By Richie Lin    Photo：CANVA

In these two months, we have experienced a huge freight market recovery due to the lack of space, rate spikes and cargo rush from China before the implement of new tariffs on EV products. Rumors of potential strikes happening in ports and rail companies of USA and Canada have been the major concerns to the customers which import products to the inland cities such as Chicago, Minneapolis and Detroit.

The efficiency of ports and rail companies would definitely influence the transit time from factories to the shelves of stores. Even though the Covid-19 has ended for more than two year, the transit time from Asian countries to the IPI (Interior Point of Intermodal) hasn’t improved to the level before pandemic breakout in 2020. The strikes and labor shortage are still haunting everyone in the supply chain and no sign of significant breakthrough is coming around the corner.

Even though we are unlikely to control the mind sets of unions of longshoremen and railways, we still have one option to choose because of the intertwined freeways all over the USA. That option is the so called Transload. The meaning of transload basically represent unloading cargo from one  vehicle and loading to the other one. As for the FCL shipments importing into USA inland cities, transload means unloading cargo from containers at the discharging ports and loading to the trailers and trucks and delivering the cargo to the final destinations.

Since the cargo doesn’t have to wait with the containers to be transferred from ports to IPI, it can be delivered to the final destinations earlier than the original sea to railway intermodal procedures. In this article, I will dig into the procedures and related charges in transload. And I will only explain on the procedures happening in the USA soil because the other parts such as picking up containers from factories and ocean freight are all similar as the normal FCL arrangements.

1.Arrival Notice

For the transload cargo, we will only book to the ports when we send the booking to the shipping lines. Sometimes, customers would ask us to change the container stopping at the discharged ports instead of being transferred to IPI because they want to switch to transload procedure. However, we need to apply the change 10 days before vessels arriving the ports because it takes time for shipping lines to send notice to vessels and port operations. Shipping lines will send the arrival notice to our agent in USA which is the consignee on the MBL 7 days before vessels reach the ports of USA. Then our agent will transfer the arrival notice to the customs clearance brokers of customer to do the preparations of filing the customs clearance. Since the containers will be picked up at ports, the import customs clearance will be filed 5 days before the vessel calls the discharged ports. 

2.Import customs clearance:

The customs brokers will file the entry to CBP and cause the customs clearance charge. If the products requiring FDA certificate or Lacey Act, it will cause extra FDA or Lacey Act filing fees. Customer can discuss with customs broker and the CBP about what HS code to USE clearly. And it will cause customs inspection charges if the containers are selected by CBP to run customs inspections. After customs released at ports, importers will need to pay the import duty, HMF (Harbor Maintenance Fee), and MPF (Merchandize Processing Fee) to CBP before picking up the containers.

3.Picking up containers from ports to transload warehouse:

After vessels arriving the ports, containers will be discharged at the terminals of the ports. Normally the terminals will charge the THC (Terminal Handling Charge). But THC in USA is already included in the ocean freight rate from Asia, it will not be charged again on USA soil. Since the final delivery place on the MBL is the port, container would stay at port and wait for customs released by CBP. Our Agent will check constantly if the container can be port released and customs released. Once the container is the port released, it will show the LFD (Last Free Day) of demurrage. Shipping lines usually provide 2 days free demurrage and trucking companies need to pick up the container before the LFD. However, truck cannot pick up the container if it doesn’t show the customs released. Therefore, customers should realize that demurrage will be calculated continuingly even though the problems relate to customs clearance. After the container is actually port released and customs released, trucking company will pick up the container from port and tow it to the transload warehouse. Trucking companies will charge the drayage and two days chassis. Shipping lines usually give four days free detention starting from the date of container picked up by truck. Therefore, truck will bring the empty container return to the ports right after the cargo is unloaded from container to avoid the detention charge. Usually the transload warehouse will load the cargo into trucks or tailers for final delivery at the same day of unloading from containers. However, it cannot match so perfectly, therefore the cargo need to stored in the warehouse for some days. This will happen storage charge.

4.Delivering cargo to the final destinations:

It will usually use the 53ft trailer for the interstate road transportation in the USA. 53ft trailer can load the volumes as much as the 40HQ container can do. Warehouse will count the packages again correctly before loading the cargo into trailers. Sometimes, the warehouse will charge extra labor charge if they find out the container is floor-loaded and there are too many cartons. After loading the cargo into trailer, the transload company will put on new seal and issue a new delivery order to list the final destination details, cargo details, and new seal numbers. It will take 4 to 7 days for trailers taking cargo from ports such as Seattle, Tacoma, and Los Angeles to inland cities such as Chicago, Minneapolis, Detroit. When trailer arrives at the final destination, trailer will stay to wait for cargo to be live-unload. So it will happen waiting hour charge if the unloading takes more than 2 hours. And one important advice is that f if customer wants to choose the transload service in USA, we cannot book the container to the ports of Canada like the regular IPI service.  Transload can shorten the transit time for the cargo bound for inland cities in USA but the total charges will be higher than the charges using traditional FCL intermodal transportations. 

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