Integrated port drayage is the operating decision Ramar makes on behalf of every customer who would otherwise sit in the middle of three carrier contracts. We pick up containerized hazmat freight directly from terminal at the port — Wilmington, Charleston, Savannah, Norfolk, Jacksonville, and four others on the Atlantic Coast — and we deliver it under our own USDOT, our own placards, and our own chain of custody.
That single decision eliminates the most common failure mode in dangerous-goods logistics: the handoff. Every time a Class 1 load changes hands between a broker, a drayman, and a long-haul carrier, the documentation, liability, and schedule reset. Ramar runs the full lifecycle in-house — so when a vessel arrives late or a terminal calls a hazmat exclusion window, one operator absorbs it and one operator answers for it.
Why this matters in Wilmington: Class 1 explosives drayage at highway route-controlled quantity (HRCQ) levels is a federal Hazardous Materials Safety Permit operation under 49 CFR Part 385 Subpart E — the same regulatory predicate flagged in 49 CFR 171.1(d). Ramar holds an active HMSP. To our knowledge, no other carrier physically based at the Port of Wilmington currently carries it, which means a freight forwarder choosing on price alone may end up handing Class 1 freight to a drayman who legally cannot complete the next leg.
We drayage every commercial port from Philadelphia to Jacksonville. For shipments that need staging before final delivery, drayage hands off seamlessly to our secure in-transit holding service without a paperwork reset.