Photo credit: Ian Turk

Business Community

HML’s West Coast intermodal Marine Highway service will provide carrier-partners and shippers – supply chain options, reduced costs, insulation from rising rates, increased market access and a means of environmental stewardship. Our service will help your business diversify its supply chain, strengthen its bottom line, reach out to new markets and show its customers it cares about reducing its carbon footprint.

1. Provide Options: We are establishing a third goods movement mechanism which will provide carrier-partners and shippers a unique low-cost and environmentally responsible advantage over traditional transportation. Our intermodal service will provide capacity for over 8,000 truck-equivalent shipments per month spread across 10 of the most common West Coast freight lanes. If you want it there tomorrow – truck it. If you have until next week and want to save money and the environment – COB ship it with us.

2. Reduce Costs: I-SSS is dramatically more fuel efficient compared to long-haul trucking and can be even more efficient than rail. Research by the state of Oregon (i) and the U.S. Maritime Administration (ii) found that one gallon of fuel could move one ton of cargo between 59 and 163 miles by truck, 202 miles by rail or 514 miles by barge. One Eastern rail company is taunting an efficiency of 436 ton-miles per gallon. Our intermodal service calculates an efficiency of 390 ton-miles per gallon. This substantial fuel savings translates to 1: an anticipated average 20% reduction in total shipping costs and, 2: approximately 6-times less expensive long-haul per mile costs, which most importantly equals remarkable insulation from increasing fuel prices. So not only will our intermodal programs ship your freight for less, your costs to ship under our programs won’t rise nearly as fast due to far less fuel being consumed to move your freight.

3. Slow Rate Rise: Our alternative solution for transportation will provide additional West Coast north/south freight lane capacity, route diversification and mode competition, which will all help slow the anticipated rise in West Coast transportation costs. Consider our service to augment your current supply chains, avoid bottlenecks, reduce your exposure to CARB’s effects on trucking, and to diversify your options.

4. Increase Market Access: Our intermodal service represents a complete West Coast contiguous distribution network between all major metropolitan & rural markets and eastbound rail access points. Whether you’re a Southern California shipper with a Pacific Northwest market, a Coos Bay shipper with a Southern California market, a Humboldt shipper looking for eastbound rail access, or a West Coast north/south leg is just part of your supply chain, we’ll be able to tailor a low-cost environmentally responsible solution for your business. (i)

5. Establish Environmental Stewardship: We are planning for our intermodal service to provide our shippers and carrier-partners a recognizable and marketable green business distinction. This recognition will come through 1: utilizing an environmentally responsible method of moving goods and, 2: visible participation in the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s Smartway Program and the federal Maritime Administration’s  Marine Highway Program. Let your customers know your business is doing what it can to be environmentally responsible and to promote green business practices.

Sources

i TranSystems and the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation, and Conservation District. Redwood Marine Terminal Feasibility Study Draft Report. November 2007. Sections cited: Task 2, Sec. 5.2 p. 30; Task 1, Sec 4.2 p. 32; Task 2, Sec. 8, p. 37
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ii U.S. Department of Transportation Maritime Administration. Environmental Advantages of Inland Barge Transportation. August 1994.