On average, the service—operated by Ingram Marine Group—moves 30,000 TEUs per year between New Orleans and the Port of Greater Baton Rouge, as well as ports in Memphis and St. Louis, according to Ronald Wendel, acting president and CEO, Port of New Orleans. Plastic resin manufacturers clustered around Baton Rouge are the primary users of the service. Outbound containers are loaded on container ships for export, and empties are returned in bulk instead of one at a time. For these companies, moving containers this way not only provides an alternative transport route, but also reduces costs and greenhouse gas emissions. Cob gets a boost New Orleans is well situated to expand its container-on-barge services thanks to its location at the mouth of the Mississippi River and connections to six Class I railroads. A new $1.8-billion terminal, which includes container-on- barge provisions, is under construction at Port of New Orleans. The COB service will also get a boost thanks to a bridge project taking place over the next several years on I-10 between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. “Getting trucks off the road will benefit traffic and environmental issues, and we can keep the COB momentum going,” Wendel says. Transit time is a concern for shippers, however. Moving a container from New Orleans to St. Louis on a barge takes six to eight days, while a container can reach Chicago in 24 hours by rail. “There needs to be a critical mass of volume for COB to be a true multimodal solution,” Wendel says. Ingram also offers similar COB services through the Port of Mobile, moving 36 loaded and 48 empty containers on each barge. Containers can travel from there to cities in Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, and Tennessee. On the James River in Virginia, a tug-barge container service operates between Richmond and Norfolk, taking more than 120,000 trucks off
Container-on-barge (COB) services are gaining traction as a popular alternative. The Port of New Orleans moves 30,000 TEUs each year via COB service and is upgrading its capabilities.
of I-64 each year and providing area shippers with an effective alternative transportation option. Other inland ports also offer alternative routing around congested terminals and highways. The new Port of Nevada, for instance, alleviates shipping delays along I-80, flowing containers from the Port of Oakland into northern Nevada via intermodal. The rail service bypasses traffic in the Bay area, and saves shippers from worrying about potential road closures due to construction along the heavily traveled route as well as weather delays through mountainous areas. Cross-Border Connections Another group of shippers keen to include alternative routes in their transportation plans are companies starting or increasing their nearshoring operations in Mexico. Trucking and intermodal services offer multiple options for cross-border moves. Averitt is building capacity for transloading trucks at its service centers at the border to move product more efficiently to the U.S. interior. An Averitt warehouse in San Antonio draws traffic from congestion in El Paso and Laredo, two of the most active border crossings. PortMiami is one U.S. East Coast port working to increase container capacity
from Mexico to help shippers bypass congested Texas border towns. The water route can save $2,000 per container and takes three days less than the highway option, according to PortMiami officials. Additionally, Mexico has planned a $2.8-billion project to transform the Isthmus of Tehuantepec into a 188-mile rail corridor between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. The isthmus represents the shortest distance between the two bodies of water, and the plan’s goal is to divert traffic from the drought- plagued Panama Canal. Organizers predict the corridor could handle up to 1.4 million TEUs per year by 2033. In comparison, the 50-mile- long Panama Canal handles about 14,000 vessels and 8 million TEUs each year. The corridor could draw freight from vessels that use the canal and provide an alternative when events disrupt trade flows. Collaborating for Solutions Improving supply chain resilience by evaluating alternative routing should be an ongoing process. Forward- thinking shippers, carriers, ports, and regional planners are working on strategic approaches to make it easier for alternative routes to be an effective component of the global supply chain. n
40 Inbound Logistics • August 2024
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