- The move increases the financial burden on owner operators who need the chassis to perform the truck drayage of containers to and from ports.
- It outsources jobs currently being done by longshore workers doing maintenance and repair on the docks and shifts those jobs to chassis owners and truckers at off-dock locations.
- Also it creates a new profit center for chassis owners who lease to truckers, such as Maersk.
- Inevitably, it raises freight costs to shippers.
Change in chassis ownership generates savings & revenues to carriers but places new burden on truck
The ocean carriers have been for years trying to end their stake in the “trucking” business in North America. With carriers working hard to return to profitability and with the trucking business perceived as a liability, getting out is not an option but a necessity. But beyond the ocean carriers, what’s next?By Stas Margaronis, AJOTOcean carriers are ending their ownership of chassis used to transport ocean containers to and from U.S. ports and shifting that ownership to trucking companies and chassis pool owners in a move that will save carriers money, but create a new burden on truckers.
The American Trucking Association (ATA) newspaper Transport Topics noted in a November 29, 2010 issue that ocean carriers used “new, tougher federal safety rules related to chassis safety “ as a reason to exit the chassis business and change the business model to make truckers provide the chassis needed to move the boxes.
And that has prompted major changes for intermodal carriers, who have found themselves grappling with transition-related troubles ranging from tires to inadequate storage space to funding.
Seven smaller ocean carriers (now eleven-see below) have followed industry leader Maersk Line in getting out of the container supply business. Now, in order to move containers, intermodal freight lines must rent, lease or purchase them.
There are four important impacts of this move: