DCLI works hard every day to be your chassis partner of choice.

We offer a variety of chassis procurement options – true chassis choice – enabling you to secure the equipment you need in the manner that best suits your book of drayage business. We invest in our fleet to ensure the safety and reliability of our chassis – over $1 billion in the last two years alone – and we have added equipment and repositioned chassis units across our network to ensure supply fluidity. As such, the dwell-driven “shortages” that occurred across the country, including at all major port and inland rail markets, as a direct result of COVID-related supply chain disruption have been resolved. Today, availability has returned to normal across the country and DCLI is preparing for future demand.

Unfortunately, a small group of the nation’s largest drayage trucking companies want a one-size-fits-all, government-dictated chassis market that would increase their profits at the expense of your business and almost everyone else in the supply chain. They claim that a mandated gray pool is the only way to ensure the nation’s chassis supply when in fact the market already provides a wide range of options.

A common misconception is that monopolistic gray pools increase the number of available chassis. In reality, the opposite is true. What we see in gray pools is that, inevitably, supply will be reduced because IEPs lose control over their assets and the related costs to manage them and, thus, cannot earn a return that allows them to deliver better service for customers while ensuring the safest chassis are available. So, investment in upgrades such as conversion to radial tires and LED lights and chassis refurbishment would come to a screeching halt. The result would be a poorly maintained collection of decaying assets that you might have no choice but to use. This “solution” would actually reduce chassis choice rather than provide it, as the plan’s proponents claim.

At DCLI, we support the free and open market that exists today. Your choice to privately lease or own chassis, or use chassis pools, is entirely yours. The market is working and constantly evolving and self-correcting when needed. Federal policy, if needed at all, should encourage investment and competition among different pool models, complemented by your ability to lease assets, not a single dictated model that will take us backwards on chassis availability and quality.

Our President, Lee Newitt, recently discussed this topic on the Let’s Talk Supply Chain podcast . Here’s a excerpt:

You can also read our CEO’s Op-Ed on this topic.

If you’d like to get updates on how regulatory changes may impact free market competition, choice, and fleet safety, fill out the form below to be added to our update list: