Convergence of Transportation Congestion and Transportation Security at US Seaports

Convergence of Transportation Congestion and Transportation Security at US Seaports
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Abstract
Transportation congestion and insecurity at US seaports are two of the biggest challenges facing the intermodal supply chain industry. While delays at port facilities are a well-documented challenge, truck congestions at seaport gates have worsened the rapidly growing container traffic volume. Transportation congestion and transportation insecurity converge because of the clash between policies that encourage maritime transport on the one hand and ramped-up efforts to deal with a broad array of port insecurities. This research essay conducted secondary research on both port challenges and discovered that transportation congestion in US ports has significant economic, environmental, and operational ramifications, over and above reducing intermodal supply chain industry efficiency. It also determined that port insecurity is mostly because of underfunding and collusion between criminal enterprises and port staff. The paper also made several recommendations on how to address each of the two-port issues.
Convergence of Transportation Congestion and Transportation Security at US Seaports
Introduction
Delays at port facilities are one of the biggest challenges affecting the motor carrier industry. Even though this only impacts the harbor trucker, it remains a severe issue in terms of the efficiency of the intermodal supply chain industry and the port community. The intermodal supply chain industry implements a crucial function of collecting and delivering cargo to and from the seaport for shippers. Truck congestion erodes the ability of the harbor trucking industry to deliver a high level of service to manufacturers and retailers. Most truckers involved in the harbor drayage business are owner-operators which means that their earnings are determined by the number of trips they make and not by the number of hours worked.
Any traffic delays like long waiting lines at port facilities significantly reduce the money they earn. America's seaport truck congestion is a well-recorded issue in freight transportation and logistics issues journals. However, few studies have analyzed the problem even as various parties in the intermodal supply chain continue to complain about the long queue of trucks waiting outside marine container terminals. Most port systems in America have been unable to handle the rapidly increasing volume of container freights, and drivers have to wait for long periods to drop off or pick up a container. Seaport gate congestion problems and subsequent harbor trucking linked challenges in primary container ports like the Port of Long Beach/Los Angeles, Port of New York/New Jersey, and Port of Savannah have been documented over the years.
Moreover, several studies have cited three security weaknesses in America's maritime transportation system: (1) inability to ascertain that the containers arriving in its seaports were loaded at a safe loading dock and that there was little opportunity for terrorists or criminals to compromise the shipment; (2) inability to ascertain the movement and nature of the cargo from its point of origin to its present destination with such accuracy as to eliminate any doubt that it was intercepted or tampered with while been transported to US ports; and (3) inability to ascertain that there was adequate time and reliable data about incoming containerized cargos to enable authorities to carry out a virtual examination of the same before its arrival using current database. At present, America's incapacity in these three areas regarding most of the containers arriving at its ports means that it is incapable of containing the threats to seaport security.
The issue of truck traffic congestion in terminal gate complexes is tied to seaport insecurity. Both relate to seaport infrastructure: the former results from limited operational days and few gate lanes. At the same time, the second is the result of insufficient funding. Maritime transportation terminal operators are faced with the challenges of reducing truck traffic and enhancing safety at the port. After repeated agency requests for funds to purchase new information and inspection technologies and support the efforts of increasingly overwhelmed front-line seaport security agents failed to bear any fruit, maritime transport terminal administrators have been forced to deal with the more immediate and growing problems of container and truck traffic. This research paper will investigate the convergence of transportation congestion and security at US seaports to identify possible solutions to the two challenges. It will seek to answer the research question: How do the challenges of transportation congestion and transportation security at US seaports converge, and how can they be addressed?
Literature Review
Transportation Congestion
Containerization is one of the most significant developments in maritime transportation, and its resultant proliferation has brought about the regularization of the cargo unit, handling method, and mode interchange. This standardization has helped enhance the efficacy of cargo loading together with discharging operations. Moreover, containerization helped speed up the development of intermodalism that links ship, rail, and truck together into a feasible process of global container shipment. The trucking industry plays a critical role in this intermodal supply chain by acting as the first and last connection for all intermodal sea transport. Trucks take cargo from shippers' warehouses and vice versa.
The globalization of trade liberalization and economy has seen world trade, particularly in container traffic, rapidly expand. According to a Trading Economic, container throughput volume in US seaports jumped from 42 million TEUs in 2010 to 56 million TEUs in 2020 (Trading Economics, 2021). Global container throughput volume rose from 622 million TEUs in 2012 to 802 million TEUs in 2020 (Statista, 2021). In general, the average annual growth in port container throughput volume is around 10.6%. As the global economy becomes more interconnected every year, so requires transportation of goods across regions and value chains. It is projected that international trade volume will double in the next decade and container traffic across all US seaports.
