The Port of Long Beach and the Port of Los Angeles has announced further delay in the consideration of the "Container Dwell Fee" for another week until March 25 citing continuous improvement in port movements.

The two San Pedro Bay ports said in their latest release that they have seen a combined decline of 62% in aging cargo on the docks since the program was announced on October 25 last year.

"The executive directors of both ports will reassess fee implementation after monitoring data over the next week," the ports said, adding that fee implementation has been postponed by both ports since the start of the program.

Under the temporary policy, ocean carriers can be charged for each import container dwelling nine days or more at the terminal. Currently, no date has been set to start the count with respect to container dwell time.

Clean Truck Fund collection from April 1

The ports plan to charge ocean carriers US$100 per container, increasing in US$100 increments per container per day until the container leaves the terminal.

Port of Long Beach and LA said any fees collected from dwelling cargo will be reinvested for programs designed to enhance efficiency, accelerate cargo velocity and address congestion impacts.

Meanwhile, the two ports announced last week that they will start implementing a "Clean Truck Fund" (CTF) rate to help fund and incentivize the changeover to cleaner trucks.

Port of Long Beach and Los Angeles will begin collecting a rate of US$10 per twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) on loaded import and export cargo containers hauled by drayage trucks as they enter or leave container terminals starting April 1.