Platton's port drayage in Houston is for importers whose boxes land at either Port Houston terminal: the truck is planned against the discharge date, the Express Pass window is booked the moment the box is released, the chassis is on the truck, and the container is out of the terminal inside its free time and at a Texas dock the same day or next morning. First container or fiftieth, a Bayport-to-Katy lane is priced the same way.
Get a Houston drayage quotePort Houston runs two container terminals on the lower Houston Ship Channel, and the one your carrier calls at sets the container drayage before anyone quotes it. Bayport is the newer, larger terminal and the one that takes the neo-Panamax ships Project 11 let through once the channel widening finished in September 2025; Barbours Cut is the older terminal with the longer list of established services. The port handled 1.09 million TEUs in the first quarter of 2026, with January alone a record 370,034.
The two Port Houston container terminals
| Terminal | Where | Miles from downtown | What lands there |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bayport Container Terminal | Pasadena and Seabrook, on the bay side of the lower channel | About 25 southeast | The larger vessels; most transpacific calls via the Panama Canal |
| Barbours Cut Terminal | La Porte and Morgan's Point, about eight miles up SH 146 from Bayport | About 30 east | Established Gulf, Latin America and Europe services |
Both terminals require an Express Pass appointment for every container pickup, booked through the Port Houston Lynx portal, with two-hour windows at Barbours Cut and no same-day reschedule when a window is missed. Weekday gates open at 6 in the morning with the ingate closing at 6 in the evening, and weekends run only on an extended-gate request, so a Friday miss is a Monday pickup.
A Houston container, discharge to delivery
| Step | What happens | The clock |
|---|---|---|
| Discharge and grounding | The box comes off the vessel; availability and the last free day post on the Port Houston tracking page | Free time starts at availability |
| Customs and freight release | The entry was lodged before arrival; the line releases the box once its charges are settled | No Express Pass without both |
| Express Pass | The window is booked in Lynx the moment the box shows released and available; the chassis was assigned earlier | Driver and chassis set against the discharge date; the window booked at release |
| Gate-out | The driver runs the window and pulls the box | 93 percent of Platton's Houston pulls go out on availability day |
| Delivery | Pasadena and La Porte docks the same day; Katy and the northwest belt the same day or next morning | An average of 36 hours from the gate to the dock |
| Empty return | The empty is returned to the terminal before the line's free days run out | Per diem begins on the empty after that, while a loaded box left on the terminal is charged demurrage at 150 to 500 dollars a day |
Houston's warehouses do not sit next to its terminals. The port is at the bottom of the metro, the distribution belts are at the top and the west, and a move most cities would call local runs 30 to 50 miles here. That is why the published Houston average of about 590 dollars for a 40-foot box on a 20-mile move reads low against what most importers actually pay. Ask any Houston drayage company for the Katy rate before the Pasadena rate and the difference shows up at once. The lines below are what a quote is built from; the ranges are market figures, not a Platton tariff.
Houston drayage price lines
| Line | Market level | On the Platton quote |
|---|---|---|
| Base move, terminal to Pasadena, La Porte or Baytown (under 25 miles) | 250 to 450 dollars nationally; Houston local moves published at 495 to 795 before add-ons | Quoted per lane |
| Base move to Katy, the 290 corridor or I-45 north (30 to 50 miles) | 300 to 800 dollars | Priced per lane |
| Houston to Dallas, San Antonio or Austin (165 to 240 miles) | Extended dray, priced per lane | Quoted per lane |
| Fuel surcharge | Roughly a quarter to a half of the base when itemized | Inside the lane rate |
| Chassis | 25 to 45 dollars a day from the terminal pools; split fees are rare at Houston because the pools sit on the terminals | Built into the lane price on a standard move |
| Wait time at the dock | Hourly once the free hour or two has passed | An hour or two of waiting is in the lane price |
| Pre-pull and yard storage | Flat fee plus daily storage | Priced only when the free days will not hold |
| Permitted overweight set, tri-axle, reefer genset, hazmat, in-bond moves | Surcharge per move | Its own line on the quote, agreed before dispatch |
How Houston sits against the other gateways is in drayage costs by port, and the chassis economics are in the chassis fees guide.
The dray is priced from the terminal your box lands at. The two terminals sit about eight miles apart on SH 146, so for most belts the distance differs by five to ten miles; the exception is Baytown and Cedar Port, 15 minutes across the channel from Barbours Cut and about 25 miles from Bayport.
Where Houston containers go and how far
| Destination belt | From Bayport | From Barbours Cut | Usual move |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pasadena, La Porte, Deer Park | Under 15 miles | Under 15 miles | Direct dray, same day |
| Baytown and Cedar Port | About 25 miles | About 15 minutes across the channel | Direct dray, same day |
| Katy, I-10 West and the 290 corridor | 45 to 55 miles | 50 to 60 miles | Direct dray, same day or next morning |
| I-45 north, Conroe, The Woodlands | 45 to 60 miles | 50 to 60 miles | Direct dray, next morning |
| Beaumont | About 85 miles | About 75 miles | Direct dray |
| Austin, San Antonio, Dallas | 165 to 240 miles | 170 to 245 miles | Direct dray next day, or a transload into 53-foot trailers near the port |
Past the metro the box goes home and the freight goes on in a trailer. A transload in Houston puts the cargo into domestic trailers near the terminals and sends the box back inside its free days; for Dallas-area deliveries the freight forwarder in Dallas page covers the receiving end.
