Today’s shippers face a broad range of challenges: unprecedented congestion at logistics hubs, volatile fuel costs, and unreliable access to chassis are forcing shippers to consider new, innovative solutions to persistent problems. Among these challenges is an often-forgotten crisis plaguing logistics operations throughout the supply chain: the driver shortage. According to Supply Chain 24/7, “The truck driver shortfall hit 80,000 drivers in 2021 and is expected to grow to 160,000 by 2030.” With no end to the driver shortage in sight, shippers must reconsider outdated capacity strategies.
Increasingly, shippers are implementing innovative drayage technology to access the drayage logistics capacity they need. At its core, drayage logistics involves moving containers between logistics hubs; innovative, tech-enabled drayage technology solutions take this simple core of drayage logistics and use state-of-the-art capacity solutions to help shippers do more with less. By optimizing drayage logistics practices, drayage technology helps shippers optimize their drayage practices to beat the driver shortage and streamline operations.
But before shippers can implement drayage technology to solve the capacity crisis plaguing their operations, they need to understand how drayage technology can improve outdated drayage logistics practices.
Drayage Logistics in 2022: Strategies for Success
Like many transportation and logistics-related markets, the drayage market is facing an era of almost unprecedented volatility. According to a press release distributed by GlobeNewswire, “The Drayage Spot Market Index found a 20% rate increase since September 2021” and predicts “rate increases to be upwards of 11% nationwide, similar to the 12.5% rate hike experienced in Q4 of 2021. The most affected areas are expected to be the Pacific Southwest, Pacific Northwest, and East Coast ports.”
The root of these steep rate hikes is difficult to parse. Still, ongoing West Coast labor negotiations are a likely source of the persistent issues faced by some shippers and beneficial cargo owners (BCOs) in accessing vital drayage logistics capacity.
It’s clear that the capacity crisis faced by shippers and BCOs is here to stay for the foreseeable future and could even be exacerbated depending on the direction labor negotiations take in the coming months. With this unpredictability in mind, shippers need to consider a few crucial strategies for using innovative drayage technology to improve the efficiency of their drayage logistics.
Look to Localized Warehousing Options
Localized warehousing options provide shippers with fast, reliable turn-around times. With the efficiency of localized warehousing, shippers can avoid costly demurrage and detention fees. According to Global Trade Magazine, “there was a major spike in D&D charges in 2021,” with standard containers seeing an increase of 39% in occurrences of demurrage and detention.
Improve Efficiency in the Yard
While many shippers look for efficiency in transit, the root of inefficiency in drayage logistics often begins in the shipping yard. By implementing smart yard management solutions, such as reorganized chassis and truck flow, freight prioritization, and improved driver management, shippers can ensure that drayage logistics are as streamlined as possible.
Integrate Tech into Inbound and Outbound Operations
For shippers, maintaining visibility while shipping drayage is difficult at best and impossible at worst. The dense, often urban environments faced by drayage logistics professionals make it difficult to accurately understand inbound and outbound ETAs, efficiency metrics, and KPIs (key performance indicators). Real-time container tracking through drayage technology solutions gives shippers unprecedented visibility into drayage logistics operations. Driver management, improved communications, and accurate ETAs put drayage logistics professionals in control of their high-stakes inbound and outbound operations.
Manage by Exception
In today’s fast-moving, accident-prone logistics environment, exceptions are inevitable. However, thanks to innovations in drayage technology, they no longer have to be a catastrophe. Automated exception alerts through a drayage technology provider notify shippers about exceptions as soon as they occur, meaning they can be quickly and effectively managed.
Across the drayage logistics industry, shippers are using drayage technology to solve the problems of shipping drayage in a high-stakes logistics environment. However, smart shippers know not to try to go it alone. In addition to implementing drayage technology in their own operations, some tech-savvy shippers are partnering with other drayage logistics professionals to improve drayage logistics across the supply chain.
How Drayage Technology Simplifies Drayage Logistics
Faced with the need to manage across time zones, borders, and modes of transportation, today’s shippers have difficulty keeping track of vital logistics information. As they attempt to tame an unruly supply chain, drayage logistics often get left behind. As a result, recurrent inefficiencies in drayage logistics can lower efficiency throughout the supply chain while increasing costs for the end customer.
