Early last year, TEDIVO, LLC, which owns BAPLIE Viewer Online, and Wabtec Corporation announced new features to provide BAPLIE Viewer Online capabilities within the Port Optimizer application. These give shippers and BCOs the ability to see where their container is stowed on a vessel calling at the Port of Los Angeles using an online view of the BAPLIE data.

BAPLIE Viewer Online translates a wide range of messages, in addition to BAPLIE data, including vessel schedules and load and discharge instructions, but it is primarily used to visualise a graphical image of where the respective containers of individual BCOs are stowed, either in 2D or a more realistic 3D model.

Being able to see where a container is located on a large vessel is useful, but it is not an accurate indicator of when it will be ‘available’ for collection at a terminal. This is the critical point at the landside interface at the import-heavy San Pedro Bay terminals. There are literally hundreds of BCOs and trucking companies that are trying every day to manage the complex process of collecting import containers and returning exports or empties to the terminals as efficiently as possible.

Getting smart

In an interview with WorldCargo News, TEDIVO’s Robert Inchausti said making smarter use of available data can give this type of enhanced insight to BCOs and other relevant port constituents. Graphically displaying activity messages allows these parties a secure way to see in real time when their respective containers are loaded and discharged. This is another step closer to visually confirming container availability, something that TEDIVO is currently developing for its customer base. “Longer term, these same data can be leveraged through AI systems, such as machine language engines, to actually predict when a box will be discharged, and made available for delivery, improving the container handoff from terminal to the  trucking community and improving the wide range of tools, such as gate-based appointments, that enable these hand-offs,” said Inchausti.

At the San Pedro Bay terminals trucking and drayage companies must make appointments to collect a container, but they can only collect cleared boxes once they are made ‘available’ by individual terminals. A complicating factor in the whole process is that trucking companies try to plan dual transactions, which require coordinating an export and an import load, sometimes across different facilities.

With the largest vessels staying in port for up to five days, there is considerable variation in container availability times, and there are also unplanned events such as equipment breakdowns that interrupt the operation. However, there is also a great deal of consistency in the way terminals work a vessel. Using data analytics can reveal patterns and generate reliable predictions on when containers will become available.

Getting integrated

To find out how this can benefit shippers and BCOs, this reporter spoke to Jim Hickman, who is the president of Compcare Services, the leading Transport Management System (TMS) and intermodal software specialist. Compcare’s core focus is the drayage trucking niche. Its customers range from large 3PLs and drayage companies to smalldrayage operators with a  handful of trucks.

Hickman said Compcare’s trucking company customers receive orders from their own BCO customers and then try to plan how they will coordinate all the trucking requirements.

At the moment, he said, some of Compcare’s 3PL customers are accessing the 3D view of their containers on vessels that is now available through a Port Optimizer specific instance of  BAPLIE Viewer Online. Trucking and drayage companies, however, need more granularity for their planning purposes. 

If TEDIVO were able to predict availability dates and times with a degree of accuracy that “you could bet the farm on and send in a driver” to collect containers ahead of time, the whole drayage market could operate more efficiently, he said. At the moment, trucking companies are competing to make as many appointments for popular time slots as they can, and then they start swapping containers between bookings to meet planning goals, which include scheduling dual (gate-in/gate-out) transactions.

This is not an easy task. A BCO may not want a container at the same time it becomes available, and may instead prefer to try and use up the maximum free storage period. If free storage is about to expire or the BCO wants delivery at a specific time that is not achievable through the terminal booking system, the drayage company may ‘pre-pull’ the container to its own facility, where there is a cost for storage, but which is typically lower than port charges.

Balancing act

Drayage companies have made an art out of balancing competing factors to provide a service to BCOs, but the process is far from optimal. As Hickman sees it, predictive analytics will not only improve the existing process, but will also help push terminals to more closely link the appointment process to individual container availability, with preferential slots for boxes that  become available. Predictive availability should, he said, be integrated with the notification process, which would effectively enable drayage companies to schedule their own appointments further in advance.

Having guaranteed appointments based on container availability, as opposed to drayage companies having to compete for slots, would also help eliminate a lot of the pre-pull moves that drayage companies perform today just to avoid the risk of not being able to get an appointment and/or incurring storage charges at port terminals.

Hickman is optimistic that the San Pedro Bay terminals are heading in this direction. Compcare was the first TMS provider to take advantage of the API that LBCT is now offering, and integrate its TMS with LBCT’s availability data. This enables Compcare users to make a gate appointment at LBCT directly from the dispatch board in the Compcare TMS, without having to visit the LBCT website – another step forward.

Other terminals in the San Pedro harbour are now developing APIs, and Hickman can see the industry moving towards a situation where appointment bookings and container availability are more closely aligned. As the gate process becomes more predictable, he sees potential for drayage companies to offer “white glove service” directly from terminals, without having to pre-pull containers to their own facility to guarantee BCOs’ delivery dates.

It is worth noting that LBCT is a big driver in all of this. As its automated yard system matures, LBCT is using the level of predictability it has achieved in its own operation to improve the standard of landside service. Already the favourite terminal for truckers because of its lower and consistent turn times, LBCT is now starting to leverage its data advantage in its automation systems to offer the trucking community the opportunity to better plan their own operations. 

Read this item in full
This complete item is approximately 1140 words in length, and appeared in the October 2020 issue of WorldCargo News, on page 28. To access this issue download the PDF here