<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">Norway's consumer prices rose 0.5 percent in March, compared with an increase of 0.4 percent in Febr</div>

Norway's consumer prices rose 0.5 percent in March, compared with an increase of 0.4 percent in Febr

<div>Norway's consumer prices rose 0.5 percent in March, compared with an increase of 0.4 percent in February, the Central Bureau of Statistics reported Monday.In the 12 months through March, prices were up 1 percent, compared with a 1.4 percent consumer inflation rate in the 12 months through February.The March index figure was at 252.7, compared with 251.4 in February and 250.1 in March 1993.</div>...

Norway's consumer prices rose 0.5 percent in March, compared with an increase of 0.4 percent in February, the Central Bureau of Statistics reported Monday. In the 12 months through March, prices were up 1 percent, compared with a 1.4 percent consumer inflation rate in the 12 months through February.The March index figure was at 252.7, compared with 251.4 in February and 250.1 in March 1993.

CONSUMER PRICES RISE IN NORWAY

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">The automotive sector is driving the unseasonably strong volumes as manufacturers expedite shipments from Europe to the US to avoid new duties coming in April.</div>

The automotive sector is driving the unseasonably strong volumes as manufacturers expedite shipments from Europe to the US to avoid new duties coming in April.

Feature image

<div class="phx-topic">Forwarders are scrambling to support an unseasonal surge in air freight frontloading on westbound trans-Atlantic routes ahead of new US tariffs on the European Union set to be implemented on April 2. The rising demand is starting to push up air cargo rates that jumped 8% this week to almost $5 per kilogram, a price last seen during the peak shipping period ahead of Lunar New Year in late January. Niall van de Wouw, chief air freight officer at rate benchmarking platform Xeneta, said volume from Western Europe to the US was up 11% year over year in the first week of March, significantly higher than the current global average demand. The dynamic load factor during that week was at 76%, which van de Wouw said indicated a tight market overall. Martin Habisreitinger, COO for air freight at Hellmann Worldwide Logistics, said the surge in air cargo volume from Europe to the US was being driven primarily by the automotive sector. “This increase is directly related to the upcoming tariffs set to take effect in April, with shippers expediting shipments to avoid the new duties,” he told the Journal of Commerce Tuesday. US President Donald Trump last month announced plans to impose 25% tariffs on imported cars from April 2. It will come on the back of new US tariffs on steel and aluminium that went into effect last week with a blanket duty of 25% on imports, including from the European Union. The EU responded with its own tariffs due to take effect April 1, including a 25% tax on American whiskey, prompting a threat from Trump to raise tariffs to 200% on wine and spirits imports from the “hostile and abusive” EU. Loic Gay, global air freight leader at CEVA Logistics, said demand on the trans-Atlantic was high due to restocking efforts in the US. “Flights are expected to operate at full capacity, and air freight rates will likely remain elevated, especially for main deck cargo space,” Gay told the Journal of Commerce Tuesday. “The main challenge currently facing the trans-Atlantic air freight lane is the significant reduction in freighter capacity compared to last year, with an estimated drop of 2,000 tons per week,” he said, noting that carriers have redeployed freighters to the Asia-Pacific region to support strong e-commerce demand “for the time being.” <h3>Unpredictable, volatile trade lane </h3>While the threat of tariffs and retaliatory measures is encouraging shippers to transport products early if they can, it is also driving up uncertainty in the trans-Atlantic air freight market. “At the moment there is strong ad hoc demand for air cargo from Europe into the US and we hope this will continue, but it is so unpredictable,” said Holger Ketz, global head of network and carrier management at Kuehne + Nagel. That was echoed by Habisreitinger, who said the evolving global landscape and its impact on demand volatility, particularly driven by trade wars and geopolitics, was challenging. “We anticipate the current peak demand will decrease toward the end of March, aligning with the implementation of the new automotive tariffs,” he said. Relief appears to be in sight for the forwarders as the airlines roll out their summer schedules on April 1. While carriers trim flight frequencies over the winter, the airlines add widebody passenger flights to trans-Atlantic schedules in the summer to serve rising passenger demand, increasing the volume of available belly cargo capacity. “With the start of the summer flight schedule on April 1, we expect an increase in trans-Atlantic flights, which will help ease capacity pressures and allow for more stable and predictable planning,” Habisreitinger said. Van de Wouw said the added space offered by the summer schedules typically reduces load factors on Europe-US flights by 10% to 20%, depending on the destinations. Gay said CEVA was expecting a recovery of capacity on passenger planes this season, as was Ketz, who said Kuehne + Nagel was finalizing summer schedule planning with airlines. “But it is extremely difficult to predict this year, and we must find the right balance between our own and commercial capacity,” Ketz told the Journal of Commerce. Contact Greg Knowler at <a href="mailto:greg.knowler@spglobal.com">greg.knowler@spglobal.com</a>. </div>

