USDA to Track Ocean Shipping Container Availability

According to  WTSA, OSCAR aims to provide freight shippers with a snapshot of current equipment availability at 18 inland intermodal load locations in the form of aggregate net surplus or deficit totals for participating carriers. The report also will forecast the expected availability at each location two weeks out, based on advance carrier bookings.

The report is available on USDA’s website at www.ams.usda.gov/oscar.

“OSCAR represents a model industry-government collaboration, bringing added transparency to the export supply chain,” says Brian Conrad, WTSA executive administrator. “Putting the right data collection and reporting processes in place has required persistence and hard work by both ocean carriers and USDA, and WTSA lines appreciate the critical leadership role USDA has played in launching this valuable pilot project.”

According to the WTSA, the joint USDA/WTSA pilot project is an outgrowth of discussions begun in 2010 amid severe space equipment shortages in the transpacific trade as Asia-U.S. import demand suddenly spiked and ships idled in the global downturn returned to service. Most Asian container production capacity had closed, leaving carriers scrambling to locate and deploy containers and to reposition empty containers back to Asia once they had been unloaded. The situation left U.S. exporters short of vessel space and equipment, even as export demand in Asia was strengthening.

WTSA collects ndividual carrier data and submits it in aggregate to USDA, anonymously, for posting in weekly reports.

“The main purpose behind OSCAR is to provide visibility into how equipment flows trade-wide on a week-to-week and seasonal basis, so that exporters are able to work with their carriers to access containers in the most efficient way possible,” Conrad says.

“Surplus or deficit data attributed to a specific carrier can easily be misinterpreted,” Conrad says. “Surplus containers on a given day might be pre-allocated to other customers or trades; a deficit in the same location might simply reflect priorities based on a carrier’s cargo mix, customer base or inland terminal arrangements. There are many underlying factors affecting a carrier’s equipment situation from week to week, and we wanted to ensure that these would not compromise the report’s value as a planning and reference tool.”

WTSA members include APL Ltd., Hyundai Merchant Marine Co. Ltd., COSCO Container Lines Ltd., K Line, Evergreen Line, N.Y.K. Line, Hanjin Shipping Co., OOCL, Hapag Lloyd AG and Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp.