I was also thinking about this after reading the original thread.
If the port is full and the trucks are full, clearly we have more overall containers than before. Where did they come from? And is the place they come from now short on containers?
Those are of course separate problems. If we are accumulating empty containers, you could just dump them somewhere for the time being. Yes, the trucks would have to drive somewhere else than the port to dump them, but that's clearly better than economic standstill. And if it turns out that China is short on empty containers, then we might need to work on the incentives for ships to bring back the empties.
But unless this whole clogging was caused by a very temporary spike in container throughput, increasing buffer capacity will only alleviate the problem for so long.
If the port is full and the trucks are full, clearly we have more overall containers than before. Where did they come from? And is the place they come from now short on containers?
Those are of course separate problems. If we are accumulating empty containers, you could just dump them somewhere for the time being. Yes, the trucks would have to drive somewhere else than the port to dump them, but that's clearly better than economic standstill. And if it turns out that China is short on empty containers, then we might need to work on the incentives for ships to bring back the empties.
But unless this whole clogging was caused by a very temporary spike in container throughput, increasing buffer capacity will only alleviate the problem for so long.