A Tale of Two Ports: Automation at Oakland vs. Rotterdam
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Re: A Tale of Two Ports: Automation at Oakland vs. Rotterdam
#2TIL the average salary for port workers is $147k.
Re: A Tale of Two Ports: Automation at Oakland vs. Rotterdam
#3I can't wait for more automation to hit US ports. I'm all for decent wages, but dockworkers get paid so much they end up behaving a lot like oilfield workers. Dockworkers are a prime example of what gives unions a bad name.
Re: A Tale of Two Ports: Automation at Oakland vs. Rotterdam
#4The real automation in the Rotterdam port is the Automatic Guided Vehicle system that moves containers between the loading cranes and a container re-arranging system that optimizes the placement of containers dock side.
The loading cranes themselves are only remote control on the deep water side, and this is for health and safety reasons. The cranes for the trains and barges for the hinterland are sit-in cabs.
SOURCE: I did a tour of the terminal a few weeks ago as part of the 6th International Conference on Computational Logistics [1]
A similar AVG system is in place at Hamburg as seen in this video [2]
Re: A Tale of Two Ports: Automation at Oakland vs. Rotterdam
#5TIL the average salary for port workers is $147k.
With benefits worth another $82,000 per year! They don't need to deduct from that salary for a 401(k), that's certain.
Re: A Tale of Two Ports: Automation at Oakland vs. Rotterdam
#6TraPac and Middle Harbor in the Port of Los Angeles are automating. Oakland isn't considered big enough to need it.[1] for an overview of automation in Los Angeles ports, see [2]. The Port of Los Angeles isn't a port operator; it's a landlord. Thirteen private companies have their own terminals, docks and equipment, and two of them are automating now. To automate a terminal, you have to take it out of service and build a new one.
The above references may be too specialized for general readers. Here's a "gee whiz" video of Rotterdam port operations.[3] And a tutorial with animations, from the port of Busan, S. Korea.[4]
Note that the article is partly an ad for FlexPort. Automated ports have less need for FlexPort's service. Most automated ports have buffers, big stacks of containers. Containers come off ships and are transferred to container stacks nearby. On the other side of the stacks, trucks approach and have containers loaded onto them. The terminal handles container sorting.
Oakland loads many containers directly from ships to trucks towing container trailers, without buffering. Matching up trucks and containers is a problem. FlexPort's concept is "Uber for containers" (I know, but here it's real.) Any truck, any container, any destination within some distance limit.
If Oakland had automated container stack buffers, FlexPort wouldn't be needed.
[1] [http://www.joc.com/port-news/port-productivity/us-ports-weig...] [2] https://www.portoflosangeles.org/Board/2014/April/042014_ite... [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxXZQ7emHC0 [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t2cqiQl0BE
Re: A Tale of Two Ports: Automation at Oakland vs. Rotterdam
#7Rotterdam also has unions to deal with. A colleague of mine, who worked on the software for the final stage (some 15 years back) moving containers onto trucks, told a story where, after union negotiations, they implemented a system where forklift truck drivers could choose between three different containers to pick next instead of giving them just one instruction, for the single, most optimal, one.
Re: A Tale of Two Ports: Automation at Oakland vs. Rotterdam
#8This article tells you basically nothing if you're not already convinced that more automation is always better, or that while "technological disruption... almost inevitably leads to displacement of some segments of the workforce. In the long run, however, technology ends up creating better jobs and expanded opportunities across broad spectrums of the economy."
The calculation that "proves" Rotterdam is more efficient is based on the unargued and generally false assumption that both ports are operating at full capacity - the author just divides TEUs by number of cranes. TEUs handled per year in Oakland only just matched their 2006 peak after falling drastically during the Great Recession: http://www.portofoakland.com/maritime/containerstats.aspx
And Oakland's main capacity limitation actually seems to be congestion getting containers out of the Port: http://www.wsj.com/articles/oakland-port-proposes-trucking-f...
Re: A Tale of Two Ports: Automation at Oakland vs. Rotterdam
#9I can't wait for more automation to hit US ports. I'm all for decent wages, but dockworkers get paid so much they end up behaving a lot like oilfield workers. Dockworkers are a prime example of what gives unions a bad name.
Do you think nobody should be making six-figure salaries? Or just that unionized workers shouldn't?
Re: A Tale of Two Ports: Automation at Oakland vs. Rotterdam
#10Rotterdam also has unions to deal with. A colleague of mine, who worked on the software for the final stage (some 15 years back) moving containers onto trucks, told a story where, after union negotiations, they implemented a system where forklift truck drivers could choose between three different containers to pick next instead of giving them just one instruction, for the single, most optimal, one.
While the unions are arguably stronger on the US East Cost the International Longshore and Warehouse Union at the Oakland terminal certainly isn't a pushover.