Port of Oakland Drayage Carriers Shut Down After 40 Years
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Two longtime stalwarts of the drayage community serving the Port of Oakland and beyond closed their doors in recent weeks after around four decades in business each, citing a dismal business environment, according to executives and employees.
shuttered July 31, according to a LinkedIn post by Fresno, Calif.-based T.G.S. Logistics and T.G.S. Transportation President Peter Schneider.
“It is with profound sadness and a heavy heart that TGS announces the official closure of its operations, effective July 31, 2025. After four decades of dedicated service to the transportation industry, we will be parking our trucks for good,” a letter to customers that Schneider posted on the social media network read.
“While the decision to close was a difficult one, influenced by the challenging market conditions facing the industry, our focus today is on expressing our deepest gratitude to all have been who have been part of the TGS journey,” the letter signed by T.G.S. executives Schneider, his father Tim Schneider and Chief Operating Officer Robert Loya read.
Loya is set to replace Matt Schrap as CEO, the trade group announced Aug. 2.
“Some members of our dedicated team will continue to serve the industry under a new flag. We will be sharing the more detailed information about these new opportunities and how you can continue to receive exceptional service in the very near future,” they added.
T.G.S. was founded by Tim Schneider in 1985. It offered international drayage from the Port of Oakland, international drayage from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and domestic intermodal drayage from Lathrop/Stockton.
A couple of weeks earlier, Peter Schneider was forthright about the market for drayage carriers as he sympathized with a peer, , that closed its doors earlier in July.
“Today was a tough day in the international drayage community. Today we learned some great friends that run a great drayage and 3PL company who have been in business for close to 40 years are closing their doors,” Schneider wrote in a LinkedIn post.
“If this isn’t a wake-up call that rates have been driven too low since the pandemic, I don’t know what will wake up the industry. In so many lanes across the country, rates have been driven back to pre-pandemic levels, with costs at 2025 levels,” he wrote.
Schneider added: “It’s time to reflect. Time for change. Time to respect the backbone of international trade. Our industry for the past three years has fought so hard to pick up and deliver your products around the country. We’re doing so at pre-pandemic rate levels with costs that only increase every quarter.”
Multiple GSC Logistics employees confirmed in social media posts that the company closed.
The company’s Oakland operations comprised an 80,000-square-foot facility and 110 dock doors, according to its website.
GSC was the largest trucking company operating at the Port of Oakland, capturing around 10% of the volume, according to sources close to port operations.
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The carrier — which also served Savannah, Ga., and Seattle and Tacoma, Wash. — was headed by Scott Taylor, who founded the company in 1988. Taylor won a lifetime achievement award from the Containerization and Intermodal Institute in September 2024.
In June, Port of Oakland container volume slumped, with the port citing adjustments to softening demand and ongoing tariff uncertainty.
RELATED: US Ports Show Mixed Results in June
Oakland handled 168,460 20-foot-equivalent units in June, down 10.1% from May and 12.8% from June 2024.
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“This is not a seasonal dip, but a market recalibration,” Port of Oakland Maritime Director Bryan Brandes said in a statement accompanying the statistics. “Importers and exporters are adjusting their supply chain timing and routing decisions in response to evolving conditions.”
It isn’t just Oakland that is taking a pounding from the Trump tariff regime-induced uncertainty as supply chains are upset and companies keep their powder dry, with the Port of Long Beach processing 704,403 TEUs in June, a decrease of 16.4% year over year.
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In a discussion with Port of Long Beach CEO Mario Cordero, perspective was offered by S&P Global Market Intelligence transportation consulting director Paul Bingham, who warned: “There’s nothing like this that any of us that are still active in our careers have seen before. From an economics perspectives speaking, we’d have to go back over 90 years to the 1930s to find tariff levels for the United States on a trade-weighted basis close to what they are right now.”
The elongation of the freight recession as a result of tariff-induced uncertainty is continuing to hurt carriers outside the drayage ecosystem too.
Notably, Groveland, Fla.-based Carroll Fulmer Logistics, which was founded in 1954, closed its doors in July, according to local media.
President Donald Trump threatened and then introduced multiple tariffs over the past several months, with the delays hampering investment decisions and supply chains.
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