91��Ƶ

Chassis providers Flexi-Van Leasing and Direct ChassisLink Inc. will launch a “pool of pools” beginning June 1, offering trucking companies shared chassis at the Port of New York and New Jersey. But the largest chassis provider in the Northeast, Trac Intermodal, won’t contribute equipment to the pool.

Chassis providers Flexi-Van Leasing and Direct ChassisLink Inc. will launch a “pool of pools” beginning June 1, offering trucking companies shared chassis at the Port of New York and New Jersey.

Trac Intermodal is changing the tires on its chassis in Mobile, Alabama, from bias ply to radial tires, which the company said will improve the performance and reliability for truck drivers.

Direct ChassisLink Inc. will raise daily chassis rates it charges trucking companies to haul containers from ports in the Southeast, Gulf Coast and Midwest beginning Dec. 15, following similar increases from Trac Intermodal and Flexi-Van Leasing Inc. this summer.

Southern California marine terminals have dropped a plan to charge chassis lessors $5 per unit traveling through cargo facilities in the face of opposition from the businesses that provide the majority of chassis equipment to move truck freight in the region.

Private equity firm EQT Infrastructure II Fund has agreed to buy intermodal equipment provider Direct ChassisLink Inc. from investor Littlejohn & Co. for an undisclosed sum, a move that represents the latest shake-up in the provision of chassis for shippers, truckers, ocean carriers and railroads.

Efforts to finally create a New York-New Jersey area chassis pool are ongoing as equipment providers, labor and port executives attempt to craft a workable approach to the thorny issue, trucking officials said.

Intermodal equipment pool operator Consolidated Chassis Management said that Jon Poelma has been appointed senior vice president and chief operator, succeeding CEO Phil Wojcik in the top management post.

Three of the largest intermodal chassis owners said they have begun operating a pool at Los Angeles and Long Beach, California, the nation’s two largest ports, to improve trucking operations.