Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

Recent and related:<p><i>Flexport CEO on how to fix the US supply chain crisis</i> - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=28957379" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=28957379</a> - Oct 2021 (225 comments)

I am a member of ILWU 13. A couple thoughts after reading the comments:<p>The zoning change is for TEU storage outside the port. The port itself was not subject to that rule.<p>The Port of Los Angeles is a landlord and is not directly involved in operations.<p>Private companies, such as APM, EverPort, and others, rent piers&#x2F;berths and are responsible for the actual operations and logistics.<p>Some speculation: recently I’ve heard of some ships not even waiting to load empty TEU’s as they normally would and instead they are immediately leaving for China, literally empty. I suspect this behavior is what turned the congestion we had before into the quasi deadlock we have now.

Everyone&#x27;s focused on Ryan&#x27;s comments about stacking, and the subsequent win there. Amazing job, Ryan, and thank you Robert Garcia for being a man to take one on the chin (for this solution not coming from your team) and for then doing the right thing. I am seriously impressed by not seeing any NIH (not invented here) behavior here.<p>But why stop there? Ryan suggested 5 courses of actions, and made it clear that we need to act on all of them at the same time. So far only the first of those 5 steps have been acted on. The rest of the steps are likely either bad or the people needed to act on them are doing that NIH bullshit (which I can understand to some extent given how much negativity is being directed at Robert Garcia). But negativity or not, if those are good suggestions, we need to act on them. Would love to hear any thoughts on how to mobilize support for quickly validating&#x2F;invalidating those suggestions, and then acting accordingly.<p>If it&#x27;s possible to cancel brands and individuals, it should be possible to do the same with politicians as well. I hope it doesn&#x27;t turn out that we care more about certain individuals&#x27; views than the prevention of a nationwide and potentially even global crisis [1].<p>[1] From Ryan&#x27;s tweet:<p>&gt; I can&#x27;t stress enough how bad it is for the world economy if the ports don&#x27;t work. Every company selling physical goods bought or sold internationally will fail. The circulatory system our globalized economy depends has collapsed. And thanks to the negative feedback loops involved, it&#x27;s getting worse not better every day that goes by..

Truckers are leaving containers all over Los Angeles.[1]<p>Allowing stacking over 2 high is only useful if you have the equipment to stack over 2 high. A place that just stacks empty containers 2 high probably only has large forklifts. The special equipment for high stacking is far more expensive, and only bought if you need it.[2]<p>A more useful proposal is a &quot;peel pile&quot;.[3] This is a system which assigns outgoing trucks an easily accessible container to deliver, rather than a specific container that has to be retrieved. There&#x27;s an app for that. This is being implemented by IMC, the largest marine drayage company in the US. They say they&#x27;re already up to 8 high stacks in the LA area. The higher the stack, the longer the retrieval time.<p>&quot;This keeps drivers moving and productive, even if they don’t know the exact load they’re getting or the delivery location.&quot; So it&#x27;s really dumping the sorting problem on drivers. They have no idea where they&#x27;re going next. There has to be some way to separate containers by approximate location to make this work, so a driver knows how far they&#x27;re going to be asked to take the thing.<p>How well this all works depends on how well the software organizing the stacking works.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jalopnik.com&#x2F;the-streets-of-los-angeles-are-overflowing-with-cargo-t-1847917927" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jalopnik.com&#x2F;the-streets-of-los-angeles-are-overflow...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bison-jacks.com&#x2F;why-bison&#x2F;blog&#x2F;how-to-lift-a-shipping-container&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bison-jacks.com&#x2F;why-bison&#x2F;blog&#x2F;how-to-lift-a-shi...</a><p>[3] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.peelpile.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.peelpile.com&#x2F;</a>

I thought that Flexport CEO&#x27;s tweet stream was really great - had a ton of insightful, first hand information and made the problem very clear. Especially import was the feedback loops showing how the system was essentially deadlocked, in the classical sense of the term.

