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Jul 8, 2015

CHASSIS SHORTAGE * USA: Ports, truckers contend with

* New York - US Ports face growing congestion and truckers see longer delays for want of chassis

-- As U.S. seaports enter their busiest season, shippers and truckers expect to be plagued with a familiar problem: a shortage of chassis, a key piece of equipment that allows trucks to transport shipping containers... Finding a free chassis – little more than a steel frame with wheels - can take hours, making them a top source of port congestion because containers can’t be transferred from a ship to a truck without them, truck drivers say... Chassis shortages are already causing delays, including one day in late June at a terminal in Elizabeth, N.J., where trucks waited for hours after the local leasing company ran low... Some drivers pine for a return to the old system, when marine shipping companies owned chassis and leased them to truckers. But shipping lines found maintaining and storing chassis a burden, and began selling them to leasing companies in 2009... Leasing companies also rent different types of chassis, so drivers must often go out of their way to return the equipment to specific locations, creating traffic problems at ports... Three companies now lease most of the roughly 677,000 chassis in the U.S.A. and Canada: TRAC Intermodal, Direct ChassisLink Inc. and Flexi-Van Leasing Inc. Truckers pay a rate of $17 to $25 per day, a cost that is sometimes reimbursed by shippers. But the number of chassis has increased only 2.7% in the last four years, compared with an 11% rise in containers entering U.S. ports, according to industry data... 
(Photo by Robbie Whelan/The Wall Street Journal: A chassis sits in front of shipping containers at Port Newark Container Terminal)  --  NY, USA - The W.S.J., by ROBBIE WHELAN - July 6, 2015

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