Forwarders are scrambling to support an unseasonal surge in air freight frontloading on westbound trans-Atlantic routes ahead of new US tariffs on the European Union set to be implemented on April 2. The rising demand is starting to push up air cargo rates that jumped 8% this week to almost $5 per kilogram, a price last seen during the peak shipping period ahead of Lunar New Year in late January. Niall van de Wouw, chief air freight officer at rate benchmarking platform Xeneta, said volume from Western Europe to the US was up 11% year over year in the first week of March, significantly higher than the current global average demand. The dynamic load factor during that week was at 76%, which van de Wouw said indicated a tight market overall. Martin Habisreitinger, COO for air freight at Hellmann Worldwide Logistics, said the surge in air cargo volume from Europe to the US was being driven primarily by the automotive sector. “This increase is directly related to the upcoming tariffs set to take effect in April, with shippers expediting shipments to avoid the new duties,” he told the Journal of Commerce Tuesday. US President Donald Trump last month announced plans to impose 25% tariffs on imported cars from April 2. It will come on the back of new US tariffs on steel and aluminium that went into effect last week with a blanket duty of 25% on imports, including from the European Union. The EU responded with its own tariffs due to take effect April 1, including a 25% tax on American whiskey, prompting a threat from Trump to raise tariffs to 200% on wine and spirits imports from the “hostile and abusive” EU. Loic Gay, global air freight leader at CEVA Logistics, said demand on the trans-Atlantic was high due to restocking efforts in the US. “Flights are expected to operate at full capacity, and air freight rates will likely remain elevated, especially for main deck cargo space,” Gay told the Journal of Commerce Tuesday. “The main challenge currently facing the trans-Atlantic air freight lane is the significant reduction in freighter capacity compared to last year, with an estimated drop of 2,000 tons per week,” he said, noting that carriers have redeployed freighters to the Asia-Pacific region to support strong e-commerce demand “for the time being.” Unpredictable, volatile trade lane While the threat of tariffs and retaliatory measures is encouraging shippers to transport products early if they can, it is also driving up uncertainty in the trans-Atlantic air freight market. “At the moment there is strong ad hoc demand for air cargo from Europe into the US and we hope this will continue, but it is so unpredictable,” said Holger Ketz, global head of network and carrier management at Kuehne + Nagel. That was echoed by Habisreitinger, who said the evolving global landscape and its impact on demand volatility, particularly driven by trade wars and geopolitics, was challenging. “We anticipate the current peak demand will decrease toward the end of March, aligning with the implementation of the new automotive tariffs,” he said. Relief appears to be in sight for the forwarders as the airlines roll out their summer schedules on April 1. While carriers trim flight frequencies over the winter, the airlines add widebody passenger flights to trans-Atlantic schedules in the summer to serve rising passenger demand, increasing the volume of available belly cargo capacity. “With the start of the summer flight schedule on April 1, we expect an increase in trans-Atlantic flights, which will help ease capacity pressures and allow for more stable and predictable planning,” Habisreitinger said. Van de Wouw said the added space offered by the summer schedules typically reduces load factors on Europe-US flights by 10% to 20%, depending on the destinations. Gay said CEVA was expecting a recovery of capacity on passenger planes this season, as was Ketz, who said Kuehne + Nagel was finalizing summer schedule planning with airlines. “But it is extremely difficult to predict this year, and we must find the right balance between our own and commercial capacity,” Ketz told the Journal of Commerce. Contact Greg Knowler at greg.knowler@spglobal.com .

