector funding on infrastructure-related projects. Numerous ports are in the middle of extensive dredging projects, adding more massive cranes, and new berths, along with widening access roads to improve the connections from the dockside to the highway on-ramps.
For now, the ports and dray truckers are holding their own regarding moving cargo by operating more efficiently. But officials caution many ports may be about to reach the physical limits of their capacity to expand.
“If you can cut the average dwell time of a box, cut it in half, you’re doubling the capacity of that terminal without building a single piece of physical infrastructure,” American Association of Port Authorities CEO Kurt Nagle said. “So, more and more that’s where we are going to have to see those gains in terms of capacity and efficiency.”
Incremental progress is being made at some ports to make them more efficient and reduce the amount of time that cargo sits before it is loaded onto trucks. Oakland, Calif.-based Pacific Merchant Shipping Association reported that from December 2017 to the end of February, the average number of days a container stayed at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach dropped 16%, from 3.08 days to 2.63 days.
