By Rip Watson, Senior Reporter This story appears in the Aug. 16 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.
The movement that is shifting chassis management responsibility to drayage carriers gathered more momentum this month, as a major lessor launched a plan aimed at fleets and the largest ocean carrier expanded a chassis rental program.
TRAC Intermodal, Princeton, N.J., is offering the TRAC Connect program to drayage fleets that want to lease or rent chassis.
Separately, Direct Chassis Link, a Maersk Line subsidiary, said its equipment rental plan will be expanded to 14 new cities in the southeast and southwest United States on Sept. 7.
Earlier this year, Evergreen Marine and CMA-CGM, two of the five largest container lines, as well as two smaller operators announced plans to phase out the practice of offering chassis to drayage carriers at no charge. Drayage carriers provide their own chassis in every other country.
“As the steamship lines transition away from providing chassis to motor carriers, TRAC Connect offers an innovative solution by allowing the motor carrier to enter into a chassis interchange agreement directly with TRAC Intermodal via the Web,” said Steve Rubin, president of TRAC Intermodal, which previously was known as Seacastle Chassis.
“The TRAC Connect product offers the value and efficiency of pooling, the availability and quality of TRAC Intermodal chassis, and the economy of only paying for on-demand usage,” Rubin said.
The new service is being offered through the Internet at www.tracintermodal.com or by calling 1-877-987-2226.
It’s being offered through the MetroPool program in the New York/New Jersey, Philadelphia and Baltimore areas and in Mobile, Ala. More locations will be added in the future said the Aug. 5 announcement by TRAC, whose worldwide fleet includes 245,000 chassis and containers.
Maersk’s program, which began last year, provides daily rental of chassis to draymen that can use the equipment to carry containers from any ocean carrier.
Service is being added next month at six Texas locations:
Dallas, Fort Worth, El Paso, Hidalgo, Laredo and San Antonio. In addition, the program will be offered in Atlanta and Dalton, Ga.; Charlotte, N.C.; Memphis and Nashville, Tenn.; Huntsville, Ala; and Jacksonville and Tampa, Fla.
“We are very happy with the model’s overall acceptance among draymen where we have already implemented the program,” said Direct ChassisLink Vice President Andy Chinigo. “It is exciting and gratifying to see other ocean carriers and chassis leasing companies adopting similar positions. As the model’s acceptance among ocean carriers continues to grow, these benefits and others will increase exponentially allowing even greater sharing of efficiencies and savings.”
Maersk believes improved chassis efficiency will provide environmental, operational, safety and cost benefits for drayage carriers, ocean carriers, customers, port authorities, railroads and marine terminals.
Benefits identified by Maersk include improved efficiency in terminal operations, better equipment management, lower fuel costs and reduced wear on equipment.
Maersk intends to complete a nationwide service implementation by the end of 2010.
At present, nearly 40,000 chassis are available to rent at more than 90 locations.
