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Your Position: Home - Transportation - Container chassis: Learn about types and uses [2024 guide]

Container chassis: Learn about types and uses [2024 guide]

Author: Liang

Jul. 28, 2025

Transportation

Container chassis: Learn about types and uses [ guide]

A container chassis is essential to keep your containers safe and ensure smooth and efficient transport between ports, terminals and warehouses. It also allows drivers to move containers without having to unload them first – a major time and money saver. 

Please visit our website for more information on this topic.

These wheeled metal frames make the entire process of transporting shipping containers and other cargo simple and straightforward. Let’s learn all about container chassis, their sizes, uses and benefits below.

What is a container chassis?

A chassis is a trailer frame with wheels, created specifically to accommodate and move a wide range of container types (both standard and special). These metal structures are designed to carry containers via trucks between terminals, warehouses, and ports. They’re available in various types, so you can choose the kind that suits your unique requirements. 

So what does a chassis look like? It consists of a steel frame with tires and axle systems attached. Container chassis technology has drastically improved over the years, and now many include weight sensors, LED lights, and GPS tracking as well. 

Axels play an important role in the weight a chassis can manage. An axle is a long shaft that connects the wheels. A standard chassis, with 2 axles, can carry 20ft and 40ft containers. Generally, a tri-axle chassis is needed to carry 20ft containers above 36,000 lbs, or 40ft containers above 44,000 lbs.

Now let’s find out more about the benefits of these structures.

Why use a container chassis?

The chassis is designed to transport shipping containers efficiently and safely. They are strong and sturdy and protect containers from sharp and sudden movements whilst in transit. Let’s take a quick look at some of the reasons why you need a container chassis in your shipping process.

  • Smooth and secure: Containers are securely attached to the chassis. This prevents unnecessary container movements – ensuring safer transportation.
  • Quick and cost-effective: You can load several containers at the same time – making the process quick and efficient.
  • Durability and easy transportation: They’re usually made out of lightweight materials, but are durable enough to move heavy loads.
  • Suits different requirements: Chassis come in various types. Companies can choose from a wide range of options based on their specific needs. 

Great, now that we know just how crucial these structures are to keeping your boxes safe, let’s dive into the different types of chassis.

Common types of shipping container chassis

We’ll start by looking at the most commonly used types. These include the tilt, common, and extendable chassis. Let’s check out what they look like, and how they’re used below. 

Tilt container chassis

This chassis type makes it easy to load and unload containers. Unlike the common chassis, tilt chassis have upper and lower frames. There’s also a hydraulic system on the upper frame that tilts upward. Plus, you’ll find a roller on the upper frame that connects to the lower frame of the chassis.

This arrangement makes the process of loading and unloading secure and easy to handle. For instance, if you’re shipping granules in a container, you can simply use the tilt chassis to angle the container and unload the raw material without any hassles. A special design like this costs more money, but if convenience is what you’re after, this is the one to go for.

Common container chassis

The common container chassis comes without any modification. It’s a simple fixed structure built to transport containers from one place to another. Overhead cranes are used to load and unload cargo from this chassis type.

If you want to transport standard 20ft, 40ft, or 45ft containers, the common chassis is exactly what you need. You’ll find special markings on the body to help you identify where to place your containers. Common chassis are affordable and easy to use. However, you may end up paying extra for external equipment such as overhead cranes, so keep this in mind.

Extendable container chassis

Extendable chassis, as their name suggests, can adapt to any container size. This chassis type works similarly to a regular chassis, with one important difference. It’s extendable at the back, making it extremely versatile.

You should go for this type of chassis if you have to transport containers of varying lengths. The extendable chassis is also perfect for moving boxes across countries and states without any hiccups.

Container chassis: Purpose, features and dimensions

Now that we’ve looked at the most common shipping container types, let’s take a peek at chassis categorized by dimension, purpose, feature and design.

Chassis by dimension

Depending on your shipping requirements and, of course, the container size, there are several sizes of chassis available in the market:

  • 20ft container chassis
  • 40ft and 45ft container chassis
  • 48ft and 53ft domestic container chassis

It’s important to consider the size of your chassis in relation to the size of your containers. No point in organizing a 20ft chassis to carry a 45ft container, now is there?

Chassis by purpose

You can also select your chassis based on its purpose. Certain chassis are designed to transport only specific container types or cargo. For example, if you need to move tanks, make sure you organize a tank chassis. Why? It’s specially designed to hold the tank shape securely in place.

Chassis by feature/design

Chassis can also be categorized by feature and design. Choosing a chassis by design or feature depends completely on what you need it for. Choose a lightweight chassis for smaller cargo, or a gooseneck chassis if you need to stack containers. Take a look at some of the chassis by feature/design below. 

Now that you know about the chassis types, it’s time to look at the costs involved.

How to choose the right container chassis for your needs

Choosing the ideal chassis completely depends on your requirements. When trying to decide which type you need, consider the following:

Usage and requirements (Industry-specific)

If you only need to transport containers, a chassis modeled specifically for containers is ideal. But, if you need to move other types of cargo along with containers, go for a flatbed chassis trailer – as it serves a dual purpose. If you need to load/unload cargo at specific places, a tilt chassis is a great choice. This means you don’t have to hire a crane or additional lifting equipment.

Number of axles/weight threshold

You can choose the number of axles in the chassis to suit the cargo or container weight. Remember: the higher the number of axles, the more weight the chassis can accommodate. As mentioned earlier, when transporting standard containers, a 2 or 3-axle chassis is your best bet.

Costs incurred

Consider your container specifications and requirements before choosing a chassis. Usually, a specialized chassis costs quite a bit more than a regular one. So, make sure you know exactly what you need before you set out to organize your chassis.

What does a container chassis cost?

You’re probably curious about how much a chassis costs, aren’t you? Depending on where you buy chassis, the type you’re looking for, and the condition you’re after, the cost may vary considerably. 

It’s also important to note that chassis has been in short supply in the last few years. So expect prices to be on the rise over the next while.

Here are some average prices for buying standard container chassis of various sizes:

Chassis type Price range (USD) 20ft container chassis $6,800 – $12,600  40ft container chassis $9,800 – $15,000 45 ft container chassis $10,000 – $15,000

If you’re planning a shipment, you might also look for containers to transport your cargo. The good news? You can find shipping containers for sale at great prices on Container xChange. Continue to read to learn more about prices and the types of containers you can find on the platform.

Lease or buy a chassis?

Did you know that you can also lease a chassis? The key here is to understand your requirements and how often you’ll be needing it. With that in mind, let’s look at the differences between leasing and buying:

Buying Leasing Cheaper in the long term Cheaper in the short term A good option if you’re shipping goods often Perfect for transporting boxes now and then Can modify container chassis Container chassis cannot be modified Use any time, independent of chassis shortages May not gain access to chassis during shortages

Click here to learn more about how to lease shipping containers. 

For businesses that regularly lease containers, owning one can lead to significant savings. Check out our 20ft containers for sale and 40ft shipping containers for sale as a cost-effective alternative.

Chassis shortage: Why is it happening?

It’s safe to say that shippers depend upon chassis to get goods from ports to warehouses and other important destinations. Without these humble wheeled frames, it’s pretty difficult to get goods to market, affecting the entire supply chain.

In the last decade, along with container shortages, there have been major container chassis shortages too. So, why is this happening? In the past 2 years, nearly every chassis component has been backlogged at some point or another, making manufacturing on time difficult. 

The main reason for such a backlog has been a shortage of microchips worldwide since . This has in turn led to the temporary shutdown of assembly plants in the automotive industry, having a knock-on effect on chassis building.

While the production of standard container chassis has not grown exponentially over the last few decades, freight volumes and cargo ships have. With larger volumes being transported on bigger container ships, spikes in demand have quickly eaten up available chassis capacity. The limited availability of port chassis has left massive amounts of cargo waiting to be moved. This has in turn led to serious bottlenecks in the supply chain as a whole.

To add to this, chassis are often used at docks as temporary storage for containers, leaving them unavailable when they’re needed for moving boxes.

