Drayage

Domestic drayage is when product from a marine container is transloaded into a 53-foot domestic container and then moved inland. Marine drayage is when the product remains in the marine container until it reaches its final destination. Every import or export that arrives or leaves an ocean port must at some point be moved by drayage.

An estimated 30 million marine containers move in and out of the United States on an annual basis. Each one of these containers require at least two drayage moves.

History

The term originally meant "to transport by a sideless cart", or dray. Such carts, pulled by dray horses, were used to move goods short distances, limited by the physical limitations of a dray horse. Dray activities generally occurred at marine ports, spreading to canal and rail terminals. Over time, the dray horse was replaced by the semi-truck tractor.

The study of drayage is a relatively new area, as recent events have elevated the prominence of the dray industry. Economically, NAFTA and the growth of globalized trade have dramatically increased imports and exports that are shipped in marine shipping containers. Furthermore, the rise in fuel costs has limited the options for cost-cutting along the supply chain. Although drayage is a very small component (both in terms of time and distance) of the supply chain, its cost and potential problems can be disproportionately high.

In intermodal freight transport, marine drayage is the transport of containerized cargo by specialized trucking companies between ocean ports or rail ramps and shipping docks. Once the cargo is loaded into a container, it is not touched again until it reaches its destination.

According to logistics industry publication FreightWaves, legacy players in the domestic drayage industry include J. B. Hunt Transport Services, Hub Group, Schneider National, XPO, Inc., and Swift Transportation. The largest marine drayage company in the United States is IMC Companies. There are also a number of drayage tech startups, including Dray Alliance, DrayNow, and Book Your Cargo who create software that brokers to drayage companies.