Excerpts from a Journal of Commerce article called ‘Port delays driving dray drivers away’:
The shortage of truck drivers on U.S. highways is affecting drayage operations at port terminals and inland railheads, too. Frustrated by port congestion and chassis shortages, drayage drivers increasingly are looking for other jobs — both in and out of trucking.
That “outward migration” of drayage drivers and trucks threatens to slow shipper supply chains to a crawl as container chassis shortages, port congestion and drayage delay times get worse, Ken Kellaway, president and CEO of RoadOne IntermodaLogistics, told JOC.com.
“The root cause is chassis,” Jon Slangerup, executive director of the Port of Long Beach, told JOC.com last week. That complaint is echoed at ports across the U.S. Where shipping lines no longer provide chassis, locating chassis has become time-consuming and chaotic.