A little off topic, but these ports don’t usually store so many empty crates, so why do we have them now? Are we not exporting at the same rate? Is that even what empty crates are used for? I’m assuming they aren’t sent back to (mostly?) China empty. I read something about the prices to ship out of the US being very high, but isn’t the price coming in also similarly proportionally high, yet we still have a backlog of ships waiting to unload.

And in the middle of all that, Theory of Constraints in a tweet:<p>“When you&#x27;re designing an operation you must choose your bottleneck. If the bottleneck appears somewhere that you didn&#x27;t choose it, you aren&#x27;t running an operation. It&#x27;s running you.”<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;typesfast&#x2F;status&#x2F;1451543795045183490?s=21" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;typesfast&#x2F;status&#x2F;1451543795045183490?s=2...</a>

Seems like all these tweets are about emptying ports so they - and the author’s startup - can go back to their business.<p>The rest of the systems’ profits and sustainability seem to be secondary.<p>Perhaps it might make sense to ponder if this super-lean truck-centric infrastructure wasn’t running too close to its breaking point?<p>Might be a good idea for big-gov to lend a hand but also impose some top-down decisions like: long term you will be rebasing your logistics onto a railroad based backbone.<p>There, and you’ve magically created a couple thousands well paying jobs in infrastructure build and maintenance…<p>Also call some operations researcher to copypaste a couple tiered caching algorithms onto this mess.

Would be nice to see a follow-up of exactly what this fixed. He mentioned only 7 of 100 cranes were in operation, does that mean more cranes will soon be able to operate because they have room to put containers?

Is this related somehow to China refusing to take USA&#x27;s recycling material?<p>IIRC shipping recycled material was super cheap. So many empty containers. Might as well fill them with something.<p>Why aren&#x27;t empty containers shipped back to China? Boat has to go back anyway, right?<p>Did the empty containers pile up because no one was willing to pay to ship them back?

Since this is HackerNews, I thought Long Beach was a new up and coming Docker alternative.

What I would like to know is how it ever got to this breaking point? Is there no planning for such cases or continuous optimization? Or were plans presented to the government which just sat on it until it was too late?

The ceo of flexport rented a boat and toured the area and reported on issues people saw and reported to him. Very informative.<p>Tweet thread @ <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;typesfast&#x2F;status&#x2F;1451543776992845834" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;typesfast&#x2F;status&#x2F;1451543776992845834</a><p>Or threadreader<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;threadreaderapp.com&#x2F;thread&#x2F;1451543776992845834.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;threadreaderapp.com&#x2F;thread&#x2F;1451543776992845834.html</a>

Cool. Now we have more space to store the empty containers temporaly. Is this going to solve the problem or only save us a few days?

Related response by opendna “I checked into the claims in this port thread. While the facts are broadly correct, the policy response is not. I&#x27;m going point to some other possible choke-points, suggest solutions, and explain why some of the suggestions are counter-productive.”<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;threadreaderapp.com&#x2F;thread&#x2F;1452064336726290434.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;threadreaderapp.com&#x2F;thread&#x2F;1452064336726290434.html</a>

They should’ve used Kubernetes

* Own the bottleneck of your business.<p>* The most capital intensive process of your business should be the bottleneck.<p>* When you find a bottleneck not of your making, overwhelm it.

@Animats said &gt; A place that just stacks empty containers 2 high probably only has large forklifts. The special equipment for high stacking is far more expensive, and only bought if you need it.[2]<p>Some facts:<p>1) Container Height: 8&#x27;6&quot;. Add approx 4&quot; for the lift slots on the bottom.<p>2) Forklift with 22&#x27; lift available from Sunbelt = 3 Container Height &#x2F; 50% increase in yard capacity <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sunbeltrentals.com&#x2F;equipment&#x2F;detail&#x2F;1044&#x2F;0550320" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sunbeltrentals.com&#x2F;equipment&#x2F;detail&#x2F;1044&#x2F;0550320</a>...<p>3) Common &quot;construction&quot; type forklift with 39&#x27; lift from United Rentals = 4 Container Height &#x2F; 100% increase in yard capacity. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.unitedrentals.com&#x2F;marketplace&#x2F;equipment&#x2F;forklift" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.unitedrentals.com&#x2F;marketplace&#x2F;equipment&#x2F;forklift</a>...<p>And United has forklifts with even higher reach available.

