South Carolina, Georgia get FMC ok to establish common chassis pool

The South Carolina State Ports Authority and Georgia Ports Authority will be able to establish a common chassis pool serving customers throughout the Southeast, the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) said today in voting to take no action to block the new "Southern States Chassis Pool Agreement" from taking effect.

The agreement was filed at the FMC on June 18 with an effective date of August 2.

Under the terms of the agreement, the two port authorities will establish and administer a common chassis pool serving the ports of Charleston and Savannah, as well as intermodal terminals and depots located in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.

An existing chassis pool today provides about 40 percent of the chassis used to move containers throughout the Southeast. However, the pool, which was formed in 2006, is aging and has not kept up with the growth of the region's containerized trade, the port authorities said in June. Additionally, chassis provision is increasingly fragmented in the market because about 40 percent of the container moves are handled by chassis provided outside of the pool structure, the authorities said at the time.

The new pool, which will be operated by the North American Chassis Pool Cooperative (NACPC), will improve chassis fleet quality by introducing such features as radial tires, LED lights, and anti-lock brakes, the two authorities said. It is also designed keep up with the region's growth in containerized trade both in the number of chassis and realistic trigger levels for the injection of new chassis, they said.