3 ms·
> smooth out peak times not in the name of efficiency, but rather to lower the amount of dock workers the container terminal needs to hire. I’m confused. Effic
by theptip 2y ago
> smooth out peak times not in the name of efficiency, but rather to lower the amount of dock workers the container terminal needs to hire.
I’m confused. Efficiency means you don’t need to hire as much, since your peak-to-trough ratio is lower. Or you can handle more load, if you were capacity-constrained.
I don’t get why this is framed as a secret “other reason”.
My understanding is that shipping is a competitive market, is this not the case? If it is you expect price decreases to be passed on to customers.
- superice 2y agoContainer terminals will take any minor efficiency win on their side, even if it comes at the cost of massive efficiency loss for truck transporters. It's optimizing for a local maximum. The market is structured in such a way that it is hard to correct for that, since the relation between trucking companies and container terminals is very indirect, and customers can't directly compare. Also while shipping is a competitive market, the market for ports is not. You're either in a location or not. There are not hundreds of container terminals in a single port in competition because of economies of scale. (The market for trucking companies IS competitive however, meaning that if you have to err on 'protecting' either party, you should probably pick that one)