A study of intermodal motor carrier has found that APL's Global Gateway South-Eagle Marine Services terminal at the Port of Los Angeles has the quickest truck turn times of 14 marine terminals surveyed at the adjacent ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles.
Conducted during a one-week period in August by the Harbor Truckers for a Sustainable Future--an advocacy and strategy coalition of IMCs– the study incorporated daily logs from drivers and global positioning satellite information from their trucks to build a picture of accurate turn-times at the terminals.
The APL terminal was named "Most Efficient Marine Terminal" by the study, finding that average turn times were about 50 minutes (using only the outside gate/queue, inside gate, and out gate total minutes). The terminal ranked first in the paper survey, and its rankings varied between number one and number two in the surveys using the GPS data.
“When truckers come through our gate, they are our customers and we’ve got to treat them well and get them back on the road quickly," said Nathaniel Seeds, Vice President of Operations in the Americas for APL, “so awards such as this one are a great source of satisfaction for APL.”
The study also found that the turn times on night gates at all terminals were approximately thirty minutes longer than the day shift. Trouble window transactions averaged approximately 30-plus minutes, per driver, to resolve. Turn times for both shifts throughout the 15 terminals ranged from less than one hour to several hours.
Representatives of the HTFSF group plan to meet with terminals directly to discuss the turn times and seeks ways to improve efficiency.
