Temporary Adjustment of the TMF Ends at Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach

The West Coast MTO Agreement (WCMTOA) today reminded port users that the Traffic Mitigation Fee (TMF) at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach will return to its pre-December rate on February 1, 2022.

On November 10, WCMTOA announced that the TMF would be temporarily adjusted to $78.23 per TEU between December 1 and January 31, and would be charged only on weekdays during the daytime shift. The temporary change in TMF levels and rules was intended to create a financial incentive to move more containers during off-peak hours by charging a TMF only during peak hours.

At the start of February, the TMF will revert to $34.21 per TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit) or $68.42 for all other sizes of container for non-exempt international container moves through the terminals at the ports, and will again be payable throughout all hours of terminal operation.

WCMTOA worked with the Port Envoy to the Biden-Harris Administration Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force, as well as the Executive Directors of the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, in an effort to address challenges with links in the supply chain. The temporary change was put into place as the goods movement community entered the final holiday push in December followed by the January period leading up to Lunar New Year.

Over the course of the seven weeks since the TMF’s temporary adjustment was implemented, and with outreach to the entire supply chain and all of its users, the proportion of gate activity during the day shift versus the night shift did not change from where it has been averaging since 2018.

Under the original PierPass OffPeak Program established in 2005 to mitigate severe traffic congestion around the ports, incentive pricing (charging a TMF for weekday, daytime container moves) was used to enable and drive traffic to new night shifts. OffPeak was modified in 2018 to address supply chain requests that the program mitigate traffic with appointment systems instead of incentive pricing. The change also sought to eliminate the problematic truck bunching that occurred between shifts with the previous program.

Containers exempt from the TMF include empty containers, domestic and transshipment cargo, and import cargo or export cargo that transits the Alameda Corridor in a container and is subject to a fee imposed by the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority. Empty chassis and bobtail trucks are also exempt.

PierPass is a not-for-profit company created by marine terminal operators at the Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach to address multi-terminal issues such as congestion, air quality and security. The West Coast Marine Terminal Operator Agreement (WCMTOA) is filed with the Federal Maritime Commission, and comprises the 12 international MTOs serving the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports.

For more information, please see www.pierpass.org.

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