The expansion of the container shipping industry and container trade directly affects port efficiency and regional transportation network, particularly intermodal connectors and highways. Freight infrastructure like terminal facilities, intermodal network, connectors, access channels, and cargo handling capacity faces growing pressure to sustain the ever-expanding container throughput volume. At the same time, the supply chain industry is increasingly relying on a high level of service predictability and reliability from intermodal carriers. It is common for manufacturers and retailers to employ frequent shipments to avoid costly and high-level inventory as they outsource production to low-wage nations.
The “just-in-time” logistics environment has picked up the pace. Now manufacturers and retailers are using their movers as warehouses where parts from overseas are delivered by truck within a short time before being employed in an assembly line. This arrangement, coupled with the growing container traffic, has seen the freight community incur considerable delays owing to insufficient intermodal transportation infrastructure, primarily in highways, intermodal facilities, and marine terminals (Bolat et al., 2020). Truckers have to wait for hours at port facilities. The congestion has created travel time inefficiencies for both carriers and commuters, thereby challenging small and large businesses. Truck congestion at sea-port facilities drastically raises freight movement expenses. For instance, the longer truckers wait at port facilities, the fewer calls per day service providers make, resulting in marked higher prices for consumers.
Traffic congestion has two momentous consequences regarding trucking: an increase in direct costs and a reduction in both predictability and reliability of intermodal carriers. Most truckers must meet "just-in-time" delivery schedules stipulated by shippers, and traffic congestion is a significant concern for them. Besides, congestion problems lower freight flow efficacy, deteriorate environmental quality, and ultimately raises the cost of doing business, and in doing, destroying the economic well-being of truckers, the competitiveness of the seaport, and the economic well-being of those manufacturers and retailers who rely on speedy cargo transportation (Giuliano & O’Brien, 2007). While freight flow is generally a private sector business activity, the public sector has over the years become more cognizant of the impact of growing truck traffic and delays near port facilities.
Harbor truckers have criticized terminal management practices for worsening delays and instituting penalty rules that absolve them of any responsibility for truckers' delays outside terminal gates. Severe truck congestions at seaport gates have prompted numerous state legislators to suggest fines against terminal operators whose activities consistently result in truckers queuing for hours at the gate. For instance, as a result of the perpetual gate congestion at the terminals of the Port of Long Beach and Los Angeles, the state legislature of California instituted the "Lowenthal Bill," which fines terminal operators up to $250 for every appointment violation that involves trucks waiting for more than half an hour at the terminal gates (Guan & Liu, 2009). Massachusetts and New Jersey are also passing similar state bills that impose fines for truck queues.
For instance, as a result of the never-ending truck congestion issues at container terminals in New York and New Jersey, the Bi-state Motor Carrier Association, which represents harbor truckers, has severally filed to the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) to intervene and force terminal operators to compensate for unwarranted waiting times at the seaport gates. Generally, congestion at port gates is usually worse than what is witnessed on freeways during peak hours in metropolitan regions. As container traffic volume and the number of containerships that can transport more containers continue to increase, port and intermodal infrastructures will continue to be under more pressure in the future (Hall, 2016). Because the port is an important node in the global supply chain, improving port operations to reduce traffic congestions at the gate is becoming more critical. However, even though port congestion is a well-identified issue and continues to be a growing problem to both private and public sectors, only a handful of studies have addressed seaport truck congestion issues.
Transportation Security
Various studies have highlighted the clash between policies that encourage maritime transport on the one hand and ramped-up efforts to deal with a broad array of port insecurities. Several studies have noted the overwhelming of traditional maritime transportation terminal security measures by facilitation imperatives. This is despite the numerous security risks that have plagued America's seaports since the 1990s, from drug trafficking to terrorism to human trafficking to cargo theft. There is mounting evidence that the country's seaports have increasingly become passageways for globalization's dark side even as it receives sporadic attention from the media (Alterman, 2006). Even as the Interagency Commission on Crime and Security in US Ports continues to step up its efforts to address terrorism, drug trafficking, cargo theft, and human trafficking, many stakeholders in the intermodal supply chain continue to view the threats as a cost of doing business.
There has been laxity in how US seaports apply security measures, even when the country's long coastline and proximity to Latin American countries make it an accessible destination for drug and human traffickers. For instance, the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, where more than a third of the containers entering America pass through, have an insufficient police force to patrol the ports' terminals or waters. The country's arguably most critical seaport is under-protected, a situation that has continued for years without any marked improvement (Haveman & Shatz, 2006). If the US Customs service desires to search a suspicious container in the Port of Los Angeles, they must transport it to an inspection facility more than 15 miles inland through the crowded districts of Los Angeles County.