Want more interesting and useful shipping news? We’ve got an all-in-one solution for you! Our monthly ‘Where are all the Containers?’ report brings you industry updates, container prices, and trends, plus the latest container availability data, all in one document. The best part? It’s completely free to download. 

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What is a chassis use charge?

The chassis usage charge is one of the several additional charges you need to factor in when moving your cargo. Until , carriers used to own and provide chassis along with containers. However, after MAERSK exited the chassis business, others followed suit. This forced trucking companies to buy or rent their chassis – bringing in an additional charge.

Ocean carriers at ports now charge a chassis usage fee for the use of their equipment. This encourages shippers and truckers to rather supply their own, to save on charges. It also encourages the use of the common chassis pool for pick-up and delivery. This is in an attempt to solve the container chassis shortage issue the industry is currently facing.

Chassis fees are only charged by carriers in certain ports, so make sure to check the fees at the ports you’ll be shipping to. These fees are usually applied all over the United States but are charged in other parts of the world too.

Want to learn more about port charges? Read all about demurrage and detention fees (D&D) in this informative blog post. 

How to avoid demurrage and detention fees when shipping

Buying, leasing, and managing chassis has become a bit of a headache in recent years. When a container chassis is delayed, this creates a ripple effect, leaving you with lots of charges to deal with.

So what kind of charges are we talking about? There are congestion surcharges, terminal handling charges, consolidation fees, and demurrage and detention fees to factor in. Read more about these here. 

This is where we come in. At Container xChange, we can help you avoid demurrage and detention fees altogether so that you can lower your overall shipping charges. 

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What is an intermodal chassis?

An intermodal container chassis is a wheeled metal frame used to transport shipping containers of various shapes and sizes. Container chassis come in different types, including the tilt, extendable, and tank chassis.

How do you secure a container to a chassis?

A shipping container is placed on a chassis using a crane. This must be done carefully, ensuring that the container's corner castings are aligned with the chassis’ twist locks (pins). The container is then fixed to the chassis using these pins.

How much does a container chassis cost?

A standard container chassis can cost anything between US $ 6,800 and US $ 15,000, depending on the type, condition, location and current supply and demand.

What is a Container Chassis (Updated for ) - STU Supply Chain

A container chassis is a frame and a set of wheeled containers used to transport cargo. chassis is uniquely designed and reinforced for crane loading and unloading. chassis design includes locking mechanisms to secure containers to the chassis for short or long hauls.  The Chassis needs to charge extra. Although this special mode can reduce the operating cost of the fleet for many years, it has aggravated the congestion of the US shipping routes in the past two years.

In this guide is divided into 7 parts：

What is a Container Chassis？

What is Chassis Fee?

Container Chassis Types

The Impact of Chassis on Sea and Rail Transportation

Currently Improving

Three Container Chassis Provider

Grounded and Chassis Container Terminal Operations

What is a Container Chassis？

Container chassis, also known as multimodal chassis or skeleton trailer, is a semi-trailer designed to safely carry multimodal containers. Truckers use the chassis to transport containers between ports, rail yards, container yards and shipper facilities. This type of trucking is sometimes referred to as drayage.

In order to rapidly develop their own transportation capacity, American shipowners provide many preferential measures to various customers. For example, in the early s, the benefits of the same price of IPI became the first pot of gold for the first batch of American shipowners.

Compared with the above, the benefits of Chassis were actually born earlier. When container transportation was born in the United States, the ship owner was already responsible for providing frames for the fleet to use. When the network support matures, the shipowner finds that the chassis service is a project that has nothing to do with the main business and has huge additional expenses, so he has been looking for opportunities to exit the frame market. After the outbreak of the financial crisis in , shipowners finally made up their minds to sell their chassis to relevant leasing companies, thereby getting rid of chassis services.

However, although the shipowner no longer owns chassis, after all, the long-standing operating habits and service-derived functions make it still closely related to chassis leasing company. Moreover, each leasing chassis company even has an exclusive agreement with the ship owner, that is, the fleet can only cooperate with the chassis company designated by the ship owner. Currently, there are 3 well-known chassis rental companies in the United States, with a total of nearly 400,000 chassis.


