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It seems to me that comparing Chinese ports to American ports is comparing very different things: I would imagine that the vast majority of the traffic at a Chi
by dhosek 2y ago
It seems to me that comparing Chinese ports to American ports is comparing very different things: I would imagine that the vast majority of the traffic at a Chinese port is export traffic while at an American port it’s import traffic.¹ Furthermore, thanks to centralized decision making, the interface between surface traffic and ship in China will inherently be more efficient than the same interface in the U.S. What I’m wondering is how do U.S. ports compare to, say, Europe or Canada where the situation would be more comparable.
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1. In fact, it occurs to me that loading the ship should be faster/more efficient than unloading as there’s not necessarily any reason to do any sorting beyond which ship a container goes on at the export point, while at the import point, there needs to be more direction of getting containers onto individual trucks and trains.
- fallingknife 2y agoChina is 63-37 exports to imports. US is 44-56. It's different, but it's not so drastically different that I think it would mean a totally different approach to automation is needed.
- SR2Z 2y agoIf you compare a port ANYWHERE to the US, odds are that it is more efficient. The US ranks last.
- rantingdemon 2y agoWell not _last_ :). South African ports ranks last, apparently. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-06-10-abysmal-ranking-of-transnet-ports-underscores-long-haul-to-fix-key-logistics-operations-and-infrastructure/#:~:text=The%20ports%20in%20Cape%20Town%20and https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-06-10-abysmal-r...
- Yeul 2y agoI wonder if lack of competition is to blame for that. When you look at Europe each sea faring nation has at least one modern port that can facilitate the largest container ships. And Unions generally don't operate across borders so a strike can be broken by diverting traffic.
- superice 2y agoThat's not true in my experience. Loading outbound cargo is way more complex, since the stowage plan of the ship dictates where each container goes. Theoretically a lot of containers can be swapped as long as weight is similar, the container type is identical, and the port of discharge is the same. In practice it's still incredibly complex compared to just unloading stuff. While you may need to do less 'digging' on shore, the nitty gritty of the actual operations are way more complex than throwing some boxes ashore. Import cargo is annoying in that it is mostly random access on pickup. For pickup by train, barge, or feeder ship, a vast minority, you typically don't have cargo manifests until a day or two before pickup at best, so in practice this is also random access-ish. The customs processes are also trickier. My experience is mostly in Rotterdam and Antwerp, and I'd say the problems in the US probably don't have to do much with automation. Rotterdam and Antwerp have very different automation levels at the biggest container terminals, yet productivity is quite similar. There is lots of low hanging fruit in optimizing operations, like more collaborative stowage planning, simultaneous unloading and loading operations, and 'modal shifting' from road to rail and water combined with early preannouncement of manifests for trains and barges. Disclaimer: I'm in the business of consulting and building software for container terminals, so I'll generally be biased towards those solutions.
- SoftTalker 2y agoUnloading can be complex also I would think, in that you have to maintain balance on the ship so it doesn't list or even roll over. You can't just grab the nearest container with your crane.
- superice 2y agoYes, although that's the same for loading. As a general rule, container ships are unloaded tier-by-tier, breadth-first if you will, not shaft-by-shift (depth-first), so this is not much of a problem in practice. That does start to change if you want to do simultaneous loading and unloading operations, then you'd want to clear out a vertical shafts first so you can start loading operations as quickly as possible. Which is one of the many reasons dock workers hate that style of operations.
- TrainedMonkey 2y agoMy understanding is that majority of non-raw exports are in shipping containers and those have to be shipped back. So I would expect counts of loaded and offloaded shipping containers to be roughly similar. Interestingly, there are some synergies there - if a truck / train brought a shipping container to the port it's more efficient to put one, potentially empty, back for transport compared to running an empty train / truck. Notably I am assuming that shipping containers survive a large number of trips and their total number is not growing fast.
- RobotToaster 2y ago> My understanding is that majority of non-raw exports are in shipping containers and those have to be shipped back. Not always, that's partly why shipping containers are so inexpensive to buy.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> What I’m wondering is how do U.S. ports compare to, say, Europe or Canada where the situation would be more comparable Did we read the same article? It’s constantly calling out examples in Europe and Japan, with every data source citing global patterns, not limiting itself to China and America.