This poor state of seaport security is not entirely the result of local neglect but also Congress. Various seaport agencies, including the US Coast Guard, have been forced to downsize their manning forces during the last decades because of under-funding. The government has consistently allocated an insufficient operating budget to port security missions. Faced with a considerable burden of managing the U.S.-Mexico border and monitoring busy international airports, the US Customs Services and other border security agencies have left the seaport with lesser resources and workforce over the years even when the volume of trade going through maritime transportation terminals has more than quadrupled during that period (Hensel, 2001). Besides, the protocols and tools employed in ensuring seaport security, over and above, the processes of collecting, mining, and sharing security information with other border enforcement agencies, have been underwhelming compared to the increasing sophistication and volume of cargo transportation in maritime transportation terminals.
America relies on the container shipping industry for national prosperity: goods worth more than a quarter of the country's gross domestic product are transported through ocean shipping lines. Therefore, seaports are the vital economic engines that connect American consumers and manufacturers to the global marketplace. Unfortunately, to support the increasing container traffic volume, especially in light of insufficient funding by state and federal governments for seaport infrastructure, maritime transportation terminal officials have had to eliminate any friction that might adversely affect container throughput (Hervás-Peralta et al., 2019). One of the casualties of ramped-up efforts to enhance intermodal supply chain efficiency has been security. As a result, America’s ports have become a hub for criminal networks to move people, drugs, stolen vehicles, arms, and other illicit goods into and out of the country.
While various studies have focused on how criminal networks transport illicit cargo from a macro-level perspective, particularly from an economic standpoint, very few studies have adopted a criminological approach to understanding the particular situational elements that make American seaports attractive to criminal networks. Some of the features that make seaports more attractive for criminal networks are concealability, removability, valuability, removability, availability, enjoyability, and disposability of cargo. Containers have made it easy for criminal networks to move and steal prized goods depending on the level of vulnerability of the port: most American ports lack enough infrastructure and supply chain security procedures (in the form of both physical and administrative security strategies) and are therefore targeted by criminal enterprises.
For instance, because of insufficient funding, most seaports in the US lack one or more of the following physical security infrastructures: proper lighting, perimeter fencing, access control, or formal surveillance systems. Moreover, the cargo screening technologies in place can be easily overridden by criminal organizations: an example is container sealing which, while enhancing liability security for shippers, can be easily forged and replaced. Although training of customs officers can help solve the forging and replacing of container seals, criminal organizations are increasingly employing sophisticated methods of producing seals of similar shape and quality. Very few ports use innovative seals because of their high cost, and even they, in and of themselves, have become an attraction for theft groups. Moreover, given the large number of container traffic volumes passing through the port, it has become impossible for port security authorities to wirelessly track every container shipment or even monitor container seals for tampering.
Although several studies assume that companies and employees in critical seaport labor and economic segments are the victims of criminal networks, a significant proportion of study accounts indicate that this may not be entirely true. Some of the companies and employees viewed as victims in seaport criminal network activities are complicit actors. In addition to insufficient seaport infrastructure and protocols to counter criminal activities, placement or recruitment of complicit business organizations or employees at America's seaport is another huge factor (Pallis et al., 2010). Some criminal networks are choosing to reduce the risk of detection by investing significant sums of money on registering bona fide business entities or bribing employees working in the port terminals instead of traditional smuggling, fraud, or theft. The use of legitimate maritime industry channels to smuggle in contraband, people, drugs, stolen vehicles, arms, and other illicit goods, over and above, steal cargo necessary implicates the cooperation of compromised staff in shipping entities, public agencies officials, freight forwarding operations, and landside labor force.
Various studies have indicated the vulnerability of America's ports to insider criminal activities, especially because of a high level of regulatory security at US ports. Most employees within the maritime transportation system are highly sought for their access to valuable cargo and influence. Consequently, big security risk in American ports relates to the susceptibility of port employees to recruitment by criminal networks. Besides, criminal networks have started imitating the "just in time" method of reducing production and inventory stock employed by manufacturers and retailers to form pseudo-legitimate business structures. These illegal businesses then exploit vulnerabilities in America's regulatory oversight to mask their illicit cargo in spite of stringent customs enforcement procedures.
Analysis/Discussion
Transportation Congestion
America has an increasing port capacity problem that is causing truck congestion at port terminals and adversely affecting global supply chain efficiency. The truck congestion problem te...