Drayage  Services- Short Distance Movement of Freight

Drayage services represent the transport of cargo, freight or shipments over a very short distance during a single work shift, with the transport beginning and ending in the same urban area.   Wow, what a mouthful!

The best way to describe drayage is to give some examples of when the charges occur and what you get for them:

In a typical freight situation, where multiple modes of transportation are used (for example truck & rail) it is the movement of the freight or cargo from where it is unloaded from the truck to where it is loaded on the train.  At this point, there is generally some updating of inbound / outbound shipping documents and possibly the loading / unloading and repackaging of freight into a container.

In most cases your freight broker should have the proper drayage charges worked into their quote with the carrier providing those services spelled out on your shipping manifest.

There are as well some other  services:

Shopping Malls – If your shipment is on its way to a shopping mall or a street – it is impractical to have a carrier drop off directly at the destination. There may be some sort of common loading dock or drayage area that the receivers all pickup from.  You can think of this as sort of a mail room for freight.

Trade Shows – also have drayage charges that include the moving of booths, displays and equipment from the venue’s loading dock to the exhibit floor.  Just imagine if every vendor had to find their way to the loading dock and move their goods to the show floor – complete pandemonium.  Drayage charges in this case would include the storage of shipping materials while the show is in progress.  Trade show drayage charges have gone through the roof in recent years.  These charges are typically based on weight and as tradeshow booths and displays. The shocking thing about trade show drayage charges is that they can easily equal or even surpass the cost of moving your trade show freight across country.

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