Air Cargo

Air Cargo Forwarder News

Air Cargo Carriers News

Trans-Atlantic air cargo demand surges ahead of US tariffs

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">Running loops with fewer ships will not be the current priority for an oversupplied industry, but new entrants may be more inclined to look at a lean, efficient product that has a competitive service edge in the key hubs it serves, writes Jeremy Masters.</div>

Running loops with fewer ships will not be the current priority for an oversupplied industry, but new entrants may be more inclined to look at a lean, efficient product that has a competitive service edge in the key hubs it serves, writes Jeremy Masters.

<div class="phx-topic">The change in 2025 to four major east-west networks versus three before has created new pressures for carriers and consortiums to positively differentiate their ship systems. All networks need as much market access as possible at as low an overall system cost as possible in order to maximize profit. The starting point is comprised of key hubs that combine a large local market with excellent connectivity by multiple modes (feeder/barge/rail/truck) to a cargo-rich hinterland. <div class="wrapper-narrow float-right-element"><img src="/images/phoenix/5965588_0.1.jpg"></img></div>Hubs are often associated with ocean transshipment, but a hub can be anywhere there is cost-effective and service-effective access to significant local and regional markets. There are comparatively few ports outside of China that fully deliver that particular combo. Rotterdam, Antwerp and Hamburg in Northern Europe are obvious examples. Los Angeles/Long Beach and New York/New Jersey in the US are the biggest North American cases, but Vancouver and Montreal in Canada also exhibit the key features. Many other significant ports have a strong local market or great connectivity, but not both. In the long run, those ports’ cargo flows are more vulnerable. Gemini Cooperation’s hub-and-spoke system differentiates itself by focusing on limiting the number of hubs as much as possible to places where one of the partners has terminal ownership. By adding in-house feeder systems and serving fewer other ports directly, they feel able to make service guarantees that considerably exceed previous industry performance. The design question Gemini faced and will continue to review based on commercial and operational experience is: If the hubs are very strong cargo generators, how many other ports do we need to fill the ships and what kind of frequency/transit time/reliability features are required to meet client needs? If we look at Gemini’s North Atlantic loops as an example, we have: TA3/AL1: Southampton, Rotterdam, Hamburg, Wilhelmshaven, Newark, Norfolk, Baltimore, Saint John, Southampton. TA1/AL2: Antwerp, Rotterdam, Bremerhaven, Norfolk (including Portsmouth), Houston, Norfolk, Antwerp. TA2/AL3: Antwerp, Southampton, Hamburg, Rotterdam, Charleston, Savannah, Norfolk, Antwerp. TA4/AL4: Southampton, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Hamburg, Wilhelmshaven, Veracruz, Altamira, Miami, Southampton. In no case are there less than three European ports and three North American/ Mexican ports in the rotation. There are good reasons for every choice, but the result is more port calls than were originally envisaged, which ultimately means more ship costs, more bunker costs, more port costs, and longer transit times in some port pairs. The other networks’ North Atlantic services typically call four to five ports in North Europe and three to four ports in North America and need five to seven ships to maintain a weekly schedule. Independent Container Line, which calls at three ports in Europe and two in the US, needs four ships to maintain a weekly rotation. <h3>‘Ultra-streamlined’ service </h3>If Gemini or others decided to take hub-and-spoke to its most advanced form in any trade, they may ultimately have some loops with just one — or a maximum of two ports — at each end of the trade. It would be possible depending on the ports chosen, the rotation and average speed to run a weekly rotation — at least in the summer — with just three ships, but four would be ample. The downside would be the loss of some direct port pairs and less frequency in other port pairs. The upside is clearly that overall system costs would be significantly reduced and transit times in some port pairs would also be improved. If some of that cost saving was used to operate the ships quicker (requiring higher bunker consumption), the streamlined loops would have some of the fastest industry transit times. Furthermore, accepting Gemini’s assertion that the more ports that are in a loop the more unreliable it is, such an ultra-streamlined service would have the potential to be the most reliable product in the trade. <h3>Can this model work? </h3>There is a long-term precedent on the North Atlantic for the one-port model, and that is Montreal. The local market for Montreal is big and there is excellent connectivity to the hinterland with two railroads, so carriers have been able to operate with just one call in North America on some of their loops. Running loops with fewer ships will not be the current priority for an oversupplied industry, but new entrants may be more inclined to look at a lean, efficient product that has a competitive service edge in the key hubs it serves. In the meantime, the US Trade Representative recommendations on taxing Chinese tonnage calling US ports are also going to re-exercise minds in the coming months, and carriers may rethink how many US calls are essential. Ultra-streamlined services may then be an idea whose time has come, even if not universally welcome. Contact Jeremy Masters at <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/jeremy@shippingmastershk.com">jeremy@shippingmastershk.com</a>.Jeremy Masters consults for the Montreal Port Authority, which operates a hub-and-spoke model. </div>

