Following a 19 percent increase in container drayage shipments nationwide in 2011, Old Dominion Freight Line Inc. has opened its first container drayage facility in the Pacific Northwest. The company’s new Seattle-Tacoma Drayage Operation will directly serve all ports, rail heads and container yards in the Pacific Northwest.
Co-located with Old Dominion’s Seattle service center, the operation’s strategic location gives Old Dominion direct access to Washington’s two largest ports − Seattle and Tacoma − that together handled more than $70 billion in cargo in 2010.
“The ports in Seattle and Tacoma play a critical role in international trade to and from Asia,” says Wayne Bersch, director of container operations for Old Dominion. “The Seattle-Tacoma drayage operation, which directly handles freight from these ports and other ports and rail yards across the Pacific Northwest, allows us to better serve our customers who ship both domestically and internationally.”
Old Dominion container drayage services include direct point-to-point delivery, loading, unloading, short-term warehousing and container pools for the convenience of import and export shippers. Old Dominion offers direct services from 13 cities in addition to its Seattle-Tacoma location: Atlanta; Baltimore; Chicago; Los Angeles; Memphis, Tenn.; Mobile, Ala.; Norfolk, Va., Wilmington, N.C., Charlotte, N.C., Charleston, S.C., Savannah, Ga., Huntsville, Ala.; and Jacksonville, Fla.
Old Dominion says its container drayage division has seen strong growth over the past two years, including a 35 percent increase in container drayage shipments in 2010. Last year, the company opened container drayage operations in Memphis, Mobile and Baltimore to keep up with customer demand.
