The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have announced plans to phase out the program created to ease severe congestion on the West Coast.
The container dwell fee policy will end on January 24, 2023. Neither port had ever issued the fee since it was announced on 25 October, 2021.
The two ports combined have seen a decline of 92% in long-dwelling cargo on their docks over the last 14 months.
“This fee was conceived as an incentive to ease congestion, keeping imported goods flowing to stores across America.
Measured by this standard, we can all appreciate the policy’s success, and best of all, the fee was never implemented,” said Port of Long Beach Executive Director Mario Cordero.
“I said when we launched this program that I hoped we would never collect a dime because that would mean that containers were moving off our docks.
And that’s exactly what occurred,” said Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka.
Cargo volumes have softened in recent months at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, registering a 21% decline in November compared to the same period last year.
Shippers are avoiding the West Coast due to uncertainty over labor negotiation and shifting cargo flows to East and Gulf Coast ports. Consequently, these ports including New York and Houston are considering their own dwell fees as they handle record volumes and experience congestion.
Meanwhile, on the West Coast, Seroka and other officials are focused on rebalancing cargo flows and bringing more containers back to Los Angeles.
Source: Supply Chain Dive