Drayage is the short-haul movement of freight, classically containers between a port or rail ramp and nearby facilities. At the U.S.–Mexico border, the term overlaps with the transfer move that shuttles trailers across the bridge between yards on each side.
Drayage is short-haul freight movement over a small radius, classically hauling ocean or rail containers between a port or intermodal ramp and nearby warehouses, using a tractor and chassis. In Spanish you will hear 'arrastre'. In cross-border trucking the word stretches to cover the border shuttle itself: the short, specialized transfer move that carries a trailer from a yard on one side of the border, across the bridge, to a yard on the other side.
Container drayage has its own economics: the box and chassis belong to equipment pools and steamship lines, and the container generally must return to its port or ramp of origin, which shapes who can efficiently serve which moves.
Treat drayage as its own discipline rather than a small version of truckload. Rates are driven by queue time, chassis availability, and appointment systems more than by miles. At the border, the drayage/transfer layer is the metering valve of every crossing: how many round trips a transfer tractor can cycle in a day determines real throughput, no matter how much linehaul capacity waits on either side. When cross-border freight involves ocean containers, say Monterrey-bound imports landing at the Port of Houston or Lázaro Cárdenas boxes railing north, plan the drayage leg and the container return explicitly. The classic failure is quoting the linehaul cleanly and discovering the dray, the chassis, and the empty return were nobody's line item.
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