By Rip Watson, Senior Reporter This story appears in the Jan. 28 print edition of Transport Topics.
Drayage fleets have won regulatory approval to set up the first trucker-owned chassis pool for highway moves of intermodal cargo at a time when ocean carriers are moving away from their role of providing that equipment.
The Surface Transportation Board on Jan. 22 granted the pooling application filed by the North American Chassis Pool Cooperative, which was created by members of American Trucking Associations’ Intermodal Motor Carriers Conference.
“We were very pleased to receive the approval quickly,” said Curtis Whalen, executive director of the ATA affiliate. “This decision will allow us to move forward on this project.”
The 10 initial members of NACPC submitted their application last month. The plan was developed for truckers to provide equipment in the form of either chassis or capital.
Whalen said that the pool already is negotiating with two ocean carriers, which he declined to identify, to acquire chassis. The approval also will allow the pool to select an information technology provider, he added.
STB, which lost almost all of its motor carrier regulatory authority to deregulation in 1980, had to review the NACPC application because it retains authority over motor carrier pooling agreements, Whalen said.
“NACPC members would continue to operate and compete with each other, as well as to be free to acquire chassis for their own use,” STB said. “The board also finds that the agreement would not unduly restrain competition.”
NACPC members currently own less than 1% of the estimated 565,000 chassis in use now. The aim is to accumulate chassis that will be managed through Consolidated Chassis Management, a pool that was created through a trade group by ocean carriers eight years ago to manage chassis costs.
Members of the pool that was created by the Ocean Carrier Equipment Management Association use pool chassis to avoid having to maintain their own fleets.
Ocean carriers stopped providing chassis at no charge to truckers in 2009, when Maersk Line, the largest ocean carrier, announced plans to start renting the equipment, deciding on that cost-saving measure as new federal rules were taking effect to make ocean carriers responsible for chassis condition on the road, instead of truckers.
Since then, some competitors followed suit, while other ocean carriers that arranged deliveries for truckers kept offering chassis as a service to their customers.
Truckers have had to turn to leasing companies, or the former Maersk subsidiary, Direct Chassis Link, for the equipment. Maersk sold that business to a private equity company last year.
Whalen told Transport Topics that the approval was easier for STB because the pool will be operated on a not-for-profit basis.
The pool concept isn’t new. The U.S. freight railroads have used TTX Co. to provide intermodal railcars to all carriers on a usage basis, thereby allowing railroads to conserve their capital for other infrastructure needs.
Initial NACPC members include Tennessee Express, whose president, David Manning, is chairman.
Other members include California Multimodal, Containerport Group, Devine & Son Trucking, Eagle Systems, G&P Trucking, Intermodal Cartage Co., Reliable Transportation Specialists, Tri-Modal Distribution Services and Triple G Express.
