Los Angeles and Long Beach ports have long been the primary source of pollution on the US West Coast, which also happens to be the smoggiest region in the country. Since June of this year, the accumulation of diesel-powered container ships and a large number of cargo-moving trucks in the ports has exacerbated the situation. Residents living near these ports face the highest risk of cancer from the air pollution in that region, which is primarily caused by smoke-belching ships anchored at these ports. California has set a 2023 deadline for reducing smog and improving air quality, but the situation on the ground has deteriorated in recent years. Especially, with the ongoing congestion at the LA port.
While efficient ports are critical for the economic development of their surrounding areas, the associated ship traffic, cargo handling in the ports, and hinterland distribution can all hurt the environment as well as the economy.
When a vessel arrives at a port and is unable to berth, it must wait at the anchorage until a berth becomes available. This is a problem that only gets worse over time and Southern California ports have been facing congestion issues like never before. A huge crowd of container ships has been constrained to queue outside Los Angeles and Long Beach, causing the latest supply chain disruption in the United States.
The ships are stranded outside two of the busiest ports of the country, which together handle 40% of all containerized cargo entering the US.
The number of ships awaiting entry into the largest US gateway for trade with Asia reached a record high, increasing delays for businesses attempting to replenish inventories during one of the busiest times of the year for seaborne freight.
On September 12, Port of Los Angeles Director Gene Seroka warned that a “significant volume” of goods was “coming our way throughout this year and into 2022.”
Timeline of the number of vessels in the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles and related anchoring areas
Consequently, on September 18, a record 73 ships were trapped outside the port – nearly double the number as that of the previous month.
The current congestion — with both ports setting records regularly — exemplifies cargo surge since the pandemic. The backlog has increased pollution and poses a threat of supply shortages ahead of the holiday shopping season.
Visit our Research & Development section to read the original paper published by Ömer Harun Özkernak and Gönül Tuğrul İçemer of the Azdeniz University in Antalya, Turkey.
Abstract:
Bilge water waste poses an environmental risk for humans and marine creatures by causing cancer and developmental disorders due to the toxic substances. This study aims to create a calculation method to calculate the amount of bilge that a ship can produce. The number of ships and the amount of bilge water that they have given the port waste reception facilities in the past years were collected to prevent marine pollution caused by ships in the Gulf of Antalya.
The amount of possible future bilge water discharge in the gulf was estimated by using the collected data by linear regression method. The risk distribution of the amount of bilge water that a ship can produce was determined with the data obtained by the Monte Carlo method for the first time in this study. As a result, although the number of ships in the gulf will decrease in number, it is predicted that the amount of bilge water discharge and the needs of a waste receptions facility will increase in the coming years.
Each month, we announce an update on how we extended our terrestrial AIS coverage worldwide. Become an AIS Partner and contribute to Global Maritime Transparency. Take a look at our latest achievements of FleetMon’s AIS station network.
In winter 2020, JAKOTA Cruise Systems | FleetMon called out a Charity Week. Within this week, our employees could submit local societies and social initiatives for FleetMon to support and donate money to. A total amount of 5,000€ in donations was available to be distributed among the submitted suggestions. For us, it was essential to support either a maritime association or make a difference in our immediate local area. One of the initiatives we decided to give money to is the “Deutschlandstipendium” (“Germany scholarship”). We agreed to finance two “Germany scholarships”. Since 2011, the “Deutschlandstipendium” has been promoting students and newcomers who are expected to perform well in their studies and at work. They receive 300 euros per month – half from the federal government and half from private donors. This alliance of civil society engagement and state funding is what makes the “Germany Scholarship” so unique.
Scholarship holder Lars Ratzka (left) and FleetMon’s Human Resource Manager Anne Siebke (right) at the festive eventRead more…
Last Friday, our second community meeting took place in Hamburg, Finkenwerder. We have invited all active ship spotters and AIS partners in the area to a maritime restaurant with the best view of the vessel traffic on the Elbe. Anyone who knows the mentality of ship photographers can certainly imagine that the camera doesn’t have to be missing at such an event. Some of our guests snapped ships as well that evening.
In December 2019, the FleetMon Community Meeting took place for the first time, and many users took part. Unfortunately, the event had to be canceled last year due to the pandemic. For FleetMon, such a meeting offers the ideal setting to exchange ideas in a relaxed atmosphere in personal contact with our users and the community of our platform. We want to improve the user experience and further develop FleetMon.com to meet the users’ needs.
