An ad hoc committee will study approaches for supplying the chassis used by motor carriers, railroads, and marine terminal operators to transport intermodal containers. The committee will examine the different chassis provisioning models in use, with a focus on equipment ownership and fleet management, equipment availability and interoperability, and equipment maintenance, repair, and upgrading. The committee will identify advantages and disadvantages of the alternative models and fleet management practices under different scenarios such as port size, traffic activity, and operational complexity. Consideration will be given to evaluating whether the models have aligned incentives in equipment ownership, management, maintenance, and provisioning that lead to supply chain efficiency. Additionally, the committee will evaluate the incentives for employing efficiency-enhancing communications, information sharing, and knowledge management practices across chassis provisioning models.
Informed by these findings, the committee will identify the circumstances under which individual models for provisioning chassis are optimized for the efficient functioning of the supply chain, including best practices from each model that can further increase efficiency. The committee will identify the conditions necessary to implement each model, including practical obstacles to implementation and their possible solutions. The committee may make recommendations to the sponsor, industry, Congress, and others, as appropriate, on measures to increase the efficiency of chassis provisioning.