Under threat of fines, terminals act to speed pickups. (Up Front).

Faced with the threat of stiff fines for tying up traffic outside of their gates, several terminal operators serving the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are implementing or planning to implement a Web-based scheduling system.

So far, five of the complex's 13 container terminals have agreed to purchase a single system that will help spread out the pickup and delivery arrivals by truckers who currently line up at terminal gates at the same early-morning hours. Another terminal company is developing its own software.

"It should reduce the waiting time by a noticeable amount," said Eli Bohm, manager of the Pacific Container Terminal, the first company at the ports to implement the scheduling system created by Irvine-based eModal.com.

Company officials claim it's a coincidence, but implementation of the $5,000-a-month eModal Scheduler follows passage last September of a bill by Assemblyman Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, that fines terminal operators $250 for each truck left idling outside their gates for more than 30 minutes.

The law went into effect Jan. 1, but terminals can buy a six-month exemption by extending their gate hours to at least 70 per week or implementing a scheduling system for truckers.

Most terminal operators have opted for a scheduling system of some sort, although some have extended gate hours.

Josh Tooker, Lowenthal's legislative director, said the previous system was causing gridlock and air pollution.

"The terminals open at 8 a.m. and close at 5 p.m. and the truckers get paid by the trip, not the hour, so they all show up before 8 a.m.," he said. "Whatever scheduling system the terminals chose, we hope it's more efficient."

Shorter lines

So far, Pacific Container Terminal has seen a reduction to about 20 trucks waiting to get inside certain gates at peak times, from 60 to 70 previously, company officials said. Waiting times have been reduced to between 10 and 20 minutes, versus more than an hour previously.

"We don't have to have people on a phone taking appointments the way we did before," Bohm said.

Terminals are required to order longshore labor for a morning shift by 2 p.m. the prior day. The scheduling system allows terminals to better plan how much labor is needed, Bohm said.

"We're able to order the longshore labor and equipment more effectively to support the volume for the following day," he said.

Officials at eModal.com said that as many as 10 local terminals would be using their system by the end of the year. The company will launch the system at two terminals each in the New York/New Jersey and Oakland ports as well.

Along with APM Terminals, local operators International Transportation Services Inc., Long Beach Container Terminal Inc. and Stevedoring Services of America Inc. recently reached an agreement with eModal and plan to be connected to the system within two months.

Marine Terminals Corp., which operates three facilities within the port complex, will develop its own scheduling system by early June that ultimately will cost less than $5,000 per month, said Steve Longbotham, Marine Terminals' vice president of customer technology.

The technology will be tailored for the type of cargo the terminals handle--certain cargo takes longer to clear U.S. Customs Service inspection than others, for instance--so truckers won't schedule a pickup of a container that has yet to be cleared, he said.

"We looked at (eModal's technology) and we decided we could do it much better ourselves," Longbotham said.

Currently, 43 terminals nationwide use a less-costly version of eModal.com's Web-based system that tracks cargo, showing whether a. load is available for pickup or if it has a Customs Service hold attached.

The new software goes further, providing a single interface that allows terminals to give truckers the exact location of the cargo within their yards and a scheduled time frame for pickups and drop-offs. Most terminals using the system have set an arrival-time window of about an hour and a half.

"The only piece in the chain that did not have an appointment attached to it was the terminal gate," said John Cushing, eModal.com's president. "Now it does. That's a big benefit for the terminals."

Some terminals have taken a wait-and-see approach to the product, said Cushing. "It's the nature of the business to see how things go with the launch of a new application," he said.

Cushing would not say how much his company invested to create the new system but said he expects to be profitable by year end.

While the new scheduling systems ease truckers' traffic waits, they put added pressure on them to arrive within the scheduled span, or leave without their loads. Brett Arnds, general manager of Long Beach-based California Multimodal Inc., said being held to set pickup times could cause late deliveries to warehouses, particularly when his company has 50 to 100 containers to haul from a single terminal.

"The scheduler is a fine thing on paper," Arnds said. "But there's only a finite amount of pickup times available during the day."