The California ports of Stockton and Oakland celebrated increasing shipper participation in the Marine Highways tug/barge service linking the two ports and reducing truck congestion on California’s 580-freeway corridor.
On November 1st, Stockton port director Richard Aschieris officiated at the Marine Highway ceremony that included speeches of support from: Victor Mow, Stockton Port Commissioner; Jean Banker, Port of Oakland Acting Maritime Director; Congressman Jerry McNerney (D-CA), Paul Jaenichen, U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD) Acting Administrator; Anthony Silva, Stockton Mayor; Bob Elliot, San Joaquin Supervisor; Susan Talamantes Eggman, California Assemblymember and Tom Jordan, San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District Representative.
Stockton Port Director Richard Aschieris speaking at the Marine Highway ceremony.
Jordan told participants that air quality officials are beginning to realize that major reductions in vehicle emissions must come from “changes in transportation modes and the marine highway is showing how it can be done.” Aschieris reported that the tug/barge service that transports containerized truckloads 75-miles from Stockton to Oakland “has taken 5,000-trucks off the highways since we started the service in June.”
Mark Tollini Deputy Port Director, told AJOT that the M580 service’s economic impact will be to generate $5.5 million in wages, benefits and new longshore jobs to the Stockton area in the first year of operation. He believes an equal amount will be generated in additional wages, benefits and longshore jobs in Oakland. Longshore workers make $110 an hour in wages and benefits, he said.
Tollini believes additional trucking jobs doing pick ups and deliveries to the Port of Stockton for the M580-service will mitigate the loss of trucking jobs required to transport containers between the Stockton area and the Port of Oakland: “With respect to lost truckers jobs, I am of the opinion that this is not a transference of jobs from one class of worker to another. Truckers are and will remain an integral part of the logistical supply chain. Our service promotes efficiencies within the trucking industry and therefore insures truckers the ability to provide over the road service at an affordable level and sustainability while the current method of transport down the I-580 highway becomes increasingly unviable.”
MARAD’s Paul Jaenichen noted that the project received a $30-million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation, as well as $5 million from local sources. He told the AJOT, “Since 2009, the Department of Transportation has directed over $400-million in Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) funding to projects at 33 ports, large and small, inland and coastal, including $130 million for projects supporting Marine Highway services.”
Congressman McNerney and Mayor Silva both noted that the service would encourage badly needed jobs in the Stockton area that had been hard hit by the recession.
Assemblywoman Talamantes Eggman noted the importance of economic development to Stockton and other struggling regions of Eastern California.
A prominent logistics executive noted that the service is still not making money and needed government subsidies to get off the ground.
Mark Tollini told the AJOT that changing traditional attitudes of executives who favor transporting containers by road has been slow, but years of persistence are paying off.
Dignitaries gathered between two cranes at the Stockton Marine Highway ceremony.
He noted that a major breakthrough came with the decision by Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) to support the service saying “we get it.” With MSC supporting the service, other shippers are seeing that they are losing out on the $100/container savings. Gradually more ocean carriers are beginning to use the service, including Hapag Lloyd and Maersk Lines. Tollini noted that a second factor helping the service is the growing frustration drivers and shippers are experiencing with congestion and delays at the Port of Oakland. This is encouraging more shippers to save on costs and delays at Oakland by delivering their containers to Stockton. Stockton is much closer to major distribution centers located in the San Joaquin Valley.
Chris Lytle, Executive Director, Port of Oakland told a Women In Logistics luncheon in October that there is an on-going truck congestion problem at the Port. This is resulting in delays of several hours creating a hardship on drivers and shippers.
On October 22nd, The San Jose Mercury News reported that several dozen truckers staged a two-day protest without shutting down the Port of Oakland. The newspaper said the Port of Oakland Truckers Association is “trying to band together drivers who own and operate their own trucks. They want compensation—and a bathroom—while forced to wait hours outside terminals they say do not have enough workers to keep cargo moving swiftly. They also want to delay, and get help paying for new state requirements to upgrade trucks to pollution standards.”
The newspaper noted that the trucking delays and protests have impacted shippers from the San Joaquin Valley near Stockton.
“Among those who say they were hurt by this week’s protests were San Joaquin Valley farmers trying to get nuts and fruits to Asian ports. One Stanislaus County walnut processor told The Modesto Bee on Monday that protest-related delays were ‘killing us right now.’
‘We’ve got walnuts coming out of our ears, and we can’t get them shipped,’ Ron Martella of Grower Direct Nut Co., near the city of Hughson, told the Modesto paper.”
Tollini says the Marine Highway service is making gradual progress from shipping 60 revenue bearing containers per week in July to 120 revenue bearing containers per week in November.
Railroads are beginning to move containers through Stockton rather than Oakland, resulting in them and others signing land leases that generate new revenue for the Port that is offsetting the current revenue shortfall from the M580 service.
Tollini hopes the service will become self-sufficient by June 2014.
Tollini noted that Antonini Trucking, a local company, has been a major boost for the service: “Antonini offers a one stop shop for shippers and carriers by being able to do pick-ups and deliveries and having a supply of chassis and containers necessary for customer needs and Antonini offers affordable drayage pricing” to transport containers to and from Stockton
The Port also needs to improve the productivity of its container handling operation so as to reduce costs and improve transit times. Tollini says that the Port’s two Liebherr mobile harbor cranes will soon be fitted with an anti-sway technology that will make it easier and faster for containers to be loaded and unloaded onto barges.
Brian Spain, Port Equipment representative, for Liebherr, agrees with Tollini. He says the new anti-sway mechanism will increase the number of containers loaded and unloaded on an hourly basis.
