According to a drayage options analysis performed by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the
current drayage system imposes between $500 million and $1.7 billion of costs on the public each
year through: operational inefficiencies (e.g impact on truckers and trucking companies of truck
under-utilization, traffic congestion and lack of driver health/benefits); city/community costs (e.g.
road maintenance, environmental damage, vehicle and driving safety and residential impacts from
truck traffic and parking); and, above all, public health (premature death, hospital admissions,
workday and school-day loss, and restricted activity).
By all accounts, the cost of replacing the present truck fleet will raise the price shippers pay to move
their cargo through the San Pedro Bay ports. But at an incremental cost of $500 million over a nonasset
and employee-based drayage model, the additional cost of the Port of Los Angeles’ proposed
system is less than the externalized, public-borne costs ($500 million to $1.7 billion annually) that are
offset by a transformed drayage market. According to BCG’s analysis the proposed employee based
system should deliver a positive cost:benefit ratio from 2010 onwards.
If the Port fails to effectively address the public health impacts of the present drayage fleet, the
progress of much-needed Port facility expansion and modernization projects that have constrained
growth at the ports for the past seven years will continue to be impeded. The Port will be hampered
by legal constraints and the opposition of surrounding residents and communities to further
expansion without an actual improvement in environmental conditions surrounding the ports.
Conversely, a clean and sustainable drayage fleet, coupled with the dozens of other pollution
reduction measures outlined in the San Pedro Bay Clean Air Action Plan (CAAP), provide a “green
growth” strategy for moving projects forward successfully, increasing port capacity to accommodate
future cargo volumes, significantly reducing port related air emissions in the decades ahead, and
creating nearly 72,000 permanent jobs upon full build-out of a cleaner, modernized Port.