Congestion? What congestion?

Coming to the end of the peak season, the ports are in good condition due to the combined efforts of the entire maritime community and their shipper customers. (Gosh, planning and communications actually work! ) The industry has successfully avoided the major congestion of 2004 this year. Across the board, the ports have handled record levels of container volumes without the disruptions suffered last year. While increases in rail problems arose last month, the railroads have nevertheless managed to muddle through with few really disruptive delays or congestion, despite strained network and terminal capacity. While some shippers experienced intermodal rail delays, the industry performed much better than last year at this time, especially in light of the record container volumes.

There still are some lingering impacts of rail system interruption due to the hurricanes last fall, but with less volume coming into the ports for each of the next few months, the prospect of congestion has all but disappeared.

It is certainly helpful that the market share gains made by the ports of Oakland, Seattle, and Tacoma seem to have been permanent; however, further diversion becomes less likely in the near term as congestion pressures are gone and vessel capacity is being added to Los Angeles/Long Beach services. But importantly, importers and carriers alike did realise that there were alternatives to southern California.

The gains in market share by the ports of New York/New Jersey, Hampton Roads (Virginia), Charleston, and Savannah have stabilised in comparison with the West Coast ports, and further gains will be small compared with this year.

In short then: Congestion? What congestion?