The change in 2025 to four major east-west networks versus three before has created new pressures for carriers and consortiums to positively differentiate their ship systems. All networks need as much market access as possible at as low an overall system cost as possible in order to maximize profit. The starting point is comprised of key hubs that combine a large local market with excellent connectivity by multiple modes (feeder/barge/rail/truck) to a cargo-rich hinterland. Hubs are often associated with ocean transshipment, but a hub can be anywhere there is cost-effective and service-effective access to significant local and regional markets. There are comparatively few ports outside of China that fully deliver that particular combo. Rotterdam, Antwerp and Hamburg in Northern Europe are obvious examples. Los Angeles/Long Beach and New York/New Jersey in the US are the biggest North American cases, but Vancouver and Montreal in Canada also exhibit the key features. Many other significant ports have a strong local market or great connectivity, but not both. In the long run, those ports’ cargo flows are more vulnerable. Gemini Cooperation’s hub-and-spoke system differentiates itself by focusing on limiting the number of hubs as much as possible to places where one of the partners has terminal ownership. By adding in-house feeder systems and serving fewer other ports directly, they feel able to make service guarantees that considerably exceed previous industry performance. The design question Gemini faced and will continue to review based on commercial and operational experience is: If the hubs are very strong cargo generators, how many other ports do we need to fill the ships and what kind of frequency/transit time/reliability features are required to meet client needs? If we look at Gemini’s North Atlantic loops as an example, we have: TA3/AL1: Southampton, Rotterdam, Hamburg, Wilhelmshaven, Newark, Norfolk, Baltimore, Saint John, Southampton. TA1/AL2: Antwerp, Rotterdam, Bremerhaven, Norfolk (including Portsmouth), Houston, Norfolk, Antwerp. TA2/AL3: Antwerp, Southampton, Hamburg, Rotterdam, Charleston, Savannah, Norfolk, Antwerp. TA4/AL4: Southampton, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Hamburg, Wilhelmshaven, Veracruz, Altamira, Miami, Southampton. In no case are there less than three European ports and three North American/ Mexican ports in the rotation. There are good reasons for every choice, but the result is more port calls than were originally envisaged, which ultimately means more ship costs, more bunker costs, more port costs, and longer transit times in some port pairs. The other networks’ North Atlantic services typically call four to five ports in North Europe and three to four ports in North America and need five to seven ships to maintain a weekly schedule. Independent Container Line, which calls at three ports in Europe and two in the US, needs four ships to maintain a weekly rotation. ‘Ultra-streamlined’ service If Gemini or others decided to take hub-and-spoke to its most advanced form in any trade, they may ultimately have some loops with just one — or a maximum of two ports — at each end of the trade. It would be possible depending on the ports chosen, the rotation and average speed to run a weekly rotation — at least in the summer — with just three ships, but four would be ample. The downside would be the loss of some direct port pairs and less frequency in other port pairs. The upside is clearly that overall system costs would be significantly reduced and transit times in some port pairs would also be improved. If some of that cost saving was used to operate the ships quicker (requiring higher bunker consumption), the streamlined loops would have some of the fastest industry transit times. Furthermore, accepting Gemini’s assertion that the more ports that are in a loop the more unreliable it is, such an ultra-streamlined service would have the potential to be the most reliable product in the trade. Can this model work? There is a long-term precedent on the North Atlantic for the one-port model, and that is Montreal. The local market for Montreal is big and there is excellent connectivity to the hinterland with two railroads, so carriers have been able to operate with just one call in North America on some of their loops. Running loops with fewer ships will not be the current priority for an oversupplied industry, but new entrants may be more inclined to look at a lean, efficient product that has a competitive service edge in the key hubs it serves. In the meantime, the US Trade Representative recommendations on taxing Chinese tonnage calling US ports are also going to re-exercise minds in the coming months, and carriers may rethink how many US calls are essential. Ultra-streamlined services may then be an idea whose time has come, even if not universally welcome. Contact Jeremy Masters at jeremy@shippingmastershk.com .Jeremy Masters consults for the Montreal Port Authority, which operates a hub-and-spoke model.