What is Chassis Fee?

Unless one carrier owns the drayage trucks used throughout a shipment, the transfer of a container to a chassis incurs a chassis fee. The chassis fee is a flat fee for FCLs (full container loads) which depends on the trucking company, and a variable fee for LCLs (less than container loads). Chassis fees are also higher for overweight containers that require tri-axle chassis. While somewhat dependent on location, as a general rule, a load weight of more than 36,000 to 37,000 pounds for a 20 foot container or above 44,000 pounds for a 40 foot container classifies as overweight. Chassis fees - sometimes listed as chassis usage fees - are required, and can also include charges for additional days of use.


Container Chassis Types

Since there are multiple shipping container dimensions, there must be varied chassis to haul them. Some of the different types of chassis outlined here have specific use cases for short-haul and some for long-haul situations.

· 20ft and 40ft Chassis: Standard international shipping container

· 45ft and 53ft Chassis: Shipping containers used in intermodal drayage

· Two-Axle: Standard chassis configuration for 20ft and 40ft loads

· Three-Axle: Standard chassis configuration for overweight 20ft and 40ft loads

· Extendable: Provides the option to carry various container sizes

· Gooseneck: A chassis with a lower bottom so they can carry taller containers

· Lightweight: A chassis with a lower bottom so they can carry taller containers

· Heavy-Duty: A chassis with a heavy weight, that can carry heavier loads than normal

· Combo: A chassis that can use a 20ft or 40ft application

· Flatbed: A chassis that can hold two 20ft containers or one 40ft container

· Straight Frame: A chassis with no tunnels, where a gooseneck has tunnels

· Rear B-Train: A chassis with back to dock capability, carrying 20ft or 40ft containers



The Impact of Chassis on Sea and Rail Transportation

1. Impact on sea shipping

The mode of shipping is to arrive at the port, and the container directly falls in the container yard, waiting for the fleet to pick up the goods. As a team, you need to go to the leasing company to pick up the chassis of ship owner A, then go to the port area to pick up the cabinet of ship owner A, and then send it to the customer warehouse. According to the efficiency of the United States and the expensive waiting time of the fleet, customers are often accustomed to leaving the chassis and the container together in the factory after unloading, and then having the fleet pull the empty container and chassis back to the port area to return the container after a few days. However, it is possible that after the convoy reaches the port area, it needs to pick up the locker of ship owner B, so that the team has to first return the chassis of ship owner A and then pick up the chassis of ship owner B, and finally go to the port area to propose ship owner B cabinet. The waste of transportation capacity caused by the chassis and the efficiency loss of the frame staying in the factory greatly limit the circulation of chassis, and even there are various embarrassing situations in which there are vehicles but no chassis, which leads to the inability to carry cabinets. In the end, a series of chain reactions such as slow container flow and port congestion were exacerbated.

2. Impact on railway transportation

The railway mode is completely different from the shipping mode. The containers are often placed on the frame, and the fleet only needs to pick it up directly. We call it the wheeled operation mode. However, the number of chassis is far less than the number of containers, so that more containers have to fall directly into the yard like the port area, and due to space constraints, the containers have to be stacked on top of each other, resulting in the wheeled operation being forced to become grounded operation. However, the long-standing wheeled operation mode makes the railway yard not equipped with the operation capacity of the shipping yard. When the trucks come to pick up the goods, they will be told that the cabinet cannot be picked up due to insufficient cranes, manpower or chassis, which further results in a waste of transportation capacity. 

Currently Improving

At present, the congestion situation in the United States has been significantly alleviated. The chassis market, which has always been smooth sailing, has experienced this severe pain and is also accelerating changes. For example, more and more shipowners have abandoned relevant exclusive agreements, and each fleet purchases enough chassis for their own transportation, and railway yards and yards have also begun to consider using grounded operation mode for a long time.

