For Edwin Ortiz, driving to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach is more involved than picking up a cargo container and heading on his way.

Because of the ongoing bottlenecks at the ports, the Pacer trucker often finds himself driving around the area for up to two hours, searching for the right chassis, the wheeled metal frame that allows trucks to tow containers in and out of port terminals.

“We can’t work without them,” the 39-year-old Los Angeles resident said. “We need them and sometimes there isn’t one.”

Though simple in construct, chassis are a vital link in moving millions of dollars of electronics, apparel and other goods bound for stores across the nation daily.

That flow is disrupted when chassis are missing from the equation, especially at the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports, the nation’s busiest seaport complex handling 40 percent of U.S. imports.

Although a recent labor dispute between dockworkers and the port employers has earned the most headlines, behind the scenes, changes in who manages the chassis have also contributed to the gridlock at the ports. The combined results: more than two dozen ships anchored at sea waiting to be unloaded, weeks- long shipment delays and companies having to divert their goods to other ports or shell out money to ship products by air.

The congestion has port officials and other stakeholders scrambling for solutions.

This week, three major chassis providers and a terminal operator have put into effect a pool system that would allow chassis to be shared. The Port of Los Angeles was instrumental in facilitating the discussion with chassis companies Direct ChassisLink Inc., Flexi-Van Leasing Inc. and TRAC Intermodal. Between the three companies, they own the majority of chassis with more than 80 percent of the 100,000 or so circulated in Southern California.

“The gray chassis pool, along with other initiatives underway to improve efficiencies, will help our marine terminals move effectively towards restoring cargo flow through this important gateway,” Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the Port of Long Beach is working on providing its own fleet of 3,000 chassis during peak hours at the port. The pool, which is anticipated to go into effect in June, would help out other chassis fleets when they are overwhelmed with demand.

When he presented the idea to Long Beach harbor leaders in December, Chief Executive Jon Slangerup said having a fleet will help ensure that a shortage of chassis will not be an issue next year.

“Peak chassis relief is a key part of our strategy,” he told them.

Creating a middleman

Although congestion at the ports has been a recent development, the shifting control of chassis has been slowly evolving in North America, where ocean carriers used to offer chassis as part of their service for years. In ports at other parts of the world, motor carriers or leasing companies usually own and manage chassis.

After the Great Recession, however, ocean carriers began divesting their interest in the trailers to cut costs, selling them to third-party providers who penned separate lease agreements with shipping companies. To pick up the cargo containers, truck drivers need to be pulling the chassis under contract to that particular ship liner or they don’t get their payload.

Further complicating matters are newly formed alliances among shipping companies that pile their cargo onto one megaship as a way of saving on fuel and other costs.

And while the twin ports’ deepwater berths and equipment can accommodate the massive vessels, sorting large amounts of cargo in a short time has caused confusion for truckers.

Before, one ocean carrier arrived at the same terminal for loading and unloading. Now, because ocean carriers are sharing space on ships, truck drivers often have to pick up cargo coming off different ships at multiple terminals.

And if truckers don’t have the right chassis, they have to go to other terminals and wait in long lines to retrieve or return the chassis acceptable to the shippers.

Sometimes, truck drivers would make “dry runs,” spending two hours trying to pick up a load and end up leaving with nothing.

“People couldn’t find chassis; it was slim pickings,” said Fred Johring, chairman of the Harbor Trucking Association, which represents 65 percent of the trucking firms in Southern California.

More consequences

There are financial and environmental consequences to the port congestion in Southern California, where drayage drivers currently handle about 4.5 million containers annually.

According to the Tioga Group, a Philadelphia-based freight transportation consulting services firm, every minute of average truck turn time uses 200,000 gallons of diesel fuel, releases 2,000 tons of carbon dioxide and costs customers $4.5 million.

“It puts an extra leg in cargo movement and reduces productivity,” Johring said. “It’s changed the economics of our industry.”

Ortiz said he averages 30 moves a week “when the ports are working.” Since the congestion, however, Ortiz now averages 10 to 15 moves a week because of the delays.

Many in the maritime industry have high hopes for the chassis pool, which took effect this week. If successful, truck drivers will be able to pick up and drop off a chassis at any container terminal without having to worry about which middleman leasing company controls it.

“We’ll be able to do some things now that we haven’t been able to do,” Seroka said at this past week’s Trans-Pacific Maritime Conference in Long Beach. “As we’re bringing these ships into port, we’ll have some maneuverability between terminals that had not been present on a regular basis.”

It’s welcome relief for Ortiz, who is already seeing the benefits of the chassis pool now in place.

“It’s a lot easier now,” he said. “You can use the chassis you drove in with and if you didn’t have a chassis, you can use the first chassis you see, instead of having to go somewhere else to get one. It’s so much better.”

Contact Karen Robes Meeks at 562-714-2088.