Platton runs port drayage in Savannah for importers whose boxes land at the Georgia Ports Authority terminal: the move is pre-advised before the box is available, the chassis is on the truck, and the container is out of the terminal inside the free time and at a Georgia or Southeast dock the same day or next morning. Savannah is one of the 42 US ports and rail ramps we pull from, worked daily from the Platton office at 100 Bull St. One container a year or ten a week, the service and the rate work the same way.
Get a Savannah drayage quoteSavannah handles almost all of its containers through one terminal, and that shapes every container drayage move. Garden City Terminal, run by the Georgia Ports Authority, is the largest single container terminal in North America. It moved 5.67 million TEUs in the fiscal year that ended in June 2026. There is no slot-appointment system of the Los Angeles kind: the move is pre-advised in the GPA WebAccess system, the tractor carries an RFID tag, and the driver runs against the gate hours and the afternoon pickup cutoff. Gate 4 opens at 4 in the morning and Gates 3 and 8 at 6, Saturday gates run through Gate 4 for dry containers, and hours shift with holidays and peak season, so dispatch works from the GPA gate notice rather than a fixed timetable. The Brampton Road Connector, opened in 2026, links Gate 3 straight to the interstate, and the Ocean Terminal rebuild will add a second container terminal with capacity for 1.75 million TEUs when it is finished.
A Savannah container, discharge to delivery
| Step | What happens | The clock |
|---|---|---|
| Discharge and grounding | The box comes off the vessel and lands in the yard; availability is posted | Free time starts counting at availability |
| Customs and freight release | The entry was lodged before arrival; the line releases the box once its charges are settled | No truck moves without both |
| Pre-advise | The pickup is pre-advised in WebAccess, chassis assigned to the driver | Done before availability, while the vessel is still at sea |
| Gate-out | Driver pulls the container through the gate | 93 percent of Platton pickups happen the same day the box is available |
| Delivery | Savannah metro the same day; Atlanta the same day or next morning | 36 hours average from gate-out to delivery |
| Empty return | The empty goes back to Garden City inside the line's free days | Per diem starts on the empty past that; a loaded box that never left the terminal pays demurrage of 150 to 500 dollars a day |
The table is the whole service. The mistakes that cost Savannah importers money sit in the first and last rows. A box becomes available before anyone pre-advised a truck. An empty goes back a day late.
Savannah prices in the middle of the US drayage market, with a peak-season premium when the gates back up. Most Savannah drayage companies quote the base move and add the rest on the invoice; the lines below are what a quote is built from, and the ranges are current market figures, not Platton's tariff.
Savannah drayage price lines
| Line | Current market | On a Platton quote |
|---|---|---|
| Base move, terminal to a near-port warehouse (under 25 miles) | Published Savannah local rates run 395 to 595 dollars before fuel and chassis, against a national short-dray base band of 250 to 450 | Quoted per lane |
| Base move, 25 to 50 miles | 300 to 800 dollars | Quoted per lane |
| Savannah to Atlanta, about 250 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, plus a split fee when the chassis is picked up separately | Inside the lane rate for the standard move |
| Wait time at the warehouse | Hourly after the first one or two hours | First one to two hours included |
| Pre-pull and yard storage | Flat fee plus daily storage | Quoted when the free days demand it |
| Tri-axle for overweight, reefer genset, hazmat | Premium per move | Quoted separately and disclosed before the truck rolls |
How the base bands move by gateway, and why Savannah money is not New York money, is in drayage costs by port; the chassis economics are in the chassis fees guide.
Most containers leaving Garden City are going to Atlanta's warehouse belt or to a dock within an hour of the port. The truck is not the only way to get there.
Where Savannah containers go and how
| Destination | Distance from Garden City | Usual move |
|---|---|---|
| Savannah, Pooler, Port Wentworth, Rincon warehouses | Under 25 miles | Direct dray, same day |
| Atlanta metro | About 250 miles | Direct dray same day or next morning, or a rail lift from the on-terminal ramp to an Atlanta ramp and a short dray there |
| Charleston, Jacksonville | About 110 to 140 miles | Direct dray |
| Charlotte, Greenville | About 250 miles | Direct dray or rail lift |
| Nashville, Memphis, Tennessee and beyond | 500 miles and up | Rail lift on CSX or Norfolk Southern, or a transload into 53-foot trailers near the port |
Rail from the on-terminal ramp is the other way inland, and the Gainesville Inland Port, opened in May 2026, adds northeast Georgia to the ramps it reaches; the ramp geography itself is on the Savannah route page. For cargo going to several docks, or a long way inland, a transload near the port puts the freight on domestic trailers and sends the container back to Garden City within a day or two.
