(Bloomberg) -- Next year, deckhands on ships docked at Middle Harbor on California’s San Pedro Bay won’t see many people on the wharf. Remote-controlled cranes towering 165 feet overhead will pluck containers from vessels’ holds, and driverless trucks guided by magnets embedded in the asphalt will carry cargo to robotic hoists in a sorting yard.
The automated future is part of an efficiency drive at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the first- and second- biggest in the U.S. They’ve been losing market share for nearly a decade to nimble rivals including Prince Rupert, British Columbia, and Savannah, Georgia. One reason: It takes four days or less to unload a ship at those ports and as many as six in Southern California.
“We need to redefine normal,” said Noel Hacegaba, a managing director of the Port of Long Beach, where the Middle Harbor terminal is nearing completion of a $1.3 billion modernization by operator Orient Overseas International Ltd. “We are concerned when we look at the numbers. When you’re the biggest, you have a target on your back.”
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