SoCal ports truck plan enrollment lagging

or now, Sept. 1 is the deadline to apply for a concession to have it in place by Oct. 1, added Port of Los Angeles spokesperson Theresa Adams-Lopez. While both the access license and TWIC restrictions are being maintained for now, Adams-Lopez said Los Angeles port officials are trying to be flexible and work with folks, and the possibility exists that the dates may change as the Oct. 1 date nears.

We're urging trucking companies to sign up for a concession, said Port of Long Beach spokesman Art Wong. We're launching an outreach effort, sending out emails, circulating flyers and meeting with trucking companies to get them to sign up. While the numbers of applicants may increase dramatically in the next several weeks, anecdotal evidence from local drayage firms indicates that motor carriers feel less than compelled to apply for the access licenses.

Everybody to a man (in the local drayage industry) is saying that there is no need to apply while the American Trucking Associations lawsuit is out there, said Fred Johring, president of Golden State Logistics in East Rancho Dominguez.

On July 28, ATA filed suit in a Los Angeles federal court against the access license component of the plan, claiming the two ports violated federal interstate commerce laws by mandating that motor carrier obtain an access licenses. A week later, ATA also requested that the court issue a preliminary injunction against the access license component of the two port's truck plan.

In a meeting last week that set a Sept. 8 date for the injunction hearing, attorneys for the ports indicated to the presiding Circuit Court judge that local motor carriers would have until Sept. 29 to apply for access licenses; however, no official statement from either port has verified this.

Johring, who has already prepared an access license application to cover his 25 trucks -- but hasn't submitted it -- also said the lack of guarantees from the ports to protect confidential business information required in the applications are keeping many truck firms from signing up.

Several terminal operators in the two ports, who each asked not to be identified, added that despite the looming Oct. 1 start date of the plan, there is no infrastructure or procedure in place to monitor which drayage carrier does and does not have an access license or which drivers have TWIC cards. One terminal operator who pressed the Port of Long Beach on how this information would be collected come Oct. 1 said port officials suggested putting longshoremen at the terminal gates to manually check trucks and containers.

The ports had planned to utilize infrastructure already in place at the terminals to automatically record truck and container information, but problems in developing software to interact with all the different types of non-interacting gate software used by the various terminals have slowed development of a solution.

The apparent problems with he truck plan implementation are beginning to raise industry concerns about the ultimate impact on cargo movement when the restrictions take affect Oct. 1.

It could be the creation of the “perfect storm?resulting in the creation of perfect circumstances for major problems,said Peter Gatti, executive vice president of the National Industrial Transportation League. NIT League, one of the nation's oldest and largest freight transportation industry groups, represents more than 700 companies nationwide involved in the domestic and international transportation of goods.

Our members are just beginning to understand the potential circumstances which could lead to major truck capacity problems at the ports, Gatti said.

The two ports moved nearly 16 million TEUs last year, with slightly more than half being handled at some point by the local drayage fleet. In addition to the local drayage fleet handling non-discretionary cargo bound for local delivery, the local drayage fleet also handles a great deal of discretionary containers headed for rail yards near the ports.