Marine Terminal Operators at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach Postpone TMF Adjustment to August 1

WCMTOA announced it will postpone until August 1 its planned adjustment to the Traffic Mitigation Fee (TMF) at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The schedule change is in response to feedback from customers and other partners in the goods movement industry, and is intended to provide more time for cargo owners to prepare for the adjusted TMF.

While rate increases are never desirable, it’s important to recognize the value gained through adequate funding of the PierPass OffPeak Program.

Recall six years ago, before PierPass existed to address daytime truck and cargo congestion at the San Pedro Bay ports. Heavy traffic plagued freeways, neighboring communities, and roads leading into ports. Long lines of trucks, cargo sitting for extended periods, and ship delays were commonplace.

Fortunately, we’ve come a long way since then. Over the past six years, PierPass OffPeak gates have grown to handle approximately 55 percent of all container traffic at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, have accommodated close to 20 million truck transactions during OffPeak shifts, and eased congestion in city streets and nearby freeways during normal business hours.

The PierPass OffPeak program provides tremendous value and future growth potential to the goods movement industry, greatly increasing the capacity of America’s largest port complex without adding additional infrastructure. OffPeak gates help to minimize daytime traffic congestion, allow cargo to move faster at night on less crowded roads, and enables truck owners to deliver more loads through lower turn-times and twice the number of working hours in a day. The TMF funds the nighttime gates, which make these benefits possible.

As an industry-driven solution to port congestion, the PierPass OffPeak program was created as a response to government and cargo interests, and its success is only possible because of feedback from stakeholders across the industry. PierPass continues to encourage dialog among industry stakeholders in order to identify industry-driven solutions that promote the efficient movement of cargo through the ports.