Drayage is the short-distance trucking of containers: port to warehouse, rail ramp to distribution centre, depot to terminal. It covers the first and last road legs of an intermodal journey, performed by specialised drayage carriers with port access and container chassis.
Despite covering the fewest miles, drayage carries outsized operational weight: it must synchronise with vessel schedules, terminal appointments, chassis supply, warehouse dock doors, and free-time clocks. A missed link in that chain converts directly into demurrage, detention, or idle labour.
Drayage pricing reflects the friction: base haul plus accessorials for waiting time, chassis days, storage trips, and failed appointments. Common move types include live loads, where the truck waits while the container is unloaded, drop-and-hook, where the box is left at the dock and collected later, and dual transactions pairing an import pull with an empty return in one terminal visit.
Drayage planning runs off tracking milestones: discharge and availability tell dispatch when a pull is possible, gate-out confirms it happened, and the empty-return event closes the file. Watching those events per container in TrackingMCP, with port conditions on port pages, is how dispatchers protect appointments and avoid burning free days.
Drayage is the short-distance trucking of containers: port to warehouse, rail ramp to distribution centre, depot to terminal. It covers the first and last road legs of an intermodal journey, performed by specialised drayage carriers with port access and container chassis.
The truck’s day is dominated by queues and appointments rather than driving: terminal turn times, chassis logistics, and waiting at docks. You are buying access and synchronisation, not distance.
One truck visit that both returns an empty and pulls a loaded import (or the reverse). It halves gate trips when appointments and equipment line up.
Track availability for dispatch →
Port turn-time context →
More in Inland moves & equipment: Chassis · Street turn · Rail ramp · Inland container depot (ICD) · Pre-carriage & on-carriage · Multimodal vs intermodal · Carrier haulage vs merchant haulage · Reefer (refrigerated container) · High-cube container · Flat rack container · Out of gauge (OOG) · SOC vs COC containers · Tare weight · Seal number · Browse all 106 terms →