Long Beach this fall: the Motor Carrier Conference and a year of drayage meetings

On October 29, 2026, the Harbor Trucking Association holds its Fall SoCal Motor Carrier Conference at 725 Harbor Plaza in Long Beach. For drayage carriers working the San Pedro Bay ports, it is one of the year’s main meeting points. This article puts it in the context of everything the association has organised over the last twelve months, all of which is listed on SwapContainer.

Who the HTA is

The Harbor Trucking Association represents the trucking companies that move containers in and out of the ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland. Its calendar is built around three kinds of events: monthly membership meetings in Southern and Northern California, conferences, and online sessions with terminals, equipment providers and regulators. Every date in this article comes from the association’s own event pages.

Two conferences a year in Long Beach

The spring edition, the SoCal Motor Carrier Conference 2026, took place on March 25, 2026 at the same address, 725 Harbor Plaza. The fall edition on October 29 follows the same format. In between, DrayTECH 2026, the association’s technology day for drayage, was held on May 15, 2026 at The Reef in Long Beach.

Terminal Talks: the terminals explain their rules to truckers

One of the most useful series for a dispatcher is the HTA « Terminal Talk ». In these online sessions, a terminal presents its rules, its appointment process and its upcoming changes directly to the carriers who use it. Over the last twelve months the series included sessions with TraPac in Los Angeles and in Oakland, run in several rounds, and a session with YTI on trucker outreach and new business in July 2026. These are the sessions where a carrier learns about a rule before it shows up as a rejected appointment at the gate.

Equipment, contracts and regulation

The online programme also covered the practical side of drayage:

• chassis provisioning in Southern California with TRAC Intermodal (May 26, 2026), and chassis solutions with Milestone (June 25, 2026);
• an educational session on frequently questioned UIIA provisions (August 18, 2026), the interchange agreement that governs who is responsible for a box and a chassis;
• California’s rules and incentives for medium and heavy-duty zero-emission trucks, including a session on the California Clean Fuel Reward (September 3, 2026) and a zero-emission ride and drive in the Inland Empire (March 6, 2026);
• port cyber security with the Port of Los Angeles Cyber Resilience Center (June 30, 2026).

Membership meetings

In Southern California, the monthly membership meetings are held at the Shoreline Yacht Club in Long Beach. The next ones are on October 21 and November 11, and the year closes with the SoCal membership holiday party on December 9. In Northern California, meetings take place in Oakland.

Further out

Two national events come to Long Beach in 2027: the Journal of Commerce’s TPM27, from February 28 to March 3, 2027 at the Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center, and the Intermodal Association of North America’s Intermodal EXPO 2027, from September 13 to 15, 2027.

Why it matters for swaps

In a port complex this size, many trucks leave the terminals empty or come back with an empty that someone else in the next street needs. A swap pairs those moves so one truck visit carries two. The carriers who make it work are the ones who know each other, and these meetings are where they meet. All events in the area, past and upcoming, are on Los Angeles · Long Beach on SwapContainer.

If you organise an event for drayage carriers in Southern California and it is missing, write to info@swapcontainer.com with the link to its official page.