By Richie Lin.      Photo：Kevin Bidwell

Whether the places of destination are at ports or IPI ramps, all containers need the trucks to deliver them to doors of customers. This article delves into the basic procedures of container drayage in the United States. Understanding these procedures will help customers to optimize the delivery efficiency and try to avoid the unwanted costs. Let’s start with the container drayage. Container drayage refers to the picking up the containers from the ports and IPI ramps then delivering them to the doors of customers. The drayage charge is decided by the distance between pick-up point and final destination. There is weight limit issued by each State, so trucking company will charge triaxle fee if the container weight is over 38500 lbs and normally trucking company would refuse accepting the container which is over 44000 lbs. When the trucker goes to ports and ramps to pick up the containers, normally the containers are put on the chassis and there will be chassis fee which is always charged by per container per day and minimum charge is two days. If the container is not put on the chassis, the container yard would charge flip fee to move the container from the ground to the chassis. And it will also happen the chassis split fee because the container and chassis cannot be returned at the same site. When containers are discharged at the container yards of ports and rail ramps, it starts calculating the demurrage of each container. Normally, the free days of demurrage are two days, therefore trucker will pick up the container before the last free day of demurrage. However, sometime trucker cannot deliver the container on the same day of picking it up because there are delivering window isn’t decided yet. Hence, it would happen the pre-pull charge for picking up container first and the yard storage fee for keeping the container before delivering it actually. When container is delivered to the customer, it will be normally Live unload and trucker will wait at the site. Trucker will give two hours free waiting and after two hours they will charge waiting time hour by hour until the container is completely unloaded and return the empty container. Even though live un-load is the commonplace, but some big whole sellers and retailing stores would require the containers are leaved the site for the proper of unloading. This procedure is called Drop and Hook, which means dropping the container and waits for the instruction to hook up the empty container. This will cause some extra fee because trucker needs another round to pick up the container later. In the real situations, trucker would usually have regular trucks to deliver the containers at the sites where other containers are dropped off. But it would happen the Bobtail charge if the trucker doesn’t have the container on hand to arrange delivery and needs to pick up the empty one. Bobtail refers to two rounds of drayage charges, one is the delivering loaded containers to the doors of customers, the other one is the picking up the unloaded ones. When the containers are out-gated the container yards of ports and rail ramps, it will begin to calculate the detention charge. Usually, the shipping lines will give 4 days free time for detention, and it will calculate the total detention times if container is still not empty returned to container yards after 4 days free time. Therefore, we should track the status of container until it is actually empty returned or it will still add up detention charges, which are huge burdens to the customers if not monitored carefully. Understanding above basic procedures such as drayage, chassis, pre-pull, drop and hook, bobtail, demurrage and detention will help customers to optimize the delivery efficiency and try to avoid the unwanted costs.

Appreciate if you could share TGL Blog among your friends who are interested in first-hand market information of supply chain and updated economic incidents.