LA-Long Beach congestion eases, but empties still hard to clear

TURN times, dwell times and chassis availability have much improved at Los Angeles and Long Beach, but getting empties back to Asia remains a problem, reports IHS Media.

'Our dwell time is less than three days, but the empty level is still very high,' said Total Terminals International vice president Daniel Bergman.



The average turn time in March was 83 minutes, down from 98 minutes in January and 90 minutes in February.



The San Pedro Bay port complex was hit by 90-minute truck turn times and four-day dwell times in late 2018 and early 2019, a situation made worse as shippers imported massively to avoid tariffs on goods from China.



The tariff deadline was delayed from January to March and has yet to take effect as trade talks in the US-China tariff war continue.



Meanwhile, the import surge dissipated in February, with container imports from China declining 6.9 per cent year on year, according to Piers data.



With the drop in imports, truck visit times at the 12 container terminals in Los Angeles-Long Beach have steadily improved, according to the Harbour Trucking Association.



Chassis availability has returned to normal throughout the harbour, said Direct ChassisLink vice president and chief operations officer Ron Joseph.



But terminal operators and chassis providers continue to struggle with chassis dislocations, with terminals fluctuating between having too many chassis and too few.


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