Passing the Box: Ships offloading container chassis ownership

NEW YORK — Some shipping lines are demanding that truckers start supplying their own container chassis — a move that many in the international supply chain are watching closely.

Atlantic Container Line (ACL), recently announced that as of June 1, 2010, it will no longer provide chassis to contracted truckers and it will shift all of its carrier arranged trucking moves in the U.S. to fleets that furnish their own chassis.

ACL says it has selected a group of carrier companies and owner-ops that show they can "manage a chassis fleet more cost-efficiently than an ocean carrier can."

ACL will also begin to phase-out its carrier-owned chassis fleet for shipper-arranged haulage shipments during 2010.

A handful of smaller shipping lines have reportedly implemented similar policies. Orient Overseas Container Line of Hong Kong apparently told truckers to provide their own chassis for sailings to Boston and Miami.

Larger competitors like Evergreen Marine and Maersk Line are said to be monitoring these situations closely. Several million of chassis in the U.S. would be affected if these two companies were to follow suit with similar changes.

Maersk Line has already begun charging truckers to use its chassis equipment.

The trend to offload chassis onto truckers may be partly in response to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s so-called chassis "roadability" rule, set to take effect in the U.S. on June 30.

The rule requires that whoever provides the intermodal chassis — in most cases it’s the rail or marine company — must ensure safety checks are conducted on equipment and components like brakes and tires. The results must be reported before the chassis are meted out to carriers.

The regulations were postponed from December 2009 because of delays and miscommunication between modes.