Maersk Chassis Fee Would Raise Costs, Truckers Warn

This story appears in the July 20 print edition of Transport Topics.

Drayage truckers blasted world’s largest ocean carrier Maersk Line’s plan to begin charging a chassis-use fee, saying it would raise costs and complicate operations.

Executives from approximately 100 trucking companies leveled their criticisms July 14 at a meeting near the Port of New York and New Jersey, where Maersk officials outlined plans for an $11 daily fee starting Aug. 3 for chassis previously provided at no cost. Maersk, which plans to initially limit the Direct Chassis Link program to the New York area, presented plan details at a meeting in Newark, N.J., five days after releasing its plan in a statement.

Maersk spokeswoman Mary Ann Kotlarich told Transport Topics that the chassis fee plan was part of a companywide effort to upgrade its sustainability program and encourage steps to lower emissions, such as using chassis equipment more efficiently than it is today.

“We hope [Maersk] will go back to their management and postpone the Aug. 3 start date and re-look at this,” said Jeff Bader, president of the Association of Bi-State Motor Carriers, Port Newark, N.J. “We enlightened the management of Direct Chassis Link on some of the problems that they had no clue would develop.”

“Customers are not going to be happy with those charges,” he said.

Asked about the increased cost to truckers, Maersk Vice President Andy Chinigo said, “It’s up to [draymen] to decide” whether to pass on those costs.

Tom Heimgartner, president of Best Transportation, told TT the meeting was “rather contentious,” because “there is nothing in it for me as a truck man and no savings.”

The fees are the primary concern, he said, because Maersk is “going to be charging for something that is supposed to be in the rate for the customer and passing that cost onto the trucker.”

Maersk’s charge exceeds ocean carriers’ typical daily chassis lease payments of between $6 and $10 to lessors, Bader said.

Additional insurance, including more deductibles, would be re-quired, because current coverage doesn’t include chassis, he added.

“All of these things are operational problems that they didn’t ask the truck men about,” said Bader, president of Golden Carriers, Hillside, N.J. “Maersk is a very prestigious company and is very good at keeping quality equipment. In this case, they dropped the ball.”

However, Chinigo said the plan would lower costs by allowing truckers to use Maersk chassis to move containers for any steamship line and make multiple moves with that chassis.

“We really think this is the model that will best help the industry,” Chinigo said. “The environmental and efficiency benefits are really tremendous.”

He maintained that efficiency gains will result because carriers won’t have to waste time looking for chassis in terminals. Right now, drivers have to hunt for chassis that match the ocean carrier whose freight is being hauled, unless there is a chassis pool at the port.

Chassis pools that are in place at ports in Virginia have reduced the numbers of chassis in use by 25% or more, according to Virginia International Terminals, operator of the pool.

Truckers could pick up and drop off chassis at 12 New York area locations, as well as drop them off in Baltimore; Boston; Rochester, N.Y.; Norfolk, Va.; Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

Chinigo said companies whose applications are pending approval will be allowed to be part of the program. He estimated there were 1,000 drayage carriers at the port, and said that so far, Maersk has 12 signed agreements and 12 more applications received.

Bader said no truckers at the meeting would sign the agreement as written now.

Chinigo said Maersk’s drayage subsidiary, Bridge Terminal Transport, would be charged the same fees as any other port trucker.

He also said the agreement is consistent with the new federal chassis safety standards that took effect June 17 to ease truckers’ liability for defective ocean carrier equipment. Bader disagreed, saying the move could undermine those rules.

Curtis Whalen, executive director of the Intermodal Motor Carrier Conference of American Trucking Associations, called the plan “a major event.”

“I still have a lot of questions about it,” he told TT. “This plan puts the motor carrier into collection mode; they’ll have to get these charges back from the customer somehow. The last thing the trucker needs is to have another damn collection issue.”

Besides collection issues, Whalen said, Maersk won’t achieve real emission reductions unless other ocean carriers participate in some kind of pool.

Chinigo said he has had discussions with ocean carrier trade groups about the plan, and they support the concept but have not signed any agreements.

Over the long term, Maersk plans to roll out the chassis rental plan at other port facilities around the country. Initially, the program would cover 5,000 of the 90,000-plus Maersk chassis.