Intermodal & Drayage CDL Jobs: Per-Move Pay & Port Routes
Drayage pays per-move, runs home-daily out of US ports, and demands a TWIC. What 2-4 moves a day actually earns, and which port markets have the deepest dray work.
What Intermodal and Drayage Freight Actually Is
Intermodal drayage is the local trucking that moves shipping containers between ports, rail ramps, and the shippers and receivers that own the freight inside. The 'intermodal' part of the name refers to the container changing modes — ocean to rail, rail to truck, truck to warehouse. The 'drayage' part is the truck leg, almost always short-haul, almost always inside a single metro area, and almost always home-daily.
The equipment is a standard day-cab tractor pulling a container chassis — a skeletal trailer with twist-locks at the corners that secure a 20-foot, 40-foot, 45-foot, or 53-foot ocean or domestic container. The container itself is the load; the chassis is just the wheels under it. Most drayage chassis are owned by chassis pools (CCM, TRAC, FlexiVan, DCLI), and the driver picks up an empty chassis from the pool, brings it into the port, swaps it for a loaded chassis, runs the container to its destination, and returns the empty chassis or container as required.
Load types span every consumer good imaginable on the import side — electronics, apparel, furniture, toys, home goods, automotive parts — and a smaller share of US-origin export freight (agricultural products, scrap metal, specialty manufacturing). Domestic intermodal is a separate market: 53-foot domestic containers move on rail between major distribution clusters (LA to Chicago, Chicago to the East Coast, Memphis to the Northeast), with truck legs at each end. FMCSA's MCS-150 categorizes drayage under Intermodal Containers plus whatever's inside.
The shippers are every importer and exporter using ocean freight, plus the domestic 3PLs running container-on-rail networks (J.B. Hunt Intermodal, Schneider Intermodal, Hub Group, the Class I railroads themselves). The work is structurally tied to global trade volumes — when ocean imports rise, drayage demand rises with them.
A Day in the Life
A drayage day starts early. Most ports require pre-booked appointments to enter (PierPass at LA and Long Beach, similar systems at most major US ports), and the early-morning gate windows fill first. Drivers who beat the lines start their day at 4 to 6 a.m.; drivers who try to roll up at 8 a.m. spend an extra hour or two in the queue.
The driver does a pre-trip on the tractor and picks up an empty chassis at the pool yard if their chassis isn't already attached. TWIC card swipe at the port gate. Pull through the terminal, get assigned to a stack location, hand off paperwork to the yard tractor or stevedore who lifts the container onto the chassis with a top-pick or straddle carrier. Drive to the customer, drop the loaded chassis in the receiver's yard, recover an empty chassis from somewhere (sometimes the same yard, sometimes a separate empty depot — the chassis split is one of the biggest time-killers in drayage), drive back to the port, repeat.
A productive driver in a well-run lane completes two to four moves per day. Five-plus moves is achievable in tight metros with cooperative customers; one to two moves is what bad days look like during port congestion or when chassis splits force extra running. Total drive time per move is short — most drayage runs are 30 to 80 miles one-way — but terminal wait time is the constraint, not Hours of Service. A driver might sit one to three hours at the port gate during peak congestion, fully on-duty, watching the clock.
All of this work is local. The driver is home every night. There's no sleeper berth use, no overnight away time, no two-week tours. Drayage IS local trucking, and the home-daily reality is the segment's defining lifestyle feature.
Pay Reality
Drayage pay is structured per-move rather than per-mile, which is the right unit for short-haul work where mileage varies widely from move to move and where a 20-mile run with a three-hour port wait would never pencil out at a CPM rate.
The typical per-move rate is $200 to $400 depending on lane, customer, and chassis arrangement. Experienced drivers in well-run lanes complete two to four moves per day, putting daily gross revenue at $500 to $1,400 for owner-operators. Annual gross revenue for owner-operators commonly runs $150,000 to $300,000 in the major port markets; net income after fuel, chassis lease, insurance, maintenance, and authority costs lands closer to $70,000 to $110,000.
Company drivers in major port markets earn $25 to $35 per hour with overtime, annualizing to $55,000 to $85,000 typically. Senior drivers in Los Angeles and Long Beach with five-plus years of experience and clean TWIC and clean MVR can clear $90,000 a year on company pay. The Port of LA/Long Beach is the highest-paid drayage labor market in the country because the freight density supports it and the regulatory load (clean truck program, port-specific credentials) limits driver supply.
