News / Trucking capacity and storage costs under pressure as shippers re-route cargo

© Illia Martynov |

Trucking capacity, storage costs and rates are expected to come under pressure as shippers re-route cargo inland owing to the US east and Gulf coast port strike.

Truckers that transload containers won’t be able to pick up or drop off containers as scheduled at affected ports, impacting operations.

While the FMC has told container lines to stop detention and demurrage accruals at ports, “drayage is another story”, said Brandon Fried, head of the US Airforwarders’ Association.

“Even if containers are available, there’s a real risk that forwarders won’t be able to find enough trucks to move them, which means they’ll sit and rack up storage costs.

“Both ocean and drayage rates are expected to increase as capacity dries up.”

Uber Freight weighed in to warn customers of equipment supplies.

Mollie LeBlanc, VP of operations overseeing ocean and air at Uber Freight, said: “The market will see equipment imbalances (shortage or surpluses) in certain locations due to the disruption of port and rail activity. This will lead to price increases and using alternative modes of transportation to get cargo to surplus locations.”

The company urged customers to track inbound containers and work with the shipping lines to understand where they will end up. It added that intermodal options could help customers with moves to and from the west coast and Mexico.

For customers looking for alternative routes, Uber Freight said they could “ship to the west coast and transload into 53ft containers, or move via rail, intact with ocean containers.”

Rhenus Logistics said customers had already been diverting freight this way. Stephanie Loomis, head of ocean Americas, told The Loadstar Podcast: “We’ve already had several customers wanting to reroute new orders to the west coast and either railing them all the way across the country or transloading them into 53ft trailers and bringing them that way.”

But she added: “The rail network is somewhat limited. You can’t get everywhere along the east coast by rail. So trucking costs are certainly going to escalate. The impact to shippers is that the costs are going to go up dramatically the longer this goes on.

“Lines have been long, truckers have been stressed. It’s certainly been a challenge.”

Once the strike ends, the challenges won’t: truckers are expected to face traffic congestion at ports, with long wait times and backlogs.

Additional costs to the shipper will include surcharges, and re-routing expenses – with demand also potentially leading to higher freight rates.