A 40-foot container legally carries about 44,000 pounds of cargo on a standard chassis on Georgia roads, a 20-foot about 38,000, and boxes loaded to their sea rating at origin arrive heavier than that. Platton checks the weight on the booking and moves a heavy box on a tri-axle chassis with the permit, before it reaches the port scale. Reefers move with genset power on the chassis, and in-bond containers move from the terminal to a bonded warehouse or a foreign trade zone on an in-bond entry, with the bonded carrier arranged on the same dispatch.
Between August and November the gate queues at Garden City build early in the day. In the 2021 surge, average import dwell at the terminal went from about four days to eleven. Free time at Savannah runs four to five days on most carrier tariffs, up to seven on some contracts, counted from availability, and per diem on the empty runs on its own clock after that. Platton's Savannah dispatch pre-advises the next day's pickups the evening before, which in October is the difference between a morning gate and one on Friday. The two tools that protect an importer are a truck dispatched against the discharge window rather than after it, and a pre-pull: the container is moved to a near-port yard inside its free time and delivered when the warehouse can receive it, for a known flat fee instead of a daily one.
Four things Platton does on every Savannah dray, from the day the vessel is still at sea to the day the empty goes back.
The file is worked against the discharge date, not the arrival notice. The WebAccess pre-advise and the driver are lined up before the box is available, which is how 93 percent of Platton pickups happen on the day of availability.
Platton holds contracted chassis access at Garden City through peak season, so the pickup does not wait on a pool that emptied in September.
The delivery appointment at your dock is booked against the terminal pickup window, so the truck does not leave Garden City for a dock that cannot receive it, and a window lost to a gate queue is rebooked the same day with the driver already assigned.
Every truck reports GPS position and ETA into cargo tracking, with the empty return logged, so the per-diem clock is visible before it bites. Across Platton drayage files, 97.4 percent of deliveries arrive on time.
Around the Savannah dray, each on its own Platton page:
Shipping from China to Savannah: the ocean leg into Garden City, all-water or West Coast plus rail.
Customs clearance: the entry lodged before the vessel arrives, so the box is releasable the day it grounds.
Warehouse services: transloading, short-term storage and pre-pull yards near the gateway.
LTL and FTL: the domestic leg after a transload, across the Southeast and the country.
Freight forwarder in Savannah: everything Platton does through this port beyond the truck.
Published Savannah local rates, Garden City Terminal to a warehouse in the Savannah area, run 395 to 595 dollars per container before fuel and chassis, against a national short-dray base band of 250 to 450; Savannah and Charleston sit at the calmer end of the East Coast market. Atlanta, about 250 miles away, is an extended dray priced per lane.
Not in the slot-booking sense used at Los Angeles or Long Beach. Garden City Terminal runs on pre-advised moves through the GPA WebAccess system and RFID-tagged tractors, with gate hours and an afternoon pickup cutoff instead of appointment quotas. What the pickup does need is the container released by customs and by the shipping line, and the move pre-advised before the driver reaches the gate. Platton has both in place before the box is available, so the first free day is a pickup day.
Four to five days at the terminal on most carrier tariffs, up to seven on some contracts, counted from the day the container is available rather than the day the vessel arrived. The empty container has a separate clock for per diem once it leaves the terminal. Both figures come from the carrier, not the port, so ask for them in writing on the booking and plan the dray and the empty return against them.
About 250 miles, so a container pulled from Garden City in the morning is at an Atlanta-area dock the same day or first thing the next morning, subject to the delivery appointment. For steady volume into Atlanta the alternative is a rail lift from Mason Mega Rail inside the terminal to an Atlanta ramp, followed by a short local dray. Platton prices both on the same quote so the choice is made on cost and calendar rather than habit.
When the free time will run out before the warehouse can receive the container. A pre-pull moves the box from the terminal to a near-port yard inside its free days and holds it there for a known flat fee plus daily storage, which is almost always cheaper than demurrage at the terminal at 150 to 500 dollars a day. Platton flags the need on the file the moment the availability date and the delivery date do not line up.
The container can leave the terminal, but not on a standard chassis. Platton checks the declared weight on the booking against the road-legal payload, about 44,000 pounds in a 40-foot and 38,000 in a 20-foot on Georgia highways, and moves a heavy box on a tri-axle chassis with the permit, quoted before the truck is dispatched. When the weight is known before the container is loaded, splitting the cargo across two boxes at origin is usually cheaper than the permit and the special equipment.
Send the container number, the vessel and the delivery address and you get back a Savannah drayage quote with the lane, the chassis, fuel and terminal fees on one line, and the pickup plan against your discharge date.
Get a Savannah drayage quote