The Ultimate Guide to Container Drayage
What is Drayage?
Drayage is generally defined as the transporting of goods a short distance via ground freight. It can be specifically used to describe the trucking service for moving a container from an ocean port to a rail ramp, warehouse, or other destination.
A drayage carrier (often referred to simply as the ‘trucker’) is a trucking company or owner-operator that specializes in the movement of ocean containers to and from container ports. In the US there are roughly 7,000 – 8,000 registered drayage carriers, so obviously a highly fragmented industry.
What is Carrier Haulage?
Carrier haulage is when the ocean carrier is responsible for drayage moves. We refer to this as “store door delivery”, and in many cases they contract with a specific chassis leasing company to provide the chassis and at a set price.
When the ocean carriers were divesting themselves of their chassis, the leasing company was guaranteed revenue when the ocean carrier provided a store door delivery. When a drayage carrier is hired to move a carrier haulage container, they have no choice in which chassis gets used NOR who gets the revenue for that chassis. This is determined by “box rules” based on what ocean carrier made what deal with what chassis leasing company.What is Merchant Haulage?
Merchant haulage is when the dray carrier decides which chassis to use and either uses their own chassis or contracts directly with a chassis leasing company.
But.. not all the time. If the chassis are in a collective pool and the terminal they are picking up at mounts all the containers prior to the truckers arrival, they might not have any say. But they could bring their own chassis, which has an entirely different set of opportunities at the container terminal.What is cartage?
| Do all drayage companies provide their own chassis |