b"20American Journal ofTransportation ajot.comContainerPort nimble in adapting to new market conditionsContainerPorts Jon Urban, in an interview with the AJOT, dis-cusses how the container drayage company has been nimble in adjusting to the post-pandemics new market conditions. networkmanagement,whichisasupportdepartment for the By George Lauriat, AJOTWhenitcomestointermodallarger organization, the peaks and val-operations, Jon Urban, Executive VPleys arent as significant. Really, the of Operations at ContainerPort Group,bigger, larger organizations have the Inc. is quite literally in the middle ofbigger customer base and more con-itallbothintermsofoperationstractedbusinessThatsallaiding and the country itself. ContainerPortin our success over the past two quar-(CPG)isbasedinClevelandwhileters. I mean, weve really put a big Urban is based in Chicago. CPG hasemphasisondriverexperiencefrom a wide range of services that includethe first contact to the application pro-trucking and terminal operations withcess to onboarding, quarterly business a focus on international freight. It isreviews with our independent contrac-alsoworthnotingthatCPGisparttors. We view them as partners. Thats oftheChicago-basedtransportationreally helped with our turnover.conglomerate,WorldGroup,which includes a number of complimentaryt hei Mpact ofc ongestion oncompaniestoCPG,suchasWorldthes upplyc hainShipping, Inc., UWL, World Distribu- One trucking problem in the East-tion Services and TankBag.ern half of the country that seems to SkysTheLimit2.pdf 1 12/13/2021 3:07:20 PMForCPGthecontainerdray- (NIMBLEcontinued on page 22)age segment of intermodalmoving freightinandoutofterminalsis one of the main lines of business and the company has a sizeable reach. As Urban,whooverseesallthetruck-ingandfieldoperationsforCPG, explainedinaninterviewwiththe AJOT, Basically, if you draw a line right down the middle of the United States, we have every major city east of there. Currently, asset-wise, we go about as far west as Kansas City to Dallas, so right in the middle of the United States. Weve got 27 Contain-erPortlocations,butalso,wehave nineMillBay[agencybrand]loca-tions. Weve currently got three Bris-tolTransportationlocations.Weve got five Dedicated locations. Theres wellover40,probablycloserto50At the Port of Baltimore, the sky's the limit. sitelocationsthataremanagedby ContainerPort operations. New cranes. 50-foot deep berths. No supply chain congestion.r educingd riVert urnoVerCPG largely deploys the owner-operatororindependentoperator model,sokeepingasteadystable Cofdriversisakeycomponentof the operation. And over the last two Myears, as the country was coming out Yof the COVID-19 pandemic, pent up CMdemand and snarls in the supply chain MYput pressure on seating drivers. When CYasked about the current driver situa-CMYtion and what it looked like going for- Kward, Urban was candid saying, We had a difficult end of 21 and early 22.However,wehavemadesome significant adjustments and improve-ments in our recruiting departments Weve actually netted over 300 inde-pendent contractors, up since April of this yearwere approaching 1,500, andwevehadsomerapidgrowth over the past two quarters. in Janu-ary,wewereabout1,100trucksspot rates were up across the nation. The capacity was tight. So, indepen-dent contractors took the risk to go out and get their own authority and try to start their own company. We saw a lot of that.As stock market rates kind of fell and the market started to self-correct,marylandports.com1.800.638.7519we saw a lot of those drivers return-Governor Larry Hogan ing. We saw a lot of new drivers headMDOT Secretary James F. Ports, Jr. in our direction. In my opinion, whenMPA Executive Director William P. Doylethemarketsoftens,theindependent contractors tend to flock towards the morestablecompanies.Inasofter market[driverstendtomove]toa"