The Department of Transportation announced recently that the port of Oakland and the Northwest Seaport Alliance, which includes the ports of Seattle and Tacoma, are now members of the Freight Logistics Optimization Works initiative. The West Coast’s two other large ports, Los Angeles and Long Beach, were already participants.
Under FLOW, which was launched in March 2022 to help ease congestion and speed up the movement of goods, the DOT collects, aggregates, and anonymizes key information shared by participants on inbound containerized freight, starting with importer purchase orders, and aligns future demand volumes against current regional capacity to move ocean containers. Industry participants can access secure data through a shared online portal and use that information to better inform supply chain planning. For example, participants are currently working with the DOT to use FLOW data to better estimate port and inland network congestion, including by monitoring cargo shifts resulting from attacks that have disrupted vessel traffic in the Red Sea.
FLOW now includes more than 80 members, including the eight largest U.S. container ports, nine of the largest ocean carriers, and nine of the 20 largest retailers by imports, as well as terminal operators, truckers, railroads, warehouses, and beneficial cargo owners. More than 90 additional companies are in the onboarding process.
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