Lack of Chassis Choice Hurts ELD HOS

So what you are saying is you want to make it a law anyone, regardless of the chassis owners wishes, can use the chassis?
That's typically considered theft and illegal for a very good reason.
After all, what happens if I don't lease out my chassis to company Z because they still owe me money from the last time they used it? Do my property rights get trampled just because you want the convenience of stealing my property?
No thanks.

 

Actually, you are very wrong, those foreign companies do own the chassis, they lease the chassis to various chassis pools which are controlled by a third party.

So instead, I should buy a few dozen chassis to pull containers with, instead of using the pool chassis? You propose that the railroad unloads the trains, stacks all the containers, then when drivers need a container they come in with their own private chassis to pick up that container. Great idea, right up to the point where the railroad doesn't have enough lift operators to work the train and accommodate 40 drivers waiting for containers to be flipped. Thus creating even more delays, more lost hours, and more back logs. What happens when all my chassis are tied up with containers waiting to be delivered, or waiting for billing or flip authorization? Who pays me for that? Who pays me when all my chassis are tied up and my drivers can't do anything? Where do I park all these chassis I'm supposed to buy? Who pays for these chassis I have to buy? Can I charge a higher rate for my chassis use than what the pool charges? The pools currently charge around $45 per day for chassis rental once the chassis is outgated, since that pool controls 500 (example) chassis, charging $45 per day makes sense to them, as they can absorb a chassis sitting under a container someplace for 4 or 5 days, meanwhile, the trucking company that has to buy it's own chassis under this proposal, will lose money while those chassis are sitting under a container waiting to be flipped or delivered.

 

In most markets, there are two different pools, in mine there's DCCP and TRAC, DCCP is the predominant chassis pool, TRAC is only used by 3 steamship lines, there's no delay, there's no screwups. It's up to the railroad to load the proper container on the proper chassis, if they screwup and load wrong, which happens (very rarely), the flip is usually free, and the billing error is handled by the railroad.

 

Every market has had chassis shortages, none have been exempted. it still happens, and it doesn't matter how many chassis are available. At one point, DCCP was short 250 chassis and TRAC was short 80 at the same time, that lasted two months. The railroads do a very good job of correctly mounting containers on the correct chassis.

 

No, it doesn't create inefficiencies, in fact, it prevents some them. TRAC chassis are infinitely better maintained than DCCP, 75% of TRAC chassis run radials, many of the TRAC chassis are marked radial only. If we find a bias ply on one of those, it's immediately corrected. TRAC almost all have LED lights, most are either recently rebuilt or regularly getting updates (there are also a bunch of new TRAC chassis in my area), I'll pull a TRAC chassis any day of the week, and take it any distance. Since TRAC are mostly on radials, in the event that I do have a blowout, I can get a tire within a couple of hours. I can't recall the last time I took a TRAC chassis to roadability

Whereas DCCP chassis are 99% 10.00x20 or 11/22.5 bias ply tires (we can't find 11x22.5 bias ply tires, 18 months ago I had one fail on the road, it took road service 4 hours to find a shop that had one, and it was a used tire, it took another 3 hours before they could come out and replace the tire, a few weeks later had the same thing happen, this time they couldn't find a 11x22.5 bias and instead buy two 11R22.5 radials and have them installed, meanwhile I sat for 11 hours), always underinflated, always have defects, we constantly fight with DCCP to get tires replaced. If I take a TRAC chassis to roadability at the ramp with a tire that has channel cracking of the slightest bit, it's replaced without question. DCCP on the other hand, has specific requirements that are less strict that federal regs (393.75 and honestly they don't care what the regs are) and almost require pulling teeth to get replaced. Few months back, I was forced to take a 10 hr break, halfway to a customer while my company sourced a tire, turning an overnight run into a 3 day run. The tire that failed, when we looked at it, the carcass was 19yrs old, that's not abnormal, that's normal for DCCP. We routinely have to have DCCP chassis singled out on the road due to lack of available tires, and in many markets, finding someone who will work a split rim wheel is getting harder and harder. Whenever possible, if we have a load (especially a 40') that would normally be on a DCCP chassis going more than 300 miles, or over 30,000 lbs going over 300 miles, we put it on one of our privately owned tri-axles. Other times, I've had to carry two spare 10.00x20 pre-mounts just in case.

Following your proposal, I would spend even more time in roadability.