CargoSprint’s Krissman on harbor truck appointment upgrades

In light of the complaints about the CargoSprint harbor trucking appointment system voiced by Port of Oakland harbor truckers, CargoSprint CEO Caro Krissman says he is now hopeful a new upgrade will streamline the process and make the appointment process more user-friendly. (See Stas Margaronis, AJOT August 21, 2025, article)

In an interview with AJOT at the IANA 2025 Expo, Krissman said, "I want to start by just acknowledging what a challenging time it is for motor carriers and independent operators and especially in the Oakland Gateway. We're incredibly excited about the new solution that we’ve announced today (Sept 18) in conjunction with the Port of Oakland. And while it doesn't eliminate all the problems, I would say it materially alleviates some of these challenges. And we've got a number of early adopters from the drayage community in Oakland using the product now. And the feedback has been quite positive thus far."

Krissman described how the new CargoSprint product works: “Effectively, what the product does is it overlays across all three terminals at the Port of Oakland and allows the motor carrier to create some business rules and orchestrate their appointments to create a lesser burden on their dispatcher and create a more seamless experience for the dispatcher versus the individual experience that exists today.”

One of the changes is that the new product allows appointments to be made for all three Port of Oakland terminals rather than making appointments for one terminal at a time. “That would allow truckers to simultaneously make appointments at all three terminals. So, they don’t have to go to each of the terminals to make an appointment and keep pressing the ‘refresh’ button. It’s a different mechanism to get the appointments, and we help them avoid that seeking and pecking experience for appointments. And it’s an experience we’ve been working on for quite some time and have invested heavily in, and we’re excited to get more feedback as we go to the general release of it to the Oakland community.”

A big issue for truckers and one that was raised at the Propeller Club of Northern California (PCNC) trucker briefing at the Port of Oakland was that some truckers are overbooking appointments and then not using them effectively, blocking out other truckers with legitimate appointment needs.

Krissman responded to this by saying: “A motor carrier makes these appointments and then either no-shows or late cancels the appointments. And we’re committed to working with the Oakland community, the motor carriers, the terminals, and the Port Authority to help mitigate that issue. And there are a variety of mechanisms that we can suggest.”

However, Krissman said, “We are not the ultimate arbitrator/decider of what happens with that, but we certainly have some ideas based on feedback ...that we can help reduce the number of canceled appointments…I think it’s a solvable problem that together as a community we can come together and solve.”

CargoSprint says the new SprintPort platform provides Port of Oakland truckers with:

• Automatic appointment scheduling
• Real-time capacity visibility
• Accurate empty return information
• Dual move optimization

At IANA, Port of Oakland Maritime Director Bryan Brandes told AJOT that he has gotten positive feedback from harbor truckers with the introduction of the new CargoSprint platform and believes it will streamline the appointment process.

Other harbor truckers at IANA say they have adopted a wait and see attitude because of past CargoSprint/eModal experiences, they say, have made the appointment system unnecessarily burdensome. However, they hope this time will be different.