The National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America (NCBFAA) has submitted a letter to the U.S. Department of Commerce in response to their request for public comment on U.S. seaport efficiency and competitiveness issues for its 21st Century U.S. Port Competitiveness Initiative.
The letter itemized 20 current issues, including larger vessels, lack of analytics, driver dissatisfaction, hours of service diminished by wait times, terminal hopping, chassis hoarding, among others; and offered 16 possible solutions, including gate hour changes, better vessel planning and equipment staging, revolving labor shifts, appointment system pilot program, grey fleet for chassis shortage, greater use of RFID tag data, and higher pay for drivers.
The NCBFAA has posted a summary of their letter to the Department of Commerce, and it is available at: http://www.ncbfaa.org/Scripts/4Disapi.dll/userfiles/uploads/NCBFAA_Comments_on_Port_Competitiveness.pdf
In other news, the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach announced they will increase the Traffic Mitigation Fee (TMF) by 1.9 percent effective August 8 from $69.17 per TEU to $70.49 per TEU, or $140.98 per FEU.
The TMF funds are used to subsidize operations at the terminals at night and on weekends when no TMF is collected.
The PierPass notice on this matter the TMF increase is available at: http://www.pierpass.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/TMF-adjustment-2016-release_7-8-16_final.pdf
