Ports, customers focus more on metrics Port authorities, ocean carriers, terminals and shippers are paying closer attention to operational metrics such as truck turn times to guide their decisions on where to route cargo or deploy ships. “We need to measure ourselves in order to be able to show the value we provide,” said Bethann Rooney, assistant director, port commerce, at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. She spoke Friday during a panel discussion on port congestion sponsored by Peel Ports and American Shipper. Rooney is the port authority’s coordinator of the Council on Port Performance, an industrywide group working to implement 23 recommendations of a port performance task force. Prominent among those recommendations are key performance indicators. New York-New Jersey is a landlord port that leases terminals to operators. Those leases include throughput standards, but Rooney said the marketplace ultimately will decide whether terminals are meeting customer requirements. “We believe that peer pressure is going to encourage more people to report on their performance,” she said. Improved port performance requires teamwork, Rooney said. Ocean carriers contract with terminals and pay close attention to productivity at the ship berth, but berth productivity and yard productivity “are byproducts of each other,” she said. “In order for terminals to meet the requirements that carriers have put on them, they’re going to have to improve productivity in the yard,” Rooney said. “It’s those gears working together in order to have an entirely efficient system. If you can improve the yard, you will have berth productivity, and you will have gate productivity and address the problems of the truckers.” Curtis Foltz, CEO of the Georgia Ports Authority, agreed that customers pay close attention to statistical gauges of a port’s operating performance. “At the end of the day, it’s sort of Customer Service 101,” he said. “Ultimately, customers have choices. They’re going to choose the overall best value proposition for them.” Port drayage trucks at Savanah are equipped with radio-frequency identification tags that the port authority uses to measure truck turn times. “It’s one of our key metrics,” Foltz said. Savannah regularly has 9,000 truck turns a day and on Wednesday handled a record 9,500 turns with an average time of less than 56 minutes, he said. “Yes, we get paid by the ocean carrier. We don’t have a relationship with the trucker, but ultimately our customer is the [beneficial cargo owner] who will pay for it, and that BCO is the one that is holding us accountable to deliver,” Foltz said. RFID soon will be required for all trucks entering New York-New Jersey terminals. Port Newark Container Terminal will require RFID tags starting Nov. 10. GCT Bayonne and GCT New York will require the tags beginning Dec. 1. Initially, the tags will measure gate-to-gate turn times. After technical issues are worked out, RFID eventually will be used to include queue time outside gates, Rooney said. But she added that the Council on Port Performance hopes improvements to terminal operations will sharply reduce those outside-the-gate queues. Rooney described the Council on Port Performance’s work as a “resiliency project” to help the East Coast’s busiest port handle cargo surges and weather-related problems such as last winter’s multiple blizzards, which crippled operations for weeks. The port authority plans to issue its “winter plan” for the approaching cold-weather season after it is reviewed by council members next Friday, Rooney said. JOC NEWS - NOV 07 2014
Posted on: Sat, 08 Nov 2014 00:24:13 +0000
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