About Port Safety Services (PSS)

PSS is an international health, safety, and environmental (HS&E) consulting group based at the Port of Oakland, California.  Our team provides expert witness testimony for civil cases involving port-based maritime serious injury and fatality (SIF).

Our scope includes HS&E engineering, industrial hygiene, and consultation services to intermodal container ports and legal counsel.  We serve land-based and ship at shore operations involving fall prevention, lockout tagout, confined space, port machinery, powered industrial trucks (PIT), mechanical operations, commercial vehicles, Top/Side/Strad container handling equipment, dock cranes, and related cargo handling tasks, including worker exposure to toxic and hazardous materials.

Our civil case experience includes injury to longshoremen, freight haulers, truck drivers, regarding issues involving equipment used on shore for handling and transporting maritime cargo.

We represent both plaintiff and defense counsel in providing forensic (SME) expert testimony, solutions for proactive incident prevention, and consultation to law firms and insurance companies for over three decades.

Our attorney clients serve intermodal container ports, docks, and cargo handling workplace injury.  Our experts are versed in confined space safety and rescue, containers and ship holds, use of safety lifelines, hazardous materials, toxic substances, fire prevention, respiratory protection, and fall prevention.

Our team of professionals assist in proactive loading dock safety, longshoring operations, use of yard tractors, cargo and load securement.  Typical equipment: reacher stackers, dockside cranes, powered industrial trucks (PIT), rubber tired gantry (RTG), straddle carriers, AutoStrads, top handlers, and side picks.  As material handling safety specialists, we are highly versed in rigging, crane hoisting, loading/unloading, and commercial trucking; we verify operator and driver safety training, and fitness for duty.  Our post incident evaluations assist legal counsel and port management.

We conduct post incident inspections and hazard analysis based upon established maritime industry standards of care, and FMCSA (DOT), OSHA, EPA, IMDG Code, and USCG regulations.