This simple piece of trucking equipment holds the key to unclogging America’s ports
Transportation executives wrestling with the supply-chain gridlock that is frustrating U.S. importers say the ability to clear the bottlenecks rests largely on a simple piece of steel and wheels that has long been an afterthought in global shipping.
“The chassis are the biggest issue” in problems that stretch from the docks at the neighboring Los Angeles and Long Beach ports to warehouses deeper into California and intermodal rail yards in the Midwest, said Matt Schrap, chief executive of the Harbor Trucking Association, which represents port truckers in Southern California.Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg News
Normally, there are enough trailers to handle the thousands of containers moving through the ports. But executives say the unrelenting heavy flow of imports that began in the middle of 2020, coupled with labor shortages at warehouses and other cargo-handling facilities, has resulted in the frames being away from the ports for long stretches, crimping the ability of operators to turn around the equipment to carry new boxes.
Because many warehouses are overwhelmed today resulting in delays in unloading the container, the trucker often leaves the box atop the chassis for days longer than usual at a receiving facility.Newsletter Sign-upTop news and in-depth analysis on the world of logistics, from supply chain to transport and technology.Weston LaBar, chief strategy officer at Cargomatic Inc., a freight platform that matches truckers with shippers, said too often today chassis “are being used as a storage mechanism.
A decline in the supply of new frames is exacerbating the shortage, according to trucking and chassis executives. In May, the U.S. International Trade Commission imposed countervailing and antidumping duties totaling more than 200% on Chinese chassis producers that supplied the majority of frames to the U.S.
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