18,000 TEU. Wow. So big it has its own container cranes. And LA just had a 15,000 TEU Mersk ship. The rail transportation corridor out of LA's ports can handle only about 12,000 TEU a day, on double-stacked trains. There's not 18,000 TEU of storage space in the entire port, let alone one of the subports. (The Port of Los Angeles is a landlord, not an operator; there are about a dozen private businesses with their own docks and container handling facilities cranes there.)
Sorting is a huge problem. Some containers go on truck beds at the port, and can head for a destination. The ones that go on trains may need a further sort; some of that happens inland, Fontana, CA and Coulton, CA being major transfer points.
Adding: A container ship doesn't unload and load everything in one go. It goes to multiple ports. Else instead of 18.000 you'd be looking at 36.000 (unload, load.. any trade discrepancy is offset needing to bring back empty containers).
Don't have any experience, but heard that US terminals usually are really slow. Unions not looking out for employees but instead to show off their influence/power. Resulting in lower performance.
Searching a bit more I noticed one source (http://www.apmterminals.com/en/news/press-releases/2014/12/a...) mentions that "11,200 containers handled during 56 hours of port operations, including one shift of nine cranes at 29 gross moves per hour.[..]APM Terminals Pier 400 Los Angeles was ranked first in productivity for North American ports in 2014 in the JOC Group’s annual productivity report".
I don't consider those stats impressive (the 29). Note that the 11,200 containers mentioned is not a TEU. Could be around 18000 TEU; but then over 56 hours.
Regarding the need to sort and maybe sort twice: Any decent terminal should've starting making/initiating improvements various years ago. Yard moves/shiftings and the distance travelled should be one of the standard measures that's looked at IMO.
Port itself should make long term plans for this. It is not like these things are unpredictable or unexpected.
You seem to know things about ports, so let me ask you something I've always wondered about the port of Oakland. Why does it make sense to them to have a miles-long snake of idling trucks waiting to enter the port? Why don't these guys just stay home (or wherever) until just the moment when someone needs to put a box on their truck? I understand that some queue depth would be required to overcome the natural variance in loading times, but I figure the required depth would be something like 5 trucks, not 500 trucks.
My experience is mainly limited Northern Europe. My knowledge about US is severely limited (really brief small talk when having visitors over). Take this into account.
For me a port is a region with multiple terminals. Each terminal could have a different owner, different container ship companies going to it, etc. The port itself usually takes care of the land (incl. concrete.. those quay cranes need a lot of support), etc.
From what I understood, most things in US is done using trucks whereby other parts of the world might use something else like e.g. a straddle carrier ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straddle_carrier). That's one reason for the trucks. Meaning: not only to pick up or to deliver a container, but also used in the terminal operations itself.
Most important point in Europe is the early morning rush. A city might have limitations on when trucks can arrive. Usually companies want their goods early in the morning so they ask the trucking company to deliver it early in the morning. Then they unload the container during normal working hours.
For pretty much everyone (port, terminal, trucking company) that's terrible, because you don't use the infrastructure in an efficient way (it needs to handle the worst.. unused capacity = waste of money). But a terminal cannot really influence this, else they're at a competitive disadvantage vs other terminals. It needs to be agreed on a port level.
For pickup/delivery you need the gate to be open. A terminal might work 24/7, but they can restrict when their gates are open.
Meaning, during the week you can pick up your container whenever you please. That LA 07.00 opening time is late; truckers seem to be night/early morning people. Further, the 07.00 might then conflict with people going to work.
Ideally what you want really flexible gate opening times (work week.. way less demand during weekend) plus to give truckers a slot when they can pick up containers. Often containers are stacked on top of each other. If truckers arrive randomly, they might want the container that's underneath 2 others. That cost time and is just wasteful. If you give everyone slots, you could slot (or stack) them in the order they pick it up (first slot at the top).
IMO the entire efficiency is a bit like programming but without the convenience of improved CPU's.
Regarding the union bit: any terminal in Europe big enough to work 24/7 works 24/7. In US I heard they usually stop during the night (which to me is insane). For a shipping line, the quicker a vessel is in&out of the port is usually cheaper than the additional cost of having people work during the night. Lots of somewhat unskilled people make an impressive amount of money (also due to the risks involved). I heard (again: no clue and based on 2 min conversations) that unions block this. This while it is common practice anywhere else. Being European I thing unions are a good thing, but IMO US unions aren't unions.
As far as the Port of Oakland is concerned, they do unload boats at night. I don't know if they also work trucks and trains at night, but I've often observed the cranes at night from the other side of the inner harbor in Alameda.
> Unions not looking out for employees but instead to show off their influence/power. Resulting in lower performance
You might write off the above comment as the opinion of someone who does not like unions, but as someone who has worked for a shipping company, I assure you it is not. The myths surrounding them are not myths, they are a reality.
Dock unions are terrible. These unions (or at least many of them around the world) impose regimes of intimidation, violence, sexism, property damage and theft.
It is not possible to disrupt them. If you built a port and staffed it with high paid non union staff, I can assure you that dock workers around the world would (possibly illegally) refuse to unload the cargo of ships coming from this port or they would, more subtly, damage the goods unloaded (drop containers to hard onto the ground etc.) until then nobody wanted to use your port anymore because the cost was to high.
The international cooperation they have going is fascinating. It's a pity collectism like this (minus the violence and bullying) is not used for good instead if lining the pockets of a few.
I thought there was a previous discussion[1, found it] on HN where the port of Rotterdam was automating portions of its operations...
Perhaps to disrupt (improve) port operations you'd need to do it on both ends of a balanced high throughput lane [to avoid the international unions cooperating on sabotage]
I counted the containers when it came into port, looked like it was stacked 7 high above deck for (2321+19)2*7 TEUs above deck, how much of the capacity is below the deck line and how many containers can they stack above deck? 9?
Levinson's The Box is also a great read on the topic. Many of the issues associated with adopting containers such as standards and existing workers apply to many areas of technology as well.
Sorting is a huge problem. Some containers go on truck beds at the port, and can head for a destination. The ones that go on trains may need a further sort; some of that happens inland, Fontana, CA and Coulton, CA being major transfer points.