Three Container Chassis Provider

1. Direct Chassis Link (DCLI)

Direct Chassis Link was originally owned by Maersk and was later sold to a private equity firm in . Because of this relationship, they have undertaken a lot of previous Maersk frames. DCLI has 154,000 marine frames (to service imported containers) and 90,000 domestic frames (to serve the most common 53-foot container shipped in the US).

2. FlexiVan

FlexiVan has more than 120,000 frames in more than 200 yards across the United States. The service objects are shipping companies, trailer companies, cargo owners, and freight forwarders. In February , the owner of American Intermodal Management (AIM), a mid-size frame rental company, purchased FlexiVan and merged the two companies, with former AIM CEO Ron Widdows as CEO of the new company. Friends of the original APL should be familiar with this name: Ron Widdows was APL's CEO.

3. TRAC Intermodal

TRAC Intermodal has the largest number of marine frames in the United States, with a total of 180,000. There are more than 600 storage yards and 11 chassis pools in the United States, providing three types of frame rental services: chassis pool, individual frame rental, and customized rental (such as the frames required for ZIM's clipper service).

The following is the relationship between each shipping company and container chassis provider in the LA/LB area：

Grounded and Chassis Container Terminal Operations

Grounded operation means that the container is unloaded from the ship, not on the frame, but directly on the ground of the dock yard, and the containers are stacked on top of each other. We are familiar with this approach. When the container needs to be lifted, the container should be placed on the frame by the yard crane and towed away. The advantage of this is to save heap space. The downside is that you have to carry the frame with you when carrying the container.

Here comes the problem. Most of the trailer companies do not have their own frames, and need to be provided by the dock and shipping companies. Taking LA as an example, with 12 docks, hundreds or thousands of trailer companies, and a dozen shipping companies, how to manage the frame is a big problem. The towing company generally needs to go to the chassis pool in or near the designated dock to pick up the frame, and then go to the dock yard to pick up the container. There are many similar chassis pools, and each large frame rental company has its own dedicated pool. This approach of each tube brings many disadvantages, which greatly limits the use area of the frame. Towing companies need to sign up with each chassis pool or rental company individually. Each towing company may go to any of the 12 terminals to drop off the container. The location of each terminal and each frame rental company is different. It is necessary for the towing company to drop off containers from different shipping companies. Running to different places, the time and money costs are greatly increased.

By the way, SSA wharf is special, they manage their own chassis pool, called WCCP (West Coast Chassis Pool). The main shipping companies using the SSA terminal are Matson and SM LINE.

In response to this situation, the industry has launched a gray pool, which means that several frame rental companies put the frames in a common pool for the trailer company to use. The biggest advantage is that no matter which shipping company the trailer company is carrying, they can go to this gray pool to pick up the frame. Gray pool usually has a special management company responsible for unified management, and each frame rental company charges frame fees according to their own agreements with shipping companies and trailer companies.

The largest gray pool in the United States is in Los Angeles, called The Pool of Pools (POP), with a total of more than 65,000 frames, which is simply the king of the pool. Not surprisingly, LA/LB is responsible for more than half of the U.S. container import business, and has the most complex number of terminals and operations. POP is an agreement between the three largest frame rental companies with their own exclusive chassis pools (DCLP, TPSP, FLBP). Specifically, this protocol allows the frames of the three chassis pools to be used interchangeably at 18 drop-off frame points covering the LA/LB terminal and rail yard. Signed towing companies can pick up or return frames from any of the 18 pick-up and return points, greatly improving operational efficiency.

POP also has a dedicated website that regularly publishes various data, such as frame inventory and gaps. There is also the average dwell time of the frame on the dock and on the street (time from leaving the dock to returning). The picture below is the latest dwelltime.

It can be seen that after a large number of frames flowed out of the dock, they were pressed in the guest warehouse for a long time and not returned, which was an important reason for the shortage of frames. Of course, it's not that the guests don't want to return it. The operation of the guest warehouse itself and the difficulty of returning empty containers also objectively caused a large number of frames to be unable to return to the pool in time. The supply chain is interlinked, and it takes everyone's efforts to solve the problem completely.

If you want to learn more, please visit our website Container Trailer Chassis(es,vi,ru).

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