With more freight moving between the U.S. and Mexico, Ryder System is growing its operations and capacity on both sides of the border. The company has opened a new logistics operation in Laredo, Texas, and expanded its drayage yard across the Rio Grande in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico.
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Ryder began operations in Mexico in 1994. Today, Ryder Mexico manages more than 250,000 freight movements across the Mexican border each year. Ryder also operates 5 million square feet of warehouse and yard space across Mexico.
An expanded drayage yard
The project expanded its maintenance shop, growing its service stations from nine to 15.
Ryder also restructured several parts of site to add more office space, larger driver dorms, a larger cafeteria, and more parking.
The expanded parking increased the yard’s capacity by 42% for tractors and 39% for trailers. A significant portion of the expansion’s expense had to do with paving the additional parking, Bateman said.
Overall, planning and execution of the expansion took about one and a half years.
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“A lot of it was talking to our automotive and industrial customers, trying to understand their strategy,” Bateman told FleetOwner. “What their plant volumes were going to be between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada; what trends they’re seeing; if there’s going to be some supplier shifts to Mexico, and that, in turn, would guide us as far as their needs for import/export; and how the growth is going to be in Mexico.”