The problem with US ports being slow isn’t the longshoremen or the lack of automation, it’s the ports themselves.
This has been studied and the main takeaway is that automated terminals are generally not more productive than conventional ones *once you control for things like terminal layout, cargo patterns, rail/truck integration, and geography.*
A lot of the “look at Rotterdam/Singapore/Shanghai” comparisons are misleading because those are purpose-built megaterminals with entirely different infrastructure and logistics networks.
US ports have different constraints (that have nothing to do with longshoremen) that make the specific automations more common in foreign ports less effective and sometimes counter effective here.
That’s not to say there aren’t automation improvements that could be made or Longshoremen labor is currently at some perfect optimal productivity equilibrium with automation, but it’s not a simple we need automation and they are in the way stopping it scenario.
Automation can certainly reduce some labor costs and improve yard density, but the idea that US ports are uniquely inefficient because dockworkers are manually moving containers around is mostly political rhetoric, not what the actual studies by people designing and running ports say.
This has been studied and the main takeaway is that automated terminals are generally not more productive than conventional ones *once you control for things like terminal layout, cargo patterns, rail/truck integration, and geography.*
A lot of the “look at Rotterdam/Singapore/Shanghai” comparisons are misleading because those are purpose-built megaterminals with entirely different infrastructure and logistics networks.
US ports have different constraints (that have nothing to do with longshoremen) that make the specific automations more common in foreign ports less effective and sometimes counter effective here.
That’s not to say there aren’t automation improvements that could be made or Longshoremen labor is currently at some perfect optimal productivity equilibrium with automation, but it’s not a simple we need automation and they are in the way stopping it scenario.
Automation can certainly reduce some labor costs and improve yard density, but the idea that US ports are uniquely inefficient because dockworkers are manually moving containers around is mostly political rhetoric, not what the actual studies by people designing and running ports say.
Some reading: https://www.construction-physics.com/p/do-us-ports-need-more...
https://www.gao.gov/assets/d24106498.pdf
https://www.itf-oecd.org/sites/default/files/docs/container-...