An agreement to solve the slowdown in shipping on the West Coast may be reached soon. According to Dustin Stoker, the Director of Operations at Port of Tacoma “We remain hopeful that there will be a tentative agreement in place by today or tomorrow to discuss at the meeting next week, and that voting will take place after that. Hopefully productivity will get back to normal”.
Over the past two months, freight shipping has been slowed down in Los Angeles and Long Beach ports. Shipments have been stuck outside theses ports, some even waiting days before getting the chance to dock. The delays have only gotten worse over the past month, and many factors are blamed for the slow movement of shipments. Large ship sizes straining capacity of the ports, increasingly large amounts of goods, shortage of trucks to haul cargo, and changes in the local rail traffic.
Shippers may have an advantage over truckers in this transportation cycle. The current shortage of qualified and experienced truck drivers is hurting the industry in this freight transportation cycle. Increases in orders, and lack of a decrease in costs of shipping are also hurting the trucking industry.
According to Estes, the nationwide LTL carrier, a stronger US economy is leading to stronger earnings and a busier season for LTL carriers. Estes is the largest privately-held LTL trucking company in the United States and the sixth largest LTL carrier overall. Their management is so confident that the strong numbers will continue, that the company purchased 980 tractors this summer.
As November approaches, so do some of the most observed holidays of the year. It's important to consider how service delays will impact the delivery dates of freight that you might be shipping to customers, or having delivered to you from your suppliers. Many LTL carriers observe Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays with complete or partial closures of their networks. This can include trucks, service centers, linehauls and more. In addition, when holidays border weekends, substantial delays can occur.
Shipping managers everywhere will tell you that in recent years, LTL carriers have become mroe aggressive with regard to weighing and correcting the freight class of shipments in transit.
Rail is the most fuel efficient way to transport freight. Even as fuel prices have decreased in recent weeks, fuel remains one of the biggest factors in determining freighr rates. For this reason, intermodal freight shipping can provide significant fuel cost savings when compared to trucking.
Does your company have inbound shipments coming from your suppliers? Whether coming from domestic or international points, allowing your vendors to arrange for shipping while they bill you can be probelmatic and costly. When your suppliers know that they're billing their customers for shipping, they are usually not very motivated to make sure their rates are as low as possible. Often, we talk to companies who say that their vendors include freight charges - but rest assured that they are simply building the cost of the freight into the goods you're buying.
