Maersk Extends Chassis Pool to Gulf, Southeast

Direct ChassisLink, the company set up by Maersk Line to manage its chassis fleet and charge truckers a daily fee for their use, will expand its chassis program to the Southeast and Gulf inland regions as of Sept. 7.

The company’s chassis pool will be extended to include Dallas, Fort Worth, El Paso, Hidalgo, Laredo, San Antonio, Atlanta, Dalton, Charlotte, Memphis, Nashville, Huntsville, Jacksonville and Tampa.

Maersk Line set up DCLI in 2009 to start charging drayage companies in the Port of New York and New Jersey for using its chassis fleet and has been rolling the program out to ports and terminals on a region-by-region basis throughout much of the rest of the country except the West Coast.

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Several other carriers, including CMA CGM, NYK, OOCL and ACL announced they will stop providing chassis in certain ports and inland markets in the next few months, but they are not setting up alternatives similar to the chassis-rental program that Maersk is phasing in.

DCLI offers chassis for rent at a daily fee in these market areas to drayage companies at container yards and railroads. Approximately 2,000 drayage companies are currently participating in the program in the Southeast, Gulf and Pacific Northwest port areas and the Northeast, Ohio Valley and Chicago/Midwest areas.

The sixth phase of the program will increase the DCLI fleet available to draymen to more than 38,700 chassis located in over 90 locations.

When operationally feasible, a drayage company may be able to use the same DCLI chassis multiple times in one day for any ocean carrier’s or other container moves for a single charge. Upon return to one of the designated locations, the daily usage fee on the chassis stops.

An invoice for the calendar days from gate out to gate in is invoiced directly to the draymen. Drayage companies must have a valid DCLI interchange agreement in place in order to take full advantage of the program.

--Contact Peter T. Leach at pleach@joc.com.