Intermodal Firms Scramble to Meet U.S. Chassis Rule

This story appears in the Oct. 19 print edition of Transport Topics.

After 10 years of fighting to get the federal government to change the safety rules on intermodal freight container chassis, freight companies and their industry groups are scrambling to meet the first important compliance deadline.

And there is concern in some quarters that many of the involved companies might not be able to meet the Dec. 17 date by which they are supposed to establish maintenance and recordkeeping systems for the chassis.

Under the plan created by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, ocean carriers, railroads, lessors and anyone else providing chassis to truckers must have their repair and recordkeeping procedures in place by that December date. The system must include a driver vehicle inspection report for drivers to report equipment defects.

The rules are being implemented after a decade-long effort to modify federal law resulted in new rules. The changes were implemented by Congress to address truckers’ concerns they had been forced to accept legal responsibility for defective equipment owned by others but not properly maintained.

“We are fast approaching a critical date,” said Curtis Whalen, executive director of the Intermodal Motor Carriers Conference of American Trucking Associations. He raised the possibility of a phase-in period for the rules that would delay the effective date.

“We are running out of calendar here. It’s hard to envision that anyone could put together an adequate system and have it in place in December,” he said.

The initiatives include a move by the trade group Ocean Carrier Equipment Management Association to solicit proposals for communicating DVIR information about chassis, 85% of which are owned by its members or leased by them. Many companies submitted bids to provide that system before OCEMA’s Oct. 13 deadline.

Meanwhile, the Intermodal Association of North America is developing a database that truckers, chassis providers and government safety officials can use to keep track of the estimated 850,000 chassis now in use.

“OCEMA will be developing a modern electronic system that would allow easy paperless filing by motor carriers and efficient and uniform DVIR receipt processes,” the group’s executive director, Jeff Lawrence, told Transport Topics. “OCEMA believes that such a system will promote broad compliance. The system will be available for use by all intermodal equipment pro-viders and motor carriers.”

IANA still is awaiting final FMCSA approval for its database, Joni Casey, president of IANA, told TT. That Global Intermodal Equipment Registry would enable all users to keep track of entities that provide chassis and match the industry standard 10-character equipment identification code with the Transportation De-partment’s own six-digit marking system.

“It is our hope that if everything goes according to plan that we will be able to open IEP registration during the last week of October or the first week of November,” said Casey, referring to intermodal equipment providers.

“We’ll be ready for Dec. 17,” she said. “Realistically, I don’t know if that [a postponement] is feasible from FMCSA’s perspective. They feel there has been adequate time.”

Whalen said he’s concerned because there are so many variations right now in the way that intermodal industry participants run their freight terminals, make equipment available and process information about it.

Intermodal “is a complicated business,” Whalen said, noting that each terminal is different. “Some of them are automated. If you have no people there, where does a driver put the report? Who do you complain to? Companies may have different rules — how do you turn back a defective chassis? Do they fix it on-site, or somewhere else?”

Whalen said he has additional concerns about procedures for pre-trip inspections that he said needed to be refined before the Dec. 17 date.

Bill Quade, FMCSA’s associate deputy administrator of enforcement and compliance, told TT the agency has no plans to postpone the Dec. 17 effective date.

Lawrence said the OCEMA system will be able to use several means of reporting by truckers, such as phones or electronic messages with links to providers “to ensure defects on equipment are properly identified.”

TrucFlo, San Francisco, and eModal, Long Beach, Calif., have each submitted bids to OCEMA, each company’s officials said.

Joe Palazzolo, a partner in TrucFlo, said, “We have worked through data capture, equipment ownership and a digital reporting system so there is a seamless flow of data. “We are moving among all interests to make sure this system works for all of them,” he said. “It has been a challenge because of the complexity of intermodal.”

“This RFP [request for proposal] hit the streets well past the point of normal lead time,” Palazzolo added. “It turns the process upside down. You usually don’t develop this kind of system before you have a contract.”

“We are in a position to provide a solution,” said Steve Hair, managing director of eModal, which has a data reporting system in place at approximately 40 ocean terminals to report, track and exchange container information.

Staff Reporter Dan Leone contributed to this report.