The cargo that lands here is dense: tile and stone, machinery, resin and chemicals, auto parts. Texas gives the port one of the most generous overweight corridors at any US gateway. Within a 30-mile radius of the port, on the permitted corridor routes, a six-axle set can run at 93,000 pounds gross and a seven-axle set at 100,000, against the 80,000-pound federal limit that caps cargo at about 44,000 pounds in a 40-foot container on the open road. A box loaded to its sea rating at origin can therefore leave Bayport or Barbours Cut legally, as long as the dock is inside the radius and the truck carries the permit.
The radius is the catch, and it is the detail Platton sees missed most often on Houston bookings: a heavy box sold as "corridor legal" for a Katy dock that sits 20 miles past the edge of it. Pasadena, La Porte, Baytown and most of Cedar Port are inside the radius; Katy, the 290 corridor and anything north of Beltway 8 are not, and neither is Dallas. For those docks a heavy container moves on a tri-axle with a state permit, or the cargo is transloaded near the port into two road-legal trailers. Platton checks the declared weight against the destination on the booking, so the choice is made before the box reaches the terminal scale.
From June through November a Gulf storm can close the Ship Channel and the terminal gates for days, and the reopening runs on extended gates, backed-up Express Pass windows and a chassis pool that everyone wants at once. Free time does not always pause for the closure, and per diem on empties already out does not stop on its own; it stops when the line agrees to it in writing. The gate side of a closure is handled here: the pickup plan held against the discharge date, a pre-pull to a near-port yard when the last free day and the reopening do not line up, and the empty return scheduled before the gates reopen. The vessel and routing side of a storm is on the freight forwarder in Houston page.
Platton plans the Houston dray before the vessel docks: the Express Pass window, the weight against the corridor, the truck's position on the road and the return of the empty.
The file carries the vessel's discharge date and the terminal, the driver and chassis are assigned to that date, and the Lynx window is booked the minute the container shows released and available. That sequence is why 93 percent of Platton's Houston pulls go out on the day of availability.
Every Houston booking is checked for weight against the destination: inside the 30-mile corridor the box moves on a permitted set, outside it the quote shows the tri-axle and the transload side by side, and nothing is discovered at the scale.
The empty goes back to the terminal pool inside the free days and the return is confirmed with the line the same day, so a per-diem invoice for a box that was returned on time never reaches you unanswered; permitted overweight, reefer and hazmat moves are priced before the truck rolls.
The truck's position and ETA sit in cargo tracking from the terminal gate to the dock, the empty return is on the same screen, and during a channel closure the file shows the rebooked window instead of a gap. Platton's drayage on-time rate across all its files is 97.4 percent.
What comes before and after the Houston dray:
Transloading in Houston: the container emptied near the port and the cargo sent on in 53-foot trailers.
Customs clearance: the entry lodged before the vessel arrives, so the box is releasable the day it grounds.
Warehouse services: a few days of storage and pre-pull space by the terminals.
Freight forwarder in Houston: everything Platton does through this port beyond the truck.
Published Houston local rates run 495 to 795 dollars per container before fuel and chassis, and the market average for a 40-foot box on a 20-mile move sits near 590 dollars, against a national short-dray base band of 250 to 450. Few Houston docks are 20 miles from either terminal, though: Katy and the 290 corridor are 45 to 60 miles, which prices as an extended move.
Yes. Bayport and Barbours Cut both require an Express Pass booked through the Port Houston Lynx portal for every container pickup, in windows (two hours at Barbours Cut), and a missed window is not rescheduled the same day. The window can only be booked once the container is released by customs and by the shipping line and shows as available. Platton has the driver and chassis assigned before that moment and books the window as soon as the release posts.
With the permit, a six-axle truck can run at 93,000 pounds gross and a seven-axle at 100,000 within a 30-mile radius of the port, which puts a container loaded to roughly 55,000 to 60,000 pounds of cargo on the road legally. The corridor covers Pasadena, La Porte, Baytown and most of Cedar Port. Beyond the radius the 80,000-pound limit applies, so the same box needs a tri-axle with a state permit or a transload into two trailers near the port.
Because the terminals sit at the southeast edge of the metro and the warehouse belts sit northwest and north of it. Bayport to Katy is 45 to 55 miles and Barbours Cut to the 290 corridor is close to 60, and the route crosses the Beltway and the loop at peak hours. Only Pasadena, La Porte, Deer Park and Baytown are true short drays. The quote names the terminal and the dock, and the distance between them is what the rate reflects.
Yes, as a next-day direct dray of 165 to 240 miles, and on every such lane the quote also shows the transload alternative: the container emptied near the port, the cargo sent on in a 53-foot trailer, and the box returned inside its free days. On a single urgent container the direct dray usually wins; on lanes with three or more containers, or on any box that is overweight outside the 30-mile corridor, the trailer does.
Less than at most gateways. The chassis pools at Port Houston sit on the terminals, so a driver picks up the box and the chassis at the same gate and the split fees common at ports with off-terminal pools are rare here. Availability still tightens in two windows, hurricane-season reopenings and the autumn peak, when every pool user wants equipment on the same morning. Platton holds contracted chassis access at both terminals through those windows so the pickup does not wait on the pool.
Send the container number, the terminal on your arrival notice and the delivery address. Back comes the quote, with the lane priced from that terminal, chassis, fuel and terminal fees inside it, the weight checked against the corridor, and the Express Pass plan set against the discharge date.
Get a Houston drayage quote
