Drayage Services
Drayage is an essential component of the logistics industry as many companies use this service as a necessity. Let’s take a further look at what drayage is, what makes it so important, and how it’s used by businesses globally.
What is drayage service?
Drayage is a specialty logistics service that carries freight over a short distance and is an important part of intermodal shipping (using multiple modes of transport). It also involves moving ocean containers for ships, rails, or trucks. In other words, drayage is the moving of cargo, often from ports, to receivers using trucks.
Drayage in the past and present
Originally, a dray was a type of horse that pulled heavy loads (aka a “draft horse”). These horses are large and strong to be able to bear all the weight from the load, such as Clydesdales. Dray also described the cart that these horses pulled. Therefore, “drayage” became the term that people associated with moving goods in a cart.
In modern transportation, the horse was replaced by a truck. However, a person who performs drayage is still called a drayman.
These short distance movements are part of the supply chain process. So, with drayage, departure and arrival points are usually part of the same metropolitan area, compared to regional and national movements with other types of shipping.
Why Use Heavy Weight Transport
The standard weight for a container is up to 38,000 lbs for a 20-foot container or 44,000 lbs for a 40-foot container. Anything above and beyond that is considered Overweight. Here at Heavy Weight, we are able to maximize your shipping needs by hauling up to 59,525lbs cargo weight meaning anything you can put in the container, we can move!
How Are We Able to Move Such Heavy Loads?
We are able to maximize load weight based on our lightweight, custom-built tri-axle chassis along with our eco-friendly day cabs allowing our team to specialize in commodities such as steel, clay, stone, slabs & tiles.
Drayage Classifications
As with most things, drayage is split into several categories. The Intermodal Association of North America has published six drayage classifications.
Inter-carrier drayage
Inter-carrier drayage involves the movement of goods or units over a short distance and between different carriers (railroad and trucking stations).
Intra-carrier drayage
Though intra-carrier drayage sounds similar to the previous category, this type of classification specifically takes freight from a rail hub to an intermodal hub, all controlled by the same carrier.
Expedited drayage
As the name suggests, expedited drayage is when units are transported quickly and efficiently, as the material goods are time-sensitive.
Door-to-door drayage
This is probably the type of good transportation you are most familiar with: delivering retail goods to customers via roadways.
Shuttle drayage
Shuttle drayage is when an intermodal unit travels from its hub of origin and is temporarily taken to a parking lot. Loading and emptying occurs here when the hub becomes overcrowded.
Pier drayage
This is when an intermodal unit is taken to a pier or dock from its previous hub.
Nearly 95 percent of the world’s manufactured goods travel in a container before they reach customers’ hands. That being said, intermodal container shipping and the intermodal supply chain have fundamentally changed how the world’s businesses conduct trade even though they are newer transportation innovations.
