Ocean cargo carrier tracks rail partners

In a gesture that may be without precedent, MOL (America) Inc. announced that it has begun public disclosure of its ratio of U.S. to Asia export cargo that misses vessel connections due to rail errors.

MOL has established a performance standard to keep such missed vessel connections below 1 percent, and has added “Missed Vessel Connection Due to Rail Error Ratio” to the list of Regional key performance indicators (KPI) it discloses to customers on its website.

On a monthly basis, MOL will release the results, which measure the percentage of containers that in-gate prior to published intermodal inland cut-offs for all U.S. West Coast strings but miss the vessel connection due to a rail failure.

“We understand that realistically there will always be a few misses, but MOL considers any miss of the vessel connection to be a serious problem,” said Richard Craig, senior vice president of operations. “We believe that our standard is a very bold one for the industry but that it is an achievable result based on our strong relationship with our railroad partners.”

Matt Motsick founding director of Catapult International, a leading edge international shipping software and consulting firm, told LM that ocean carriers can be late for a variety of other reasons, however.

“Ocean transportation is unique, in that a vessel’s departure cycle has no end, and thus no opportunity to refresh,” he said. “A single negative event causing a delay will continue to negatively affect that vessel’s schedule for a potentially long period of time.  In reality, a carrier’s on-time statistics are skewed by how quickly that carrier re-sets their schedule to accomodate the delay.”