Domestic intermodal drayage — the truck legs of 53-foot rail container moves — pays more like dry van CPM. Rates of $0.50 to $0.65 per mile are typical for the truck portion, with the carrier handling rail booking and the driver handling pickup and delivery between rail ramp and customer.
Accessorials are huge in drayage. Detention and demurrage at the port can add hundreds of dollars per move when customers or terminals are slow — port congestion in 2021 and 2022 produced detention windfalls that some drivers remember fondly. Chassis split pay (extra when you have to go fetch a chassis from a separate yard), chassis rental ($45 per day typical at most pools), and per diem on intermodal containers held longer than free-time windows are all standard line items on a drayage invoice.
Lifestyle Fit
Home daily is the universal drayage pattern. Every drayage driver in every major port market is home every night. There is no OTR drayage, no team drayage, no two-week-tour drayage. The work is structurally local because the freight is structurally local — containers come off ships at a port, go to warehouses inside a 100-mile radius, and come back as empties.
The schedule is early. Most drivers start between 4 and 6 a.m. to beat port gate congestion, and the day typically ends by mid-afternoon if moves go smoothly. A driver who finishes by 2 p.m. is genuinely done — there's no late-night dispatch chasing extra revenue. A driver caught in heavy port congestion might still be at a customer or terminal at 6 or 7 p.m., but that's the bad day, not the average day.
Who thrives in drayage: drivers who want to be home every night, drivers who can navigate port bureaucracy without losing patience, drivers who tolerate sitting in lines, and drivers who actually enjoy local freight. The segment attracts a specific personality — methodical, persistent, skeptical of the system, not in a hurry. Long-tenure drayage drivers often built their career in a single port market and know the customers, the chassis pool yards, the gate clerks, and the dispatchers personally.
Who burns out: drivers who can't handle congestion stress (port lines test the patience of mortal humans), drivers who lose composure during empty chassis hunts (the chassis split problem is genuinely maddening), and drivers who hate driving the same 50-mile radius forever (drayage is structurally repetitive — you will see the same exits every day). The segment also attracts drivers fleeing OTR who didn't realize how different local trucking actually is — some readjust, some wash out and go back to OTR.
The lifestyle is exceptional for drivers with families. A drayage driver in Long Beach can coach little league, eat dinner at home, sleep in their own bed every night. That's not what trucking has historically offered most drivers, and it's the segment's quiet recruitment pitch.
Requirements to Get Started
Drayage has a moderate experience floor and a meaningful regulatory credential stack — the TWIC card is the gate.
The formal requirements: CDL Class A. Current DOT medical card. Clean MVR. No positive drug screens in the FMCSA Clearinghouse. The TWIC (Transportation Worker Identification Credential) is required for any port secure-area access — no TWIC, no work in the major US port complexes. The TWIC application costs $125.25 and runs through TSA with a 60-day lead time recommended. The card is valid for five years and renewals are streamlined for current holders.
Most major ports also require port-specific credentials beyond TWIC. The Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach require SeaLink ID and have a Clean Truck Program that mandates 2014-or-newer engines or electric tractors — older trucks simply cannot enter the terminals. Other major ports have similar local-credential requirements. A driver evaluating drayage in a specific port market should research that port's credential stack before applying — the rules vary meaningfully between LA/LB, NY/NJ, Savannah, Norfolk, and the smaller markets.
The practical experience floor is lower than mainstream OTR. Drayage will hire drivers with one year of verifiable experience, sometimes six months, because the work is local and the trainer rides easily inside the metro area. Local market knowledge — knowing the chassis pool yards, the customer dock locations, the port gate idiosyncrasies — matters more than long-haul tenure. A driver with three years OTR who's never run drayage will need a few weeks of onboarding to learn the specific port and customer base.
No HME or N endorsement is generally required. Containers don't carry placardable hazmat without separate arrangement (the small share of hazmat container moves is handled by specialized drayage operators with separately-credentialed drivers). The HME is a nice-to-have rather than a must-have for general drayage work, and most drayage drivers don't bother with it unless they're targeting specialty container freight.
Where the Loads Are
Drayage is structurally tied to ocean freight, which means it's concentrated at the major US container ports — five port complexes generate most of the national drayage demand.
