Following the recent action taken to ease congestion at Manila’s container terminal, port leaders at the Port of Long Beach have proposed what they call a game-changing model concerning the loading of cargo containers.
The port plans to acquire, manage and maintain new trailer chasses that attach to trucks and are used to load cargo containers.
The Long Beach Board of Harbour Commissioners supported CEO Jon Slangerup’s plan to establish a chassis operating unit – an internal framework that is used to support heavy objects – which Slangerup says may be a permanent solution to a growing crisis in congestion.
Slangerup cited lack of chasses during peak hours at the port as the root cause of peak congestion issues.
Commenting on the seriousness of the issue, Slangerup said: “This shortage is preventable and [we] must not allow it to happen again ever. Period.”
Traditionally, truckers use chasses owned by a company and later return them to that same company.
However, some terminals do not have as many chassis as others, as is the case for the Port of Long Beach, and that lack of supply forces truckers to drive to a storage location to pick up a chassis.
A still of a chassis operating unit in action. Source: Universal Cargo
The arrival of larger vessels carrying massive amounts of cargo in a short period of time has also caused major congestion issues at the port.
To make operations more efficient, the industry is moving toward a chassis pool that would allow truckers to use chassis interchangeably. Chassis owners would then be paid through rental fees.
Truck chassis owners, Direct Chassis Link and TRAC Intermodal, have also announced through the port that they plan to grow their local fleet by more than 3,000 in the coming weeks to meet supply and demand.
