Steps Shippers Can Take To Reduce Drayage Costs

After several years of little or no increase, drayage expense is on the rise – with some regions seeing significant increases. Shippers prefer a single rate that is stable for a year and no one wants to handle individual accessorial charges on a one-off basis.

However, recent changes in our industry have created the need for millions of dollars of exception payments to drivers, lost turns on equipment and extra fuel consumption. 

Terminal congestion, steamship alliances creating variability in landside operations, and new chassis rules that push work load and expense into the dray/shipper community, are all contributing factors.

These costs are either handled as an accessorial or they are passed through in the base rate – but they must be covered.

However, there are steps that shippers can take to mitigate their individual exposure to these challenges including:

Avoid port delays: Focus your load tendering process to ensure you are landing as much freight as possible on departure strings that provide you with an on-dock rail solution for your inland destined freight, and choose relatively high-performing terminal for your local freight;

Give dray carriers flexibility: Get creative with providers when it comes to unexpected costs – giving dray providers some latitude to do day-side loads when required (for example, to handle a surge of freight or dig out of a congested port situation) and establishing ways to pay for unexpected costs (driver wait time; chassis splits) will ultimately lower your overall costs and keep you in the preferred status at the higher quality dray providers.

Leverage expertise: Selectively outsource to a third party to save money and deliver a higher quality outcome if dray management is not a core competency.

Make your operation driver friendly: Ensure drivers get in and out as efficiently as possible—thus having more time to make another turn.  This will make you a preferred customer and lower the cost per container of providing that service.​

Operations run efficiently when there is consistency, level demand, and advance notice of what needs to happen is available, accurate and easy to retrieve.   We know in the real world those conditions are rarely present. Let’s work together as an industry to develop and deliver collaborative solutions that make things better, and recognize the drivers on the front lines for their ability to manage through the current difficult situation.