SoCal ports truck plan enrollment lagging

Local drayage fleet enrollments in the Southern California ports $2.4 billion trucking re-regulation plan are lagging with less than six weeks to go before the plan's Oct. 1 start date.While officials from the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles report applications continue to be received, less than 1 percent of the more than 1,300 local drayage firms serving the two ports had applied by the start of this week.

Under the truck plan, motor carriers not signed up for ports-issued access licenses by the plan's Oct. 1 start date will be barred from operating in the ports.

The Port of Long Beach, as of Monday, had received 22 applications for access licenses from local trucking firms. Long Beach officials also reported that although their access license application form neglected to include a question asking for the number of trucks operated by the applying motor carriers, officials believed that the current applicants are all smaller firms.

Officials at the neighboring Los Angeles port reported that as of Monday the port had received access license applications from seven trucking firms representing a total of several hundred trucks. Also lagging are local drayage driver registrations in a federal program that the two port authorities are requiring under the truck plan.

Drivers of the nearly 17,000 trucks in the local drayage fleet are mandated under the truck plan to have an identification card issued by Department of Homeland Security under the Transportation Identification Workers Credential program. Drayage drivers, either as contractors or as employees, must be working for a motor carrier with a ports-issued access license and have the TWIC card to enter the two ports after Oct. 1.

According to the most current DHS statistics, less than 1,400 drayage drivers, about 10 percent of those servicing the two ports, have applied for a TWIC card.

An economic impact study commissioned by the ports last year found that 22 percent of the Southern California drayage drivers would eventually choose not to apply for a TWIC card and an additional 21 percent might not. Statistically, these two groups represent nearly 6,500 drivers from the port trucking fleet. The study's author, economist John Husing, projected that 2,500 to 3,700 drivers would be lost to the fleet due to the TWIC implementation.

Despite the low number of applicants for the access licenses -- called concession agreements by the ports -- and TWIC cards, officials from both ports remain committed to the two restrictions and the Oct. 1 start date.

rayage trucking companies who are serious about doing business with the port (of LA) would be prudent to continue on track to complete concessionaire applications, get their trucks registered on the system, make sure their drivers have TWIC cards and make sure they have no pre-1989 trucks in their port fleet that will be denied access on October 1, said Geraldine Knatz, Port of Los Angeles executive director.