Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Top Story
Port of Long Beach to open new chassis operating unit
On Monday the Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners approved a plan to establish a chassis operating unit at the port, which Chief Executive Jon Slangerup says could be a solution to a growing bottleneck problem.
The new chassis plan has been called a game-changer that will allow the port to acquire, manage and maintain the trailers that attach to big trucks and to transport cargo containers. Slangerup will present a detailed action model to the board in 30 days.
"This situation is a surprise to me coming from a logistics background," said Slangerup, former president of FedEx Canada. "Peak is something you plan for. … Peak is a part of the transportation industry."
The port head cited lack of chassis during peak hours at the Long Beach port as "the root cause of peak congestion issues."
"This shortage is preventable and (we) must not allow it to happen again ever. Period," asserted Slangerup.
Truckers have traditionally used chassis owned by a company and would return them after use. But some terminals don’t have an adequate chassis supply, which forces truckers to drive to a storage location to acquire one.
The advent of mega-sized container ships calling at the port recently has exacerbated the congestion issue.
The Department of Justice has recently given the green light to allow three major chassis providers to discuss a chassis pool concept, which the industry has been moving toward. A chassis pool would allow truckers to use chassis interchangeably, and chassis owners would then be compensated through rental fees.
Truck-chassis owners DCLI and TRAC said they plan to increase their fleets by more than 3,000 chassis in the near-term to meet supply and demand.
The harbor commissioners also approved raising rates by 5 percent for non-containerized cargo Monday, to take effect on Dec. 1. The rate hike is expected to yield $1.25 million in annual revenue that would go toward infrastructure projects related to non-containerized cargo customers.
For more of the Press-Telegram story: www.presstelegram.com
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