So how’d the first day at NIT go? From the port’s perspective,
pretty well. It cited metrics showing that the time it took for trucks to enter
and leave the terminal within that 5 to 7 a.m. window ranged from roughly 20 to
22 minutes.
Truckers and those who represent them, however, were less
enthusiastic.
“The trucking community has a lot of concerns,” said Marilynn
Ryan, president of the Tidewater Motor Truck Association, whose members oversee
hundreds of trucks that together move a couple thousand boxes to and from port
terminals daily. “We asked a lot of questions we never got answers to.”
The biggest question the port’s truck community had was how many
trucks the new system would be able to handle per hour, Ryan said.
The second was whether there would be issues getting
appointments.
“We were assured there would be plenty of appointments to go
around,” Ryan added.
Truckers, however, found that in trying to make appointments,
the port ran out pretty quickly, she said, adding, “No one has actually told us
how many appointments they accepted; they’re not being transparent with those
figures.”
Because of electronic monitoring devices that truckers are now
required to use, the time it takes to enter and leave NIT or any other terminal
at the port can be determined with some certainty.
Ryan disputed the port’s claim that truckers calling at NIT
early Thursday morning were able to get in and out of the terminal in 22
minutes or less. It was more like an hour to an hour and a half, she said.
Portwide, including the facilities at Virginia International
Gateway, Portsmouth Marine Terminal and the Pinners Point Container Yard,
congestion that morning was so severe that “turn times” – the time it takes for
a truck to enter and leave a terminal – ranged from two to seven hours, Ryan
noted.
George Berry, a local trucker and director of For Truckers By
Truckers, an advocacy group, said there were no backups early Thursday at NIT
and that the rollout of the new system was well organized.
“I think everybody is cautiously optimistic at this moment,” he
said, though he also questioned the port’s claim of 20- to 22-minute turn times
on the first day of the program.
It’s “not anything to celebrate to me” because there’s no way of
comparing the number of trucks handled in that first two-hour block of the new
program versus the number handled in that time period previously, he noted.
“We don’t have all the data yet,” he said.
Roman Hartmann, a trucker who has hauled containers at the port
since 1976, said the new system creates problems for him because his is often
among the first trucks waiting when NIT opens.
He can only make an appointment through his company’s
dispatcher, who is not available when he picks up a container load in Richmond,
usually at about 2:30 in the morning.
“There needs to be a non-appointment gate for people like me,”
Hartmann said. “The appointment system works good, but not for everybody.”
Charles Glover is vice president of Suffolk-based GTL Transport,
which manages about 60 truckers who call on the port.
“It definitely is too soon to tell how it is going to affect the
most significant issue facing motor carriers in this region, which is port
congestion,” he said.
The new system is one piece of a multi-faceted approach to deal
with the issue, though it’s a major component, he added.
Glover, however, also questioned the roughly 22-minute average
turn time the port claimed for the program’s first day. His company’s truckers,
citing data from devices they have to carry, said the time to enter and leave
NIT early that morning was about three times that long.
“Ours were all an hour plus,” Glover said.
Jay Stecher, a port spokesman, said late Friday in an email he’d
rather wait to comment on the situation.
“I’d prefer to speak next week after we’ve had the reservation
system up and running for a week and can provide a more comprehensive look at
our performance,” he wrote. “Day one was a positive start.”
The high winds that moved through the region on Friday forced
the port to stop operations from time to time for safety’s sake, he added.
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