By implementing recent innovations in drayage technology, shippers can improve efficiency when shipping drayage and lower costs for the end customer. By providing these key benefits, drayage technology can guarantee that everyone feels take care of, from drayage logistics professionals to the end-customer.
Improved Analytics
Too often, shippers must resort to guesswork in their drayage logistics, coping with inaccurate ETAs and shallow insights. By improving analytics and integrating them into an easy-to-use interface, innovative drayage technology can provide drayage logistics professionals with access to on-demand data, intelligent analytics, and innovative shipping solutions.
Enhanced Networking
mall and mid-size shippers facing pressure to keep up with larger competitors are increasingly collaborating to solve capacity problems. By sharing the burden of drayage logistics, container staging, and warehouse management through innovative strategies like cross-docking, shippers can improve the efficiency of their drayage logistics while building business connections throughout the supply chain. With drayage technology, shippers can easily share information with drayage logistics partners across the supply chain.
Easy Troubleshooting
Today’s busy shippers don’t have time to spend hours troubleshooting underperforming or malfunctioning software. Through a partnership with a reputable, experienced drayage technology provider, shippers can get instant access to the drayage logistics know-how they need to solve the persistent problems that pop up when shipping drayage.
Efficient Exception Management
In an increasingly complicated logistics environment, mishaps are inevitable — especially in the dense, often urban, and unpredictable environments faced by drayage logistics professionals. By implementing drayage technology, shippers can access the improved visibility, communication, and analytics they need to manage exceptions as soon as they occur, ensuring that minor problems stay small.
Optimization On-Demand
Today’s shippers don’t have time to wait for visibility. Success in the fast-paced, high-stakes drayage logistics environment depends on their ability to make quick decisions. By partnering with a drayage technology provider, shippers can access the on-demand visibility they need to maintain the real-time reactivity necessary for shipping drayage.
Streamlined Management
Shippers are under pressure to do more with less. For many shippers, the resource-intensive, complex process of drayage logistics is a significant source of cost inefficiencies. By implementing drayage technology throughout the drayage logistics process, shippers can improve resource management by improving visibility. With real-time visibility, drayage logistics professionals can find innovative solutions to the persistent inefficiencies of drayage logistics.
The Consumer Perspective: How Drayage Technology Improves Visibility and Streamlines the Customer Experience
Traditional drayage logistics solutions have relied on outdated technology like email, phone calls, and spreadsheets, which leave plenty of room for missed messages, lost voicemails, and recording errors. While these technologies may have worked in previous years, today’s customers expect better. By integrating all vital drayage logistics information into a single portal, shippers can offer their customers unprecedented shipment visibility without the headache. With a single point of contact for visibility and communications, customers can access a broad range of drayage logistics solutions.
- Vessel Visibility provides customers with a logistics professional’s view of their shipment, allowing them to see where their freight is as it navigates the supply chain.
- Port Visibility gives customers port-side access to drayage visibility, meaning they can stay informed of their freight's trajectory and improve turn times.
- Drayage Trip Visibility offers customers insight into an often overlooked aspect of the supply chain. With drayage technology, shippers can take the mystery out of drayage.
- Order Status Visibility means that customers can see where their order is and when it’s arriving, demystifying the logistics process and lowering freight loss from failed deliveries.
- Document Visibility ensures that customers and shippers don’t have to accept the hassle and expense of lost documents. With integrated document visibility, customers can reliably access vital logistics documents.
Take the Dread out of Drayage — Partner with Port City Logistics Today
Every moment a freight asset spends in a warehouse yard is time spent at risk: idle freight assets are vulnerable to damage, misallocation, and wear and tear, resulting in potentially steep costs for the shippers responsible. With improved drayage logistics through innovative drayage technology, shippers can get shipments out of the hazardous warehouse environment with unprecedented efficiency.
Port City Logistics, a leading provider of drayage logistics for shippers throughout the supply chain, offers shippers access to innovative warehousing solutions and drayage fulfillment. With Port City Logistics, shippers can access decades of drayage logistics experience distilled into high-tech, easily integrated drayage technology. Contact Port City Logistics today, and see how dedicated drayage expertise can revolutionize your drayage logistics.