Last month, I participated in two important events in the Pacific Northwest, one hosted by the Northwest Seaport Alliance (NWSA) and the other by Expeditors.
I am grateful to the Northwest Seaport Alliance for inviting me to participate in their Peak Planning Conference. I saw an outstanding and instructive dialog between local and national maritime industry representatives discussing opportunities for importers and exporters to better collaborate and innovate. I appreciated the opportunity to discuss the scope of the second Request for Information (RFI) issued on the Maritime Transportation Data Initiative (MTDI) which was released earlier this spring. Comments are due June 17th,2024.
The Peak Planning Conference participants included beneficial cargo owners, local shipping organizations, truckers, railroads, ocean carriers, marine terminal operators and representatives of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. The dialog focused on the need to address transparency, data accuracy, and cargo availability, all which are questions asked in the pending RFI and the real-time conversations raised by Peak Planning participants. Conference participants provided essential feedback which will be reflected in the revised MTDI recommendations I plan to release by the end of the year. I commend NWSA Chief Executive Officer John Wolfe and his staff for their commitment to better addressing operational issues facing port stakeholders and providing advance planning and assessments of potential logistics challenges.
Further to these issues, I was a keynote speaker at the Expeditors Global Logistics Conference. The focus of my remarks was industry’s need for smarter infrastructure to assist in facilitating timely and accurate operational information. It is no longer possible to simply build our way out of congestion. Better and more timely operational information will lead to more efficient and resilient maritime infrastructure. The Global Logistics Conference convened a wealth of industry expertise, and I enjoyed hearing all that was said.
Both events reinforced the need for refined MTDI recommendations that can contribute to establishing better operational procedures for information sharing and will achieve greater supply chain transparency and efficiency.
Carl W. Bentzel is a Commissioner with the U.S. Federal Maritime Commission. The thoughts and comments expressed here are his own and do not necessarily represent the position of the Commission.