In 2021, numerous guests from Hamburg and northern Germany joined the event to talk to Juliane and Sebastian from the AIS team, Steffi handling the Support at FleetMon, and other colleagues to exchange and share experiences. The FleetMon team received valuable insights into how the ship spotters use our platform. In a personal exchange with the community, new ideas arose about how to improve FleetMon.com. Bit by bit, we will tackle a redesign of the community area with a range of new features which are more in line with user requirements.
To everyone who participated in the event: It was very nice to meet you in person! The whole team had a lot of fun with you guys that day. Thank you for your time and input.
We hope to meet you soon for the next FleetMon Community Event.
Just reach out to us at any time to come back with ideas, suggestions, and further feedback.
In June 2021, we announced FleetMon’s Innovation Lab, bundling all our Research & Development projects. There’s something new coming out of the Lab:
Around a year ago, we started a pilot project in collaboration with Julius Marine, a local producer of buoys and fairway lighting. The project aims to develop a modular, autonomous AIS station that runs in locations without a power supply or a stable internet connection. In addition to an AIS receiving antenna, the station also contains a variety of measuring sensors. It works autonomously, enabled by two solar panels that supply the powerful battery and the Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) module for data transmission with energy. This means that the weatherproof station can operate outside all year round to receive ship position data and other measurement data. Servicing the autonomous AIS station is not necessary.
from left to right: Sebastian Olias, AIS Network Manager at FleetMon, Frank Hartmann of the University Wismar in Warnemünde, Björn Mörer and Florian Schröder of JULIUS Marine GmbHRead more…
Guest article by Julia Sokolova, a researcher at the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute in Saint Petersburg:
Nowadays, shipping companies working in the Russian Arctic, as well as the Russian Government, are actively discussing the possibility of expanding the navigation window in the Northern Sea Route (NSR). Several reasons contributed to this discussion.
Firstly, many studies show a stable tendency of ice cover decrease in the Arctic Ocean, intensified during the last decade. Secondly, modern shipbuilding allows designing vessels of high ice class. Last but not least, remote sensing data helps to reduce time costs for navigation in sea ice.
Since 2017, experimental voyages of LNG carriers through the NSR have been carried out during very early or very late dates. Comprehensive information about vessel movement, power engine work, along with reports on the ice conditions, allows assessing the efficiency of the chosen route and gives a more detailed picture of the ice situation along the entire NSR.
FleetMon kindly provided AIS data to the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI). The data helped our researchers to study the motion of LNG carriers Christophe de Margerie, Nikolay Yevgenov and Nikolay Zubov performing their late voyages during the polar winter in 2021.
If the global shipping industry were a country, it would be the world’s sixth-highest CO2 emitter, ahead of Germany. As an international industry, shipping was not covered by the 2015 Paris climate change agreement that focused on individual nations’ responsibility for critical emissions. But as unprecedented heatwaves, forest fires and flooding raise global awareness of climate change, the shipping industry is starting to make up for lost time.
How significant is their response? And was Maersk’s recent announcement of investing over US$1.4bn in eight post-Panamax containerships that can run on methanol or bunker fuel just a drop in the proverbial ocean? Let’s take a closer look at how shipping is responding to the climate crisis.
In March 2020, the Technical University Berlin and five representatives of the port industry started the funded research project SELECT. The acronym “SELECT” stands for “Smarte Entscheidungsassistenz für Logistikketten der Binnenschifffahrt durch ETA-Prognosen” (engl.: “Smart decision-making assistance for logistics chains in inland shipping through ETA forecasts”). FleetMon has been chosen as the official AIS data provider.
The aim of the project is to develop an IT system for port operators and shipping companies that automatically and dynamically predicts the transport processes of inland vessels and thus their arrival times (ETA) at inland and seaports. The digital decision assistant is intended to enable the parties to take suitable actions in relation to the expected arrival time. It considers the entire logistical process flow. Reducing the vessel transit/travel times as well as increasing the handling capacities in inland ports are other important goals.
The research partners are supported by the BMVI (Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure) and receive funds amounting to around one million euros.
Additionally, FleetMon’s data have been used for the teaching course “Supply Chain Analytics” at the Technical University Berlin related to the SELECT project. Visit our Research & Development section to know more about the student case studies in the field of inland vessel ETA predictions.
Each month, we announce an update on how we extended our terrestrial AIS coverage worldwide. Become an AIS Partner and contribute to Global Maritime Transparency. Take a look at our latest achievements regarding FleetMon’s AIS station network.
