Maersk Starts Chassis Fee at N.Y.-New Jersey Port
This story appears in the Aug. 10 print edition of Transport Topics.
Maersk Line’s chassis rental fee went into effect at the Port of New York and New Jersey on Aug. 3, and although there were not any freight disruptions, the head of a trade group for drayage haulers said that the rollout could have gone smoother.
“They implemented a program that is not ready for implementation.” said Jeff Bader, president of the Association of Bi-State Motor Carriers, Port Newark, N.J. “Everyone who handles the Maersk chassis is supposed to have a rental agreement with Maersk [but] a majority of the trucking community has not signed that agreement yet.”
Maersk Line, the largest ocean container shipping company, charges an $11 per-diem chassis leasing fee for drayage truckers at the New York and New Jersey port. Chassis had been provided free of charge.
The fee allows carriers to tap into Maersk’s new chassis pool and use the leased equipment to haul any shipper’s container, Maersk said.
Motor carriers had to have a contract pending with Maersk by July 31 in order to participate in the program, which is administered by Direct ChassisLink, a subsidiary of Maersk Equipment Services Corp., according to the company.
Maersk spokeswoman Mary Ann Kotlarich said that as of Aug. 6, 400 carriers servicing the port “had interchange applications with us,” and were therefore eligible to receive chassis from Maersk after the Aug. 3 deadline.
Bader told Transport Topics that computer problems have stymied the rollout of Maersk’s chassis leasing program.
“None of the computer systems are integrated properly, nothing is working properly,” Bader said Aug. 6 in an interview.
“That is completely false,” Kotlarich told TT the same day. “There was a day that we took the [online] interchange agreement down to make a few modifications, but that was only for a couple of hours,” she said.
Maersk said July 31 that “draymen and truckers who have registered with Direct ChassisLink and are in the process of establishing an interchange agreement will be considered in compliance with the Aug. 3 deadline and will be able to receive a chassis for operation.”
Maersk unveiled its new container leasing plan in June.
At the time, Maersk said that giving Port of New York and New Jersey drayage truckers access to a pool of about 5,000 chassis would benefit the environment by reducing unnecessary truck trips and conserving fuel.
“Drayage trucks using pooled chassis could save up to 0.8 gallons [of fuel] per trip, reducing nitrogen oxide and particulate matter emissions,” Lee Kindberg, Maersk’s environmental director, said in a statement.
Maersk, which is based in Denmark and has U.S. offices in Madison, N.J., plans to implement Direct ChassisLink nationwide by next year.
Kotlarich said that a more specific timetable to expand the program could be laid out “within the next couple of weeks.”
The Port of New York and New Jersey is the third-largest U.S. container port.
