Chassis Split Fee Calculator
Price a chassis split: the repositioning fee, extra per-diem days and dray miles when box and chassis don't align.
A split happens when the container and a usable chassis aren't in the same place — the dray bills the extra trip, and the chassis clock often runs through it.
Sources & references
- IANA — chassis provisioning models (wheeled vs grounded)
- Drayage accessorial schedules (split/repositioning items)
Demurrage, detention and storage tariffs are set by each carrier, terminal and contract and change frequently. The preloaded figures are editable industry-typical examples, not quotes — always verify against the current published tariff or your service contract before paying or disputing an invoice.
In a perfect dray move the container comes out of the stack onto a chassis that's already there. A chassis split is everything else: the pool's chassis are at a depot across town, the box is grounded with no chassis available, or the return depot takes boxes but not chassis. The driver makes an extra positioning trip, and the accessorial — typically $50–$150 plus miles — lands on you.
About Chassis Split Fee Calculator
The calculator adds the three real components: the split fee itself, the extra chassis days the detour caused (the per-diem clock doesn't pause for logistics), and repositioning miles at the dray's rate. Splits cluster at specific terminals and depots — ports where chassis pools went 'wheeled to grounded' after big-ship surges are split factories. Reduce splits structurally rather than per-incident: dray carriers with their own chassis fleets quote higher base rates but near-zero split exposure (price the bundle, not the line), and timing pickups to chassis availability windows the pool publishes beats arguing the fee afterwards. When a split does bill, the only audit is factual — did the extra trip happen? The dray's GPS trail answers it.
How to use Chassis Split Fee Calculator
- 1Set each input — split fee (dray accessorial), extra chassis days caused, chassis per-diem rate, repositioning miles — using your own figures.
- 2The estimate recomputes instantly as you type; no submit button, no waiting.
- 3Review the line-item breakdown to see how each component contributes to the total.
- 4Click “Copy quote” to paste the itemised result into an email, quote or audit note.
Why use Chassis Split Fee Calculator?
- ✓Itemised line-by-line breakdown, not just a single opaque total
- ✓Copy-ready output for emails, quotes and audit notes
- ✓Recomputes live as you type — compare scenarios in seconds
- ✓Free and private — nothing you enter leaves your browser
Frequently asked questions
What causes a chassis split?+
Geographic mismatch: the container is at terminal A, the nearest available pool chassis at depot B. Causes include grounded (stacked) operations without wheeled inventory, pool imbalances after surges, and return depots that accept containers but not chassis. The driver's extra trip to marry box and chassis is the split — and the fee prices that trip.
Is a split fee legitimate or padding?+
Legitimate when the extra trip actually happened — it's real miles and real time. The audit is simple: the dray's telematics shows the depot detour. Padding exists too (split fees auto-added to every move at certain ports); if your invoices show splits on moves where the terminal ran wheeled operations, push back with the terminal's operation mode as evidence.
Who pays the split — shipper, broker or dray?+
It flows to whoever holds the freight spend: the dray bills its customer (broker or BCO) as an accessorial. Some BCO-dray contracts cap split frequency or bundle splits into the base rate — worth negotiating at ports where splits exceed ~10% of moves, which your invoice history will show plainly.
Do carrier-owned chassis avoid splits?+
Largely yes — a dray running its own chassis fleet controls positioning and absorbs mismatches internally; you pay for that certainty in the base rate. The comparison is portfolio math: base-rate premium × all moves versus split fee × split rate. At high-split ports the premium wins; at wheeled, balanced ports it doesn't.
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