'Model' port offers distinct lessons. (Up Front).

It moves more cargo each year than any other port except Hong Kong. It uses automated equipment and a container stacking system that maximizes use of severely limited space.

Its cranes allow a single dockworker to monitor four devices on video simultaneously from a control booth.

Local maritime executives won't admit to dreaming this big, but if they did, they would point to the Port of Singapore.

Negotiations on a new three-year labor contract at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles resumed Aug. 26 after a two-week break, but the sides remain far apart on a new deal to replace the one that expired July 1.

For different reasons, the Pacific Maritime Association, the shipper's bargaining arm, and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union both acknowledge the importance of Singapore as a model for how L.A.'s ports could be run.

"Singapore is the paragon of how far you can use existing technology," said Jack Suite, the PMA's contract administrator. "The technology we're seeking is very important."

Counters Steve Stallone, the ILWU's communications manager: 'They don't have things like safety regulations. That's why we have a union. We fight for our safety."

The Port of Singapore, which opened in 1964 and containerized eight years later, completed its high-tech implementation in March 2000.

With 4.3 million people crammed into the 250-square-mile island, space is at a premium. The five-terminal port, sitting at the tip of the Malayan Peninsula in Southeast Asia, had no choice but to strive for efficiency.

Use also played a role in the development of Singapore's system. Importers use L.A.'s terminal as a storage facility, in contrast with Singapore's transshipment emphasis. As a result, it can stack its containers twice as high as on the West Coast.

"Singapore never has to put a box on the trailer so it makes sense to set them on the ground and stack them high," said Larry Nigh, vice president and director of port planning for Moffat & Nichol Engineers, a Long Beach transportation engineering firm.

Automation

At the Pasir Panjang Terminal, run by PSA Corp., cranes require human intervention only when the machine locks on a container. A single dockworker monitors four devices on video simultaneously from a control booth.

By contrast, the manually operated cranes on the West Coast each require four longshoremen -- two operators, one signaler and one foreman.

Pasir Panjang's automated terminal control system absorbs cargo data and determines which trucks, cranes and so-called top picks are closest to move the goods. (Top picks are massive forklifts capable of lifting and moving 30-ton containers within a terminal.)

PSA cranes also have optical character recognition systems that transmit cargo data directly into terminal computers -- work now done manually at West Coast ports by ILWU clerks.

West Coast ports have no such system in place, although the more modem terminals, such as the recently opened Maersk Sealand operation in L.A., are wired to accept these technologies.

ILWU officials are not impressed.

Stallone points out that 80 percent of Singapore's volume consists of transshipments -- cargo that's brought in on a feeder ship and then transferred to a huge container ship destined for the West Coast.

It's more difficult to operate efficiently at destination ports, such as L.A. and Long Beach, where cargo is transferred to trains or chassis, creating gridlock inside the ports. "When you're just taking a container from one ship to another, there's a lot less work Stallone said.

Health hazards

ILWU members claim high-level container stacking only creates potential health hazards. Singapore dockworkers have little say over work conditions, they say, because the port is under the control of a single-party government that has a reputation for dealing harshly with dissent.

"They don't have a real union and they make a fraction of what ILWU workers make:' said Stallone. "The PMA would like to make West Coast ports like Singapore in that way."

Despite such resistance, capacity pressures on the West Coast could force change. Many West Coast ports are close to fully built out, even as annual container traffic is expected to double over the next decade.

"The union will have to face the automation of at least part of the operations," said Peter Vandermat, vice president of planning and analysis for JWD Group, an Oakland-based container terminal architectural and engineering firm.

"The need is not here yet. But as the cargo volumes increase and the available land remains the same, automation will be needed," he said.

The PMA has been approaching the issue with baby steps.

Demands in this round of negotiations have centered on implementation of computerized container tracking systems, which the union has approved on the condition that none of the work is outsourced to off-dock operations.

PMA officials also acknowledge financial impediments. It will be decades before the terminal operators here invest the billions of dollars needed to duplicate the Singapore operation.

"Singapore represents an enormous capital investment," said Suite. "I'm not aware of any of our members on the West Coast that are prepared to make that kind of investment at this point."