Drayage
Short-haul trucking that moves containers between ports or rail ramps and nearby warehouses, yards, and customers — the truck legs at each end of an intermodal or ocean move.
How it works — and why it matters
Dray moves are short in miles but dense in friction: port and ramp appointments, chassis availability, container return windows, and terminal congestion all constrain a move that might only cover twenty miles. Per-diem and demurrage clocks — charges for holding containers or terminal space too long — put a price on every day of delay.
Because drayage sits at the seam between ocean/rail systems and domestic trucking, its data problems are seam problems: container statuses live in terminal and steamship systems, appointments in port portals, and the truck in a dray carrier's TMS. Clean integration across those systems is what keeps a container from quietly accruing charges in a stack.