Container lines

North American ports

Marine terminals

International ports

Maritime

Is there an option for carriers to take ‘hub-and-spoke’ to next level?

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">A revision to monthly employment data shows a smaller pool of employees at for-hire trucking companies and a potential tilt toward brokers and small carriers. </div>

A revision to monthly employment data shows a smaller pool of employees at for-hire trucking companies and a potential tilt toward brokers and small carriers.

<div class="phx-topic">US employment data for February revealed a larger-than-expected shortfall in trucking employment, throwing light on a structural change in the US trucking market. The shortfall implies that truckload capacity — at least at larger carriers — could tighten more quickly when demand rises. It also underscores a shift in employment and resources from larger carriers <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/small-us-trucking-firms-winning-battle-for-drivers-5226976">to smaller trucking firms</a>, a shift that may be permanent. That has implications for shippers and freight brokers planning for 2025 and beyond. Currently, shippers tell the Journal of Commerce they have not had trouble finding truckload capacity, and that truckload pricing, while rising, is climbing only by low single digits. An annual revision of employment data by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) found trucking employment had been over-reported in the period from 2022 through 2024, with the number of motor-carrier employees inflated by as much as 2% to 4%. The revision pulled down trucking employment numbers as far back as 2022 and left for-hire trucking payrolls at their lowest point since May 2021. With 1.49 million employees in February, those payroll numbers were lower than in the pre-pandemic year of 2019. <div class="wrapper-narrow"><dynamic-object type="jocchartid" resource-id="73158b3f-ee15-4c69-8e63-176108dda90a"></dynamic-object></div>The extent of the shortfall is evident in the Journal of Commerce For-Hire Trucking Employment Index. In January, pre-revision, the index reading was 101.4, based on a pool of about 1.55 million workers. Post-revision, the index reading dropped 3% to 98.4, based on a pool of about 1.49 million trucking employees. The index is based on the average trucking employment in the fourth quarter of 2018, non-seasonally adjusted. “We saw this coming,” Avery Vise, vice president of trucking at FTR Transportation Intelligence, told the Journal of Commerce. A growing divergence between the BLS’ monthly payroll report and its quarterly employment census was <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/divergent-data-suggests-us-trucking-jobs-lower-than-reported-5729235">reported last fall</a>. The quarterly BLS Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) is based on unemployment insurance filings, while the monthly Current Employment Statistics (CES) report draws on a large but random sample of business, including trucking companies. The monthly survey is benchmarked to the much broader QCEW, and in the past the trend lines of the two reports have closely matched, said Jason Miller, professor of supply chain management at Michigan State University. That began to change in 2022. “My general sense right now is that capacity is around where it was in 2019, with freight volumes also around those levels,” Miller said. “That would suggest we will have a year where capacity is generally available, with usual seasonal tightening.” The monthly BLS employment survey captures payroll data from carriers “with probably 10 trucks or more,” FTR’s Vise said. He also believes capacity among those motor carriers is essentially back to pre-pandemic levels, both in terms of drivers and trucks in their fleets. <h3>More small carriers </h3>However, the number of small carriers with one to five trucks is about 35% higher than before 2020, Vise said. That has kept the supply-demand balance in the shipper’s favor. “We still have a capacity overhang,” he said, but it’s on the small carrier side of the market. Truckload carriers with one to five trucks represent 90% of the truckload market, but carriers with 100 trucks or more account for half of all truckload capacity, Vise said. In past cycles, excess small carrier capacity exits as the market slogs through its trough. That hasn’t happened to the same extent as in previous cycles this time around. First, an unprecedented number of small carriers entered the market from 2020 through 2022, and “small carrier capacity is much more resilient” than it used to be, Vise said. “We’re trained to think of capacity in terms of how many trucks are out there for major truckload companies, but there’s been a structural change there,” said Vise. Large truckload carriers slashed truck capacity starting in 2022. Fleet cuts were evident in the Journal of