Hacker News Reader

Comment by HenryKissinger | Hacker News Reader

> "All we hear in the news is the lack of congestion on the waterside and we can confirm that, but we are drowning on the landside by long lines and staffing issues at the terminals,”

Boston Dynamics has built droids capable of handling cargo.[1][2][3]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iV_hB08Uns

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7v8ZUq16F4

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkv-_LqTeQA

If humans are in short supply and these supply issues are causing companies to lose money, surely every business handling cargo from the ports will line up to buy some BD droids?

View on HN

That's not the kind of robot you need to handle containers in a terminal. Terminals don't open the containers up. They move the whole container from the ship to a stack, and from the stack to the onward transit (truck, trains, barges)

The kind of equipment suitable for this job doesn't look like a droid. If you don't know what you are looking at you would mistake them for a crane, because technically that's what they are. Search for automated rubber tired gantries[1], or automated rail mounted gantries.

Port automation is a fascinating subject. The equipment is huge, so it is very expensive. It's not like you just order a crane from Amazon and it's delivered by the next day. Just figuring out how they get to your port from the manufacturer is an operation in itself. (Here is a time lapse of the Port of Houston unloading their new RTGs [2])

Then you have the problem of integrating them into your software infra. Sure the crane can pick up any container from the pile and put them down anywhere, but to be efficient you try to minimise wasted movements. If a truck comes in for a container and your automated cranes needs to dig it out from the bottom of the stack you just wasted a lot of time. The best case is when all the operations are integrated such that the terminal operating system (TOS) knows before the container is unloaded from the ship when and where will it be needed next. That way they can optimise where they place it to minimise double handling. Here is a good video which shows all the moving parts of the full system, software and hardware: [3]

And then let's not even talk about labour issues. Understandably longshoreman don't like to assist in replacing themselves if they can help it. If you have a working port and you want to slowly transform it into an automated one, you will probably encounter friction. Best case you win the hearts and minds of your existing workforce over, but if you don't do this very carefully your whole operation might screech to a halt. It is often simpler to build a new automated terminal from the ground up than to try to do knee surgery on a running giraffe.

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2uFoP12ksE

2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyP5u6h8sYU

3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkHOi6Omfig

Thank you for your insight! What about ship size? I don't remember if I saw this previously on HN or if it was a path I went down trying to find out the height of the Baltimore Beltway bridge in Maryland. The issue I came across was that container ships are being built so big now that fewer ports can handle them because of the gigantic gantries that need to be installed and the increased complexity of the automation -- both of which you discuss -- plus dredging, etc. With the smaller ships in the past, a surge in ships could be distributed among more ports up and down the coast, thus alleviating problems like we're seeing. Now, the ships are too big for many ports, which is to the advantage of the big ports/ship-owners who profit from their monopoly.

(I brought up the Baltimore bridge height because, in looking it up, I ran across some articles about the delivery of the new, giant gantries at the Port of Baltimore from China, similar to your Houston example. The ship made its way carefully and successfully underneath the longer Chesapeake Bay Bridge and also the Baltimore Beltway bridge, with only a few feet to spare in both cases. Obviously, this was all carefully coordinated with the local authorities and experts. What I found especially interesting was that the "ship" was also very wide. Very long booms or whatever were stretched out horizontally and perpendicular to the ship. My memory is that these were part of the gantries and they were lowered to further decrease the height of the ship, but maybe the booms are normally this way on the ship to keep it from becoming too top-heavy? [I should watch the YouTube you provided of Houston!] Anyway, this took me off on tangents on the internet reading more and more about the ships and the ports.)

The main constraint for East Coast ports is that they are on the wrong side of the continent from most of the import/export demand in Asia. The Panama Canal isn’t exactly cheap, and some boats don’t even fit in the Canal!

They did recently build out a new expansion of the canal but these problems still remain. What is really cool is the fact that the New York port raised a bridge deck to support the new maximums. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayonne_Bridge

I don't think there are any humans picking up and moving these containers by hand. Robots are already doing the physical moving from one transport type to another.

At the California ports experiencing the worst of being unable to fulfill high demand, the robotics space is intentionally diminished by union activity. Rotterdam stores, moves, and transfers with much greater efficiency with robotic assistance.

However, I don't support injuring workers with tech efficiency advances - it's morally wrong.

But I do wish tech and labor everywhere had better discussions on how to introduce efficiency while also, and more importantly, preserving gainful employment and creating better work experiences.

You'd be surprised how strong the longshorman's union is. It's a cesspool of nepotism and corruption(at least in San Diego, where I used to be close to a family of them and got to hear the dirt). It would take a major economic catastrophe(no, not like the current one) to displace them, and you can bet there will be violence in return.

Those aren't the droids we're looking for.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com