PierPass to adopt appointment System and Flat Fee for OffPeak hours at San Pedro Bay ports

In a widely anticipated move this week, PierPass announced that it will overhaul the model used by its OffPeak program for truck traffic mitigation at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

This replaces the current congestion pricing model with an appointment-based system that uses a single flat fee on both daytime and nighttime container moves.

As reported in LM last November, PierPass retained the consulting firm The Tioga Group Inc. and its partner World Class Logistics (WCL) Consulting Inc. to evaluate alternative models and conduct a more comprehensive review of stakeholder opinion. 


Tioga and WCL found that appointment systems are a more effective way to manage truck flow and terminal workload, and that the current incentive fee on daytime containers moves could be replaced with a flat fee on both days and nights to function better with appointment systems and eliminate issues related to the shift change.

Daniel Smith, Principal, The Tioga Group, Inc., told LM that ocean carrier consolidation and all the complexities inherent in alliances (e.g. empty container return) were taken as part of the background.

“Any option going forward has to function in that environment,” he said. “We did see appointment systems as a more flexible and adaptable tool to manage truck flow under changing circumstances than the present OffPeak program.”

The members of the West Coast MTO Agreement (WCMTOA)—the 12 marine terminal operators at the two adjacent ports—reached the decision after an 18-month process of consultation with other industry stakeholders, as well.

According to spokesmen, shipper had expressed a desire for changes to increase flexibility and reduce the bunching up of trucks that often occurs before the start of the nighttime OffPeak shifts.

Subject to regulatory approval, the revised OffPeak program is expected to begin in August.

“The industry has been demanding ‘PierPass 2.0,’ and we are responding,” said PierPass President John Cushing. “The original OffPeak program was an innovative and highly effective solution to the challenges we faced in 2005. But it was fairly inflexible, whereas an appointment-based model is scalable and can evolve to meet changing industry needs, technology and practices.”

Under the current program, OffPeak charges a Traffic Mitigation Fee (TMF) on weekday daytime cargo moves to incentivize cargo owners to use OffPeak shifts on nights and Saturdays. The revised OffPeak program will replace this two-tier fee structure with a single flat TMF during both shifts, and use appointments to spread traffic across the two shifts.

Applying the TMF to both day and night cargo will allow a reduction of more than 55 percent in the TMF while still providing funding to operate extended gates. The current TMF of $72.09 per TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit) will be replaced by a new flat fee of $31.52 per TEU; the rate for all other container sizes will be a flat fee of $63.04.