Decreasing empty miles decreases port congestion

Even people who don’t work in the supply chain industry have heard about port congestion over the past two years. From LA to Rotterdam to Shanghai there have been disruptions and imbalances causing massive port congestion and delays. This has caused enormous problems for the Steamship lines, importers, exporters, warehouses, truckers, and everyone else who participates in the movement of global goods. Albeit a line shined on the issue during Covid, this has been a persistent problem for decades.

We are going to focus on the first mile or the drayage space of the supply chain. This is the link in the chain that involves truckers moving containers in and out of the ports typically to nearby facilities. 

For the US market containers are shipped from overseas and hit one of our domestic ports like Newark Port. Once those containers are offloaded truckers will drive in and grab the containers and move them for their customers (WalMart, Home Depot, Michelin, etc..). Once they are emptied those truckers will take the empty containers back to the port to sit and wait to be loaded on a ship. This is the issue.

We have exporters and other truckers that are always in need of empty containers. By pairing them once they are emptied with exporters and truckers needing them we are creating efficiency and fluidity that helps those stakeholders and lessens port congestion. By having these empty containers matched we make sure that more loaded containers are going back to the port and fewer containers need to be used which frees up valuable space. At Qualle that is what we are focused on. Keeping containers moving by democratizing them and making sure they are always in a state of movement and ideally full. 

‍Empty Repositioning: repositioning empty containers in areas where they are in most need. 

This has always been a big issue for the industry due to the lack of data sharing. Qualle is in a unique position by sitting as an agnostic platform between the steamship lines, importers, exporters, and truckers to be able to enable them to communicate and share data with one another. For the land portion of empty repositioning, we help facilitate transactions outside of the ports which decreases the number of transactions needed within the ports. This is crucial to lowering port congestion. 

At any given time 56% of all ocean containers are in circulation. That is an alarmingly high number and by sharing and communicating we can significantly lower that number and do a great amount of good for the industry, our pockets, and the environment. Please follow along for more content from the team at Qualle. We’re trying to do our part in making the supply chain more efficient and green. 

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