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CLICK FOR CARGO – Terminals Adopt OC Software Developer’s Online Scheduling System

CLICK FOR CARGO

Terminals Adopt OC Software Developer’s Online Scheduling System

By DAVID GREENBERG

Several terminal operators at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are adopting Web-based scheduling software for cargo containers developed by Irvine-based eModal.com Inc.

So far, five of the complex’s 13 terminals have agreed to use eModal’s software for scheduling the pickup and delivery of containers by truckers who now line up at terminal gates early each morning.

Terminal operators face stiff fines for tying up traffic outside of their gates.

“It should reduce the waiting time by a noticeable am-ount,” said Eli Bohm, manager of the Pacific Con-tainer Terminal, the first company at the ports to use the scheduling system.

President John Cushing started eModal in 1999. Truckers, custom brokers, trading companies and others log onto eModal’s Web site to check on containers. There they can see whether a container has been unloaded, diverted by Customs or whatever the status is.

Up to now, truckers and others have had to wade through multiple computer systems to find out exactly where a container is, Cushing said.

“The beauty of the Internet is everyone can log on and facilitate their needs by pointing and clicking,” he said. “We provide the technology behind those screens.”

Cushing said he started eModal with money from angel investors after having worked in marketing at the Port of Los Angeles. Before that, he said he worked for Barber Steamship Lines Inc., now part of Norway’s Wilh. Wilhelmsen ASA.

Last year, Cushing said he moved eModal from Long Beach to Irvine to be closer to technology companies here. He lives in Lake Forest.

EModal counts about 12 workers and outsources some work. More than 40 terminals at 14 ports use the company’s software, Cushing said.

The Southland ports worked with terminal operators and truckers on similar software that never got off the ground, Cushing said.

One company, Oakland-based Marine Terminals Corp., is working on software of its own.

Terminal officials say it’s a coincidence, but adoption of the $5,000-a-month eModal Scheduler follows passage in September of a bill by Assemblyman Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach. Under the law, terminal operators can be fined $250 for each truck left idling outside their gates for more than 30 minutes.

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

Most terminal operators have opted for a scheduling system, though some have extended gate hours.

Josh Tooker, Lowenthal’s legislative director, said the prior system was causing gridlock and 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.”

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 before, company officials said. Waiting times have been reduced to between 10 and 20 minutes, vs. more than an hour.

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

Terminals are re-quired 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.

EModal plans to launch the system at two terminals each in the New York/New Jersey and Oakland ports this year.

Along with The A.P. Moller Group’s APM Terminals, local operators International Transportation Services Inc., Long Beach Container Terminal Inc. and Stevedoring Services of America Inc. recently signed on with eModal and plan to be online within two months.

Meanwhile, Marine Terminals, which runs three facilities within the port complex, plans to have its own software ready by early June. It should cost less than $5,000 per month, said Steve Longbotham, Marine Terminals’ vice president of customer technology.

“We looked at (eModal’s software) and we decided we could do it much better ourselves,” Longbotham said.

Most of eModal’s terminal customers use a less costly version of the software. A new version provides the exact location of cargo and a scheduled time frame for pickups and dropoffs. 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,” eModal’s Cushing said. “Now it does. That’s a big benefit for the terminals.”

Some terminals have taken a wait-and-see approach to the product, Cushing said.

“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’s end.

The new scheduling systems are putting added pressure on truckers 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.”

Greenberg is a staff writer with the Los Angeles Business Journal. Michael Lyster contributed to this story.




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