By Peter Hurme

      A gathering of three influential transportation organizations occurred in mid-November in south Florida, ground zero of the - still pending at press time - presidential election controversy. The Intermodal Association of North America, National Industrial Transportation League and Transportation Intermediaries Association held their respective annual conferences in Ft. Lauderdale, along with the NIT League's Transcomp 2000 trade show.
      An ever-growing presence and subject of this year's event, which saw over 3,000 attendees from around North America, involved the transportation dot.coms which appeared to have cornered a good portion of the trade show's floor space.
      E-transportation seminars included a TIA-sponsored Internet focus group and two different offerings entitled, "Learning to live with dot.coms" and "E-commerce: the hot new way to do business."
      At a NIT League-sponsored press conference, the shipper group's officers responded to Marine Digest'squestion about how they felt their membership was dealing with the e-logistics industry. John Ficker, logistics development manager for Weyerhaeuser, said, "This is new frontier stuff...this is like when 3PLs first came on the scene. And like that industry, there will be consolidation."
      Ficker also said an "acid test" question Weyerhaeuser asks of transportation dot.coms is "How many carriers are actuallyin your database and how many are actuallycustomers?"
      Van L. Hayes, Jr., manager, transportation, support services for Vulcan Materials Co., said "[There] are a lot of good ideas out there, but some are not feasible or are too expensive to get involved with."
      Hayes did mention that "a few dot.coms" have become NIT League members.
      The TIA announced it is taking the Internet question a step further by basing its next conference and trade show in New Orleans in March 2001 around this issue. That meeting is being billed by the TIA as "the first Internet e-transportation strategy and technology symposium designed exclusively for transportation intermediaries."
      A feature of that event is to be the unveiling of results from a joint study between the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business and TIA that includes how the Internet has affected other intermediary-related businesses.
      Another hot topic in Ft. Lauderdale revolved around recent announcements of various surcharges from the ocean carrier agreement groups in areas like fuel and chassis.
      "If I could set prices on soap I could do a pretty good job of it," said Michael J. Barr, international services manager, Proctor & Gamble, at the NIT League press conference.
      "Fluctuating fuel charges are hard on customers," said Thomas F. Pellington, director, transportation, David J. Joseph Co.
      Peter Gatti, the League's vice president of international relations, responded, "As we move forward with confidential contracts, we'll see their (ocean carrier agreement groups) power lessening."
      On the issue of the Surface Transportation Board's imposition of a 15-month moratorium on U.S. rail mergers, Thomas Pellington responded, "The moratorium was not the right move; we could have gotten [to an answer] much quicker...not to say this is a vote for the merger [of the Canadian National and Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroads]."
      The League said it is in the process of getting feedback on rail rates and service issues, including whether there have been improvements.
      As for feedback from shippers on the flow of goods transport for peak season 2000, the response from the NIT League panel was generally positive.
      "In `98 and `99 there were enormous peaks," said Weyerhaeuser's Ficker. "There was a lessening of [this in 2000]...it's a softer economy. Product is showing up reasonably on time. We haven't heard any real complaints," he said.
      Among the variety of conference seminars was a freight transportation discussion with representatives from all modes. From the seaport/terminal perspective was John Vickerman, principal, TransSystems (consulting engineers), who said 62 percent of new containerships built in 2000 were over 5,000 TEUs. Vickerman said a 7,000 TEU ship could create 9.4 trains in both directions, and questioned the general intermodal system's ability to handle the new oncoming breed of ship.
      "Peak time is higher and dwell time is shorter - how does the infrastructure handle this surge? One 5,000 TEU ship can create 40,000 documents and 6,000-7,000 customs transactions."
      Another problem Vickerman referred to was the inequity of dwell time between marine and intermodal terminals.
      "The current average dwell time at a marine terminal is six to seven days. It's one to two days at the average intermodal terminal."
      One solution he proposed was all modes merging information into broader data sharing arrangements. Vickerman said an example of this cooperation is the Port of New York-New Jersey's new web-based FIRST system.
      "Terminal throughput could be reduced if there's better communication," he said.

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