Bridge Terminal Transport Sits Between Drivers, Ocean Carriers

November 24, 1999 11:24 AM, EST

RICHMOND, Va. — Intermodal drivers are unhappy, ocean carriers seem unable to meet their demands, and in the middle sits Clark E. Brown.

	Michael James - Transport Topics
	BTT's Clark E. Brown

As head of the nation’s largest intermodal drayage firm, Brown knows that low pay, poor equipment and interminable delays are taking a toll on truck drivers who haul containers in and out of ports.

These problems, which have sparked protests in Vancouver, British Columbia, and led to strikes and union organizing efforts among port drivers in Seattle and Baltimore, have been the focus of a series of public hearings by the Department of Transportation this month. The hearings are putting a spotlight on what many see as a trucking backwater — the movement of freight containers from ships and trains over the road to customer destinations.

Brown is president of Bridge Terminal Transport and its West Coast subsidiary, Pacific Rim Transport. Both companies are owned by the Danish shipping line Maersk Line, which puts Brown squarely in the firing line between the demands of port drivers for higher pay and ocean carriers, whose customers are demanding more efficient and less costly ways of moving a growing volume of international freight throughout the world.

For the full story, see the Nov. 22 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.