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14 Inland transport is one of the most serious problems facing U.S. and international container ports. Recent work by Tioga for the Cargo Handling Cooperative Program (CHCP) of the U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD) has established that U.S. container ports have substantial latent terminal capacity for cargo growth. Such port capacity cannot be attained, however, if inland transport links cannot keep up or expand capacity. Port authorities do not control the movements of containers beyond terminal gates, but are being held accountable for the adverse regional impacts of cargo operations and for developing solutions. The ability of ports to expand capacity to meet local, regional, and national demand depends on a good-faith effort to find landside transport solutions that also address the social costs associated with cargo operations. The introduction of containers themselves in the 1950s changed ocean shipping foreverâ todayâs system varies only in detail from that original concept. Likewise, the introduction of specialized wharfside container cranes in the 1970s set the pattern for the ship-to-shore move. In the 1980s, double-stack container cars revolutionized long-distance inland transport. The move between the port and the first 100 miles inland has not seen that same revolutionâtodayâs port trucking is little different from practices dating back to the beginning of containerization. Over the last decade there have been numerous proposals for innovative solutions using a variety of technologies and approaches. Developing and implementing successful systems will be very costly, and neither the ports nor the communities they serve can afford the time and expense of technological dead ends. The urgency of the inland transport problem is thus matched by the need to understand the inland transport challenge and give ports, communities, system developers, and funding agencies a way to evaluate options and identify the best approaches. ⢠Goals and objectives need to be clarified and linked to evaluation criteria. Proposed inland transport systems are both transportation technologies and social issue solutionsâevaluation criteria must reflect this dual nature. ⢠Ports and regional planners need to be able to narrow the technology field, concentrate resources on the options that best match each portâs circumstances, and do so reliably and objectively. ⢠Communities need objective information and analysis to judge the options available, the progress being made, and the tradeoffs being proposed. ⢠Funding agencies need to allocate limited resources among dozens of competing ideas in a controlled, rational process of evaluation. ⢠Developers of innovative solutions need a strong understanding of the challenges they face, the context in which a system must perform, and the criteria by which success will be measured. Communities and political bodies are especially interested in technologies that could take container movements off streets, highways, and conventional railroads. Advanced technologies C H A P T E R 1 Introduction
Introduction 15 (e.g., LIMs and Maglev) are of particular interest. The claimed benefits of these advanced tech- nologies include the following: ⢠Increased throughput capacity, ⢠Reduced road and rail congestion, ⢠Reduced emissions and energy use through electric propulsion, ⢠Lower operating costs resulting from automation and efficiency, and ⢠Increased security. There are concurrent improvements to âbaselineâ truck drayage. Compliance with state and national regulations has dramatically reduced the emissions of the diesel tractors commonly used for port container drayage. Other technologies hold the promise of additional improvements in emissions and efficiency. Project Purpose and Scope This research was to develop a systematic method for evaluating alternatives for ocean container transport between deep-water ocean ports and inland destinations within 100 miles. The method was to be unbiased, provide equitable measurement factors, and consider the entire container drayage scenario between an inland location and a deep-water container port. The conceptual technologies for moving containers inland vary widely in their state of development and market readiness. No automated, advanced-technology container conveyance systems operate anywhere in the world, and no complete prototype systems exist. Some concepts are derived from transit or people-mover systems; others exist as line-haul test beds; and many exist only on paper. The research team saw the match between port characteristics and transport system features as a critical issue. Given the active consideration of alternative container transport systems in Southern California, ports there can be regarded as bellwethers for the nation. Container ports differ dramatically in their physical infrastructure and operational requirements, but share many environmental and energy conservation goals. Port or public-sector sponsorship of fixed-guideway systems entails a unique risk. Once built on any scale, a fixed-guideway system becomes a visible symbol of either success or failure. Ports, moreover, do not need a transportation technology (e.g., liner induction motor [LIM] or magnetic levitation [Maglev]); they need a complete working system that can deliver the kind of benefits listed above while co-existing with legacy terminals, drayage, and rail systems. This is a much more ambitious goal than merely moving a container efficiently along a fixed-guideway. U.S. ports and planning agencies are thus faced with a serious problem. The surrounding communities are reluctant to wait for a long research and development period before evaluating application of these technologies to urgent local problems. To meet the demand for diligent work toward a solution, the ports need a pragmatic yet flexible evaluation of technologies that are still in their infancy. Overall Project Approach A key challenge throughout the project was to develop common evaluation concepts, criteria, and metrics for a wide range of seemingly disparate proposals. That process began at the highest conceptual level by asking basic questions. ⢠What is the system goal or objective? ⢠What problem is the system designed to solve?
16 Evaluating Alternatives for Landside Transport of Ocean Containers ⢠Where, or under what circumstances, is the system expected to be applicable? ⢠What is a reasonable basis of comparison between systems? ⢠What questions need to be asked and answered to evaluate the system? The conceptual nature of most proposed technologies led the research team to start on this most basic level and develop a method to match. The approach became necessarily generic to accommodate a wide range of proposals with differing features and goals. The research team began by identifying the proposed advanced container transport and truck drayage technologies, their characteristics, and their claimed benefits. This effort led to the development of technology matrices to facilitate head-to-head comparisons where possible. It became apparent, however, that the available information on technologies and systems was incomplete and inconsistent. The next step was to examine potential goals and objectives for ports, system operators, system customers, and regional stakeholders. It became clear that container transport systems might be expected to serve a challenging range of goals, from increasing transport capacity and security to reducing congestion, emissions, and carbon footprint. Development of the evaluation method was then governed by the need to accommodate both the wide range of options and the wide range of goals. The research team started with a basic proposal evaluation process applicable to a wide range of projects and then tailored it as needed to the inland container transport context. The method was applied to case studies of inland transport options at the Ports of Los Angeles/ Long Beach and Baltimore. In both case studies, the research team supplemented the available information on systems and system configuration with working assumptions and representative information from other fields. In both cases, the research team found that advanced container transport technologies were unlikely to solve the key problems or reach the key goals. The case studies thus necessarily stopped short of detailed systems comparisons. Based on the analysis and the case studies, the research team developed findings and con- clusions regarding the evaluation method; the implications for advanced-technology container transport systems and truck drayage; and the circumstances in which advanced-technology systems are most likely to succeed. The research team also identified some basic policy ques- tions regarding the public sector role in inland container transport and transport technology development.
