Chassis Pooling to Enhance
Intermodal Efficiency
Historical Use of Chassis
In the late 1960’s and 1970’s chassis were
“married” to containers from the ship and
subsequently transported by motor carriers and on
TOFC rail cars
 1980’s stack car technology no longer required
TOFC movement, but rail terminals still
discharged containers to chassis
 1990’s and onward has seen more ocean terminals
work ships direct to “bomb carts” in a grounded
terminal environment

The Basic Challenge for
Carriers, Ports, and Other
Intermodal Terminals:

As container volumes grow, so does the need
for better asset efficiencies, and customer (trucker)
experience

As container volumes grow, so do demands on
terminal space, both marine and rail.
Intermodal Chassis
The Intermodal System depends upon a
relatively simply piece of equipment to move a
container between an intermodal terminal (rail
or ocean) and an origin or destination:
Chassis Pools

Chassis pools, historically, had been used by
smaller groups of carriers to try to reduce the
number of chassis needed to handle growing cargo
volumes.

They had been contained within Vessel
Sharing Alliances. It had been difficult to gain
broad acceptance of a pool in a geographic area
because of differing service, facility, chassis
ownership configurations, and theory.
Key Benefits of Chassis Pools

Better Terminal Space Utilization
 Better Equipment Utilization
 Cost Savings to Terminals and Lines
 Environmental Benefits
 Reduced Terminal Turn Time for Trucks
and the Customer
 More Uniform Equipment Quality
OCEMA
OCEAN CARRIER EQUIPMENT MANAGEMENT
ASSOCIATION INC.

Agreement filed with the FMC
 18 of Top Containership Carriers are members
 Lead ocean carrier organization on U.S.
inland/equipment issues
 Facilitates the pooling agreements, and legislative
association for safety and interchange
U.S. Chassis Fleet
Domestic / Int’l
Ownership
Others
2%
Domestic
20%
Ocean Carriers
41%
Terminals/CY's
4%
Trucker
3%
Provider
Operating Structure
(to the motor carrier)
Leasing Co.
10%
Ocean Carrier
70%
Railroads
6%
Leasing Cos
44%
International
80%
Others
2%
Terminals/
CY's
3%
Railroads
8%
Truckers
8%
Alliances
37%
Neutral Pools
2%
Cooperative
8%
Private
Domestic
18%
Total Est. 700,000
Private Int'l.
35%
Co-op Chassis Pools in the
U.S.

There are currently 6 major co-op pools in the U.S. with an
estimated chassis inventory of well over 100,000 units run
by the OCEMA affiliate CCM. Standardized business rules
and M&R to federal standards and above.

Vessel Sharing Alliance pools are estimated at another
100,000 driven by terminal and customer efficiencies.

Norfolk (Hampton Roads) in conjunction with carriers
runs a single port authority pool of material size.
What next?





Models of third parties providing chassis to
truckers directly
Ocean carriers look at global model of truckers
provide chassis, they are not resident on the ocean
terminals nor necessarily owned by ocean carriers
Shift in the paradigm over time
Individual line’s strategy how to proceed
Stakeholders need to dialogue for effective
transitions