LiveQ

Queued trucks at two marine terminal gates, recorded by METRIS GPS trackers.
Terminal IDs are masked out. At one gate there is little or no queue. At the other, trucks are backed up a mile, with waits over an hour and getting worse.

When things break down at a terminal, everyone's affected. With timely, objective information, all parties gain the capacity to work around the problem, even to alleviate it.

Information like this has never before been available. Give some thought to how, working with your suppliers/customers, it could change the way you do business.

More About METRIS

Since 2007, METRIS has documented the dynamics of port trucking, following as many as 250 port vehicles. Nearly a dozen motor carriers, including more than half the members of the Clean Trucks Coalition, partnered with us on a USDOT-sponsored project with UC Santa Barbara, exploring ways to improve port freight.

We know that turn time is one of everyone's biggest concerns. So we developed techniques to measure queue length and duration from GPS records. In March 2011 we produced the METRIS Turn Time Report for PierPASS and the Truck TurnTime Stakeholders Group (TTSG). It was the first objective analysis of port queues. But it appeared 5-10 months after the queues did.

LiveQ measures queues as they develop, so that you can respond to them, not just read a report on them.

Information provided by LiveQ

• Length of a queue.
• Progress: how fast it's moving.
• Trend: whether it's getting better or worse.
  
• Dwell: how long trucks have been in line. But not ETA.
• Certainty of data.
• Updated every 3 minutes

Other features

• Immediate detection of congestion. Advanced algorithms sense the back of the queue and register trucks as soon as they join — you don't have to wait until they enter the gate.
• Measures out to more than a mile, beyond the reach of gate cameras.
• Presents all terminals in the same schematic format for easy comparison.
• A LiveQ subscription includes a turn time report for your fleet, terminal by terminal and truck by truck.
• Also available to BCOs, MTOs and ports.
  

Benefits

LiveQ benefits all port freight stakeholders:

• LMCs use their vehicles and drivers more productively.
• MTOs under the greatest stress get relief. The effect of LiveQ is to even out loads over the course of the day, as well as differences in load among terminals, achieving some of the goals of an appointment system.
• BCOs appreciate current constraints that motor carriers and MTOs face, and adjust their orders/expectations.
• Port neighbors see reduced emissions as trucks spend less time idling in queues.
• Port administrators manage traffic at hotspots appropriately.

Request a login to view a LiveQ sample and demo.