LOS ANGELES — Some days, Wilfredo Jimenez logs almost as much time sitting in his blue tractor-trailer watching TV as he does on the road hauling cargo from the nation's busiest port complex.

But the longer he's forced to wait his turn to pass through the procedural gantlet at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the less money he stands to make.

The delays, which Jimenez says sometimes can drag on for several hours, cut into the port truckers' ability to earn money, because drivers get paid for every load they move, not for every hour they work, like other port employees.

A new program at the twin ports to expand the hours during which truck drivers can retrieve cargo was supposed to ease such delays, but Jimenez says he's seen little improvement.

"The day before last, I was delayed from 6 p.m. until 10 p.m. to take out one load," said Jimenez, 30, while waiting to make a pickup during an evening shift last week. "How is it possible that one has to wait so long when this new system was supposed to make the system better?"

The ports' expanded hours program, dubbed OffPeak, was designed to help lessen drivers' wait times inside the ports and ease traffic congestion on nearby highways by giving shippers a financial incentive to move their cargo during evening and weekend hours when there are fewer vehicles on the roads. The port complex now handles 40 percent of all the cargo shipped into the U.S. and 80 percent of U.S. imports from Asia.

In the first three weeks since its launch July 23, roughly 30 percent of the cargo containers hauled through the ports were moved during evening or weekend off-peak hours, according to data released by PierPASS Inc., which administers the program.

The ports moved about 10 percent of their cargo in the evenings before the program and some terminals kept their gates open into the night to move cargo bound for rail.

Still, while the increase has been generally regarded as a sign the program is working, the persistent delays at some marine terminals could threaten the success of the ambitious initiative, said Robin Lanier, executive director of the Waterfront Coalition, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group that represents retailers, manufacturers and other cargo importers and exporters.

Lanier said truck drivers have complained about delays during the evening shifts coinciding with whenever longshoremen take scheduled breaks.

"If they can't resolve the productivity issue within the terminals," Lanier said, "then the long-term success of the program could be in jeopardy."

Drivers who work the L.A.-area ports typically own their trucks and must pay for their own fuel costs, which have hit drivers particularly hard this year. The average price of diesel fuel at the pump in California two weeks ago was $3.04 a gallon, 92 cents higher than a year ago, according to U.S. Department of Energy.

Many drivers blame delays on the port longshore workers who, drivers say, have little incentive to work faster because they get paid more if they work at night and get to take regular breaks.

"Since they get paid by the hour, they always take their time, so the ones who don't make money are the drivers," said Elizandro Menendez, a driver from Los Angeles. He typically gets to complete two pickup and delivery trips per day.

Bruce Wargo, the president and chief executive of PierPASS, acknowledged drivers' turn times — or the time it takes for a driver to pick up a container, deliver it and return to the ports — could be better, but stressed the program is only a few weeks old.