Something to recognize.<p>Logistics can be somewhat thought of as a flow problem.<p>If demand far exceeds supply, and both supply and demand stay constant, the backlog will continue to get worse in severity over time.<p>For the problem to get better, either demand has to decline, or supply has to increase. However, the ability to expand supply seems limited in the short term. E.g. how long does it take to improve port throughput, or build new container ships?<p>Translating to the real world, think every ship stuck at the port removes another ship&#x2F;containers from being able to pick up new goods which creates a self reinforcing problem.<p>Or thought another way, if the port can only unload 10,000 containers a day, and 20,000 containers a day are showing up, the number of backlogged containers will increase linearly with time.<p>Just yesterday we hit a record number of ships backlogged at the CA port, so I suspect this is exactly the situation we&#x27;re in.<p>The free market will eventually solve by either supply throughput breakthroughs, or prices continuing to rise until demand destruction kicks in.<p>I want to lay a few stats out here. Retail sales has been ~20% elevated from 2019 levels since the pandemic started, primarily due to government benefits&#x2F;stimulus checks.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fred.stlouisfed.org&#x2F;series&#x2F;RSXFS" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fred.stlouisfed.org&#x2F;series&#x2F;RSXFS</a><p>Some is due to spending habits changing, but that&#x27;s likely a smaller portion.<p>Check real personal income over the course of the pandemic.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fred.stlouisfed.org&#x2F;series&#x2F;RPI" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fred.stlouisfed.org&#x2F;series&#x2F;RPI</a><p>Enhanced UI has ended, but it seems consumers are relying on credit now to maintain the same level of spending. It&#x27;s not clear how long this will last, but it could be months, judging by the consumer loan data here.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fred.stlouisfed.org&#x2F;series&#x2F;CONSUMER" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fred.stlouisfed.org&#x2F;series&#x2F;CONSUMER</a><p>Note that many consumers paid off debts with the stimulus, is why this chart dips at the end. But we&#x27;re quickly climbing back. Given lower interest rates, it&#x27;s likely this can persist a few more months at current trend.<p>I suspect this will end organically whenever consumer credit is maxed out, and demand falls. But at the same time, wages are increasing fairly rapidly now... Is it possible higher wages can continue to support this new level of demand?<p>Probably in part, but not entirely.

There is a huge parking lot near the Queen Mary &#x2F; Cruise Terminal in my recollection. Perhaps that could be appropriated for a time. It’s far easier to relocate cars&#x2F;shuttle passengers than to move shipping containers a great distance.

Build stuff here! I can’t imagine how much fossil fuel is being wasted in this process.

I&#x27;m not sure on the USA but I know that to clear such a logjam will require a lot of workers who might be casual workers. What&#x27;s the expected impact on these workers?

surprised that the local busybodies responsible for the height limit haven&#x27;t shown up and decried the new stacks as &quot;luxury containers&quot;

It seems like the Flexport CEO made this happen. Good on him. What an idiotic, self-inflicted wound. Regulation needs to crawl out of the stone ages.

Wow this could be really serious, who could have predicted the world economy could crash on too many containers brought on by an epidemic.

&gt; Also containers are not fungible between carriers, so the truckers have to drop their empty off at the right terminal. This is causing empty containers to pile up.<p>What does this mean? The individual containers are owned by carriers?<p>Could this be allieveted also by agreements between carriers (or a merger)?<p>Or is there some other reason containers are &quot;sticky&quot; to carriers?

Why is it temporary? What are the negative effects of suspending the limitations?

Why are these blocked ships not diverting to other US ports? We have plenty!

So... I&#x27;m in Arkansas near a river shipping port. Is there any way for me to take advantage of this situation and acquire a bunch of empty containers?

If problem is too many empty containers. Wouldn&#x27;t actually subsidising shipping them off make sense? That is make it worthwhile for ships to load them on.

Why has this obvious solution taken 3 months and a boat tour from a startup CEO to implement? Do not elect incompetent mouth breathers into local governments, folks. When such people run unopposed (or when all the alternatives suck about as hard) I write in Mickey Mouse. If this was a trend, Mickey would hold most of the elected offices in this country.

No real cost, no real pain, for those making decisions - no proper decisions. No surprise.

Out of curiosity, what started this supply chain and container issue?<p>PS: I am not based in the US

Sounds like the best time to start your container-house building company

Does this mean it is a cheap time to buy empty shipping containers?

I hope those limitations didn&#x27;t serve a vital safety purpose.

&quot;Do not stack more than N high&quot;

Zoning laws prevent stacking containers more than 2 high. FFS.<p>Zoning as practiced in the US may be the most pervasive, banal evil in the country. It kills our GDP[1], is a major driver of racial inequity[2], increases wealth inequality[3], and creates car-dependency which has horrible public health impacts[4].<p>Yet somehow nearly no one in America is aware of this or concerned about it. I wish I understood why that is.<p>But I’m not surprised to learn that LA area land use regulation is a major contributor to the dysfunction at the port.<p>1. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.aeaweb.org&#x2F;articles?id=10.1257&#x2F;mac.20170388" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.aeaweb.org&#x2F;articles?id=10.1257&#x2F;mac.20170388</a><p>2. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.strongtowns.org&#x2F;journal&#x2F;2020&#x2F;9&#x2F;18&#x2F;the-local-case-for-reparations" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.strongtowns.org&#x2F;journal&#x2F;2020&#x2F;9&#x2F;18&#x2F;the-local-case...</a><p>3. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cato.org&#x2F;blog&#x2F;housing-wealth-inequality" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cato.org&#x2F;blog&#x2F;housing-wealth-inequality</a><p>4. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;vtpi.org&#x2F;autodep.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;vtpi.org&#x2F;autodep.pdf</a>

It is embarrassing for the country that a CEO from a company had to discover and report this rather than someone from the govt doing their job. When I see people write &quot;late stage capitalism&quot;, I actually wonder if we aren&#x27;t in &quot;late stage US govt&quot;. They had it too easy for too long and have forgotten how to do their jobs.

I love how these commenters think they know something about shipping that the CEO of Flexport doesn’t (I’m referring to the person you replied to, BTW).

Why wasn&#x27;t the federal government doing this? How hard would it have been for the new &quot;shipping czar&quot; to have gone down there and seen what at least one simple issue was and get it fixed?

If true, it&#x27;s extremely depressing that it required a viral post on social media.

Is this how Ready Player One started?

When a YC company&#x27;s valuation is under assault, people will mountains, er containers.

&gt; This is not a comprehensive list. Please add to it. We don&#x27;t need to do the best ideas. We need to do ALL the ideas.<p>Had me up to this point. Let&#x27;s not do ALL the ideas, let&#x27;s have someone with authority and decision making skills make a judgment call with the best information available at the time. I assume he really means &quot;all the best ideas&quot;, but it&#x27;s worth saying that we shouldn&#x27;t panic and just do anything someone yells loudly.

Roads, bridges, are already overwhelmed with traffic, and we have 1&#x2F;2 of congress preventing federal spending on infrastructure -- this will be the next bottleneck... I keep hearing about a 60,000 trucker shortage, but with us &quot;long haul&quot; trucker count @ around 1&#x2F;2 a million, that will only add another 10% capacity... from what I&#x27;ve seen traveling the USA on interstates, 10% more trucks would be INSANE overload... these same highways are saturated and this doesn&#x27;t even address the countless construction zones on all of them... there&#x27;s a whole lot more &quot;problems&quot; than containers IMHO

Wrong move. The container problem is way more of an effective tariff on China than anything else we could think of.<p>The best part is every container impounded in the US is a drain on destinations that aren’t in the US like Europe.