Schneider has reached the milestone of purchasing its 15,000th intermodal container chassis in its conversion to a company-owned and managed chassis fleet. It is anticipated that full network implementation should be complete in 2017.
Schneider began implementing its program in 2014 to improve chassis availability and reliability, two primary service constraints within the intermodal segment.
“We saw significant issues with the shared chassis pool, causing delays for drivers primarily at the ramp or when experiencing a breakdown on the road,” says Jim Filter, senior vice president and general manager of Schneider’s Intermodal division. “That downtime gets costly for shippers. Shippers can now find comfort in working with an asset-based intermodal provider that has complete control of its company-owned and maintained equipment, along with its fleet of professional company drivers.”
In addition to chassis maintenance and availability issues in shared pools, there are many different specs with varying weights–up to a 700-pound difference between models. Because it is not known which type of chassis will be available at the destination ramp, carriers have to plan as if the load will move on the heaviest chassis type, which limits payloads.
“Schneider now has a standard chassis,” says Filter. “It is 500 pounds lighter than the lightest chassis in the shared pools; we can plan on that to eliminate the need to reconfigure loads while allowing customers to move up to 45,500 pounds of product.”
The investment in a company-owned chassis network is one in a series of ongoing improvements to deliver “truck-like” service in the intermodal segment. Shipper benefits resulting from Schneider’s chassis investment include:
- Increased availability: The demand for chassis in shared pools often outstrips supply. Schneider’s equipment increases supply and allows the company to precisely match the number of customer orders to equipment availability.
- Decreased downtime and improved reliability: Schneider’s high quality chassis and complete control over the maintenance of those chassis allows the company to maintain as well as identify issues and make repairs before they turn into critical breakdowns and costly delays.
- Cost-efficient shipping: With the variety of chassis in the current chassis pool, a shipper can see as large as a 700-pound difference between one chassis and another. The lightweight design of Schneider’s new chassis allows customers to secure more product in each load for a more cost-effective and environmentally friendly freight move.
A video describing the intermodal chassis conversion can be viewed on the Intermodal Services page of Schneider.com.