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Driverless trucks hired at California ports losing market share

Next year, deckhands on ships docked in California wont see many people on the wharf. Remote-controlled cranes towering 165 feet overhead will pluck containers from vessels holds, and driverless trucks guided by magnets embedded in the asphalt will carry cargo to robotic hoists in a sorting yard.

By James Nash, Bloomberg, Matthew Winkler | Updated on May 18, 2015
A truck moves a shipping container at the Port of Long Beach on Feb. 17, 2015. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

(Bloomberg) — Next year, deckhands on ships docked at Middle Harbor on California’s San Pedro Bay won’t see many people on the wharf. Remote-controlled cranes towering 165 feet overhead will pluck containers from vessels’ holds, and driverless trucks guided by magnets embedded in the asphalt will carry cargo to robotic hoists in a sorting yard.

The automated future is part of an efficiency drive at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the first- and second- biggest in the U.S. They’ve been losing market share for nearly a decade to nimble rivals including Prince Rupert, British Columbia, and Savannah, Georgia. One reason: It takes four days or less to unload a ship at those ports and as many as six in Southern California.

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