California leads dramatically. The Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach combined moved approximately 14 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) in 2024, making the San Pedro Bay complex the largest US container gateway by a wide margin. Roughly half of all West Coast import drayage volume runs out of LA and Long Beach. The driver labor market is the deepest in the country, the regulatory load is the heaviest (clean truck program, port-specific credentials), and the pay is the highest. A drayage career in LA/LB is the most stable in the country.
New York and New Jersey is the busiest East Coast container port, moving 4.16 million TEUs in 2024. The dray network spans New Jersey warehouses, Pennsylvania distribution centers, and Long Island and Brooklyn customers. The combination of Newark and Bayonne terminals plus the Verrazzano-Narrows clearance for larger ships makes NY/NJ the structurally critical East Coast gateway.
Georgia (Port of Savannah) is the fastest-growing major US port, moving over 5 million TEUs in 2024. Savannah serves the Atlanta and Charlotte distribution corridors and has been adding capacity faster than any other US East Coast port. Drayage out of Savannah feeds into one of the densest warehouse markets in the southeastern US.
Virginia (Hampton Roads / Port of Norfolk) serves the Mid-Atlantic and the Ohio Valley. The port complex has deep-water access for the largest container ships and connects via inland intermodal to Columbus, Pittsburgh, and the central Midwest.
South Carolina (Port of Charleston) closes the top five, with growing East Coast volume and a strong automotive component intermodal segment driven by BMW (Greer) and Volvo (Ridgeville). Other significant drayage markets include Seattle and Tacoma (Northwest Seaport Alliance), Houston (the largest Gulf port), and Oakland (California's secondary port). National container volume reached 28 million TEUs in 2024, up 13 percent year over year — drayage demand is structurally tied to ocean import volume and import volume is at record highs.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to own my own chassis for drayage work?expand_more
No. Most drayage operates through chassis pools (CCM, TRAC, FlexiVan, DCLI) where the driver picks up an empty chassis at a pool yard and returns it after the move. Some carriers prefer driver-owned chassis for control over inventory, and many owner-operators lease a dedicated chassis at $400 to $600 per month for that reason. The pool model is the default; ownership is the optimization.
What is a chassis split and why does it matter?expand_more
A chassis split happens when the chassis you need isn't at the port — you pick up a loaded container, then have to drive to a separate yard to swap chassis (or you arrive with the wrong chassis and have to swap before pickup). It burns time, often an hour or more. Some carriers and customers pay extra for chassis split work; many don't. It's the single most-complained-about operational pain in the segment.
Is drayage a good job for newer CDL drivers?expand_more
Yes — local, home daily, and lower OTR experience barrier than mainstream long-haul. Most drayage carriers will hire with one year of verifiable experience, sometimes six months. The trade is that the bureaucracy is real (TWIC, port procedures, chassis pool paperwork, customer access protocols), and the early days involve a lot of learning specific to the port market. Worth it for drivers who want to be home every night.
How long does the TWIC card actually take to get?expand_more
Apply 60 or more days before you need it. The TSA application costs $125.25 and the FBI background check that follows simply takes time — there's no expedited path for routine applications. The card is valid for five years and renewals are streamlined. A driver evaluating drayage who doesn't already have TWIC should start the application process before applying for jobs.
Why is drayage paid per-move instead of per-mile?expand_more
Distances are short and highly variable, and per-mile pricing doesn't capture the time investment of port waits and chassis splits. A 20-mile move with a three-hour gate wait would never pencil out at $0.65 per mile. Per-move pricing aligns the driver's pay with what shippers and brokers pay the carrier for the move, and it captures the full cost of a drayage operation more honestly than CPM does.
What's the difference between detention and demurrage?expand_more
Detention is what the driver and carrier care about — it's the charge that accrues when the driver waits beyond the free time at a port gate or customer dock. Demurrage is what the importer cares about — it's the charge that accrues when the container itself sits at the marine terminal beyond the allowed free days. Drayage drivers track and bill detention; importers pay demurrage to the ocean carrier. The two terms get confused but they're separate accounts.
AI-Powered Matching
Find Intermodal / Drayage jobs that actually fit you.
Get matched with carriers running intermodal / drayage freight based on your pay floor, home time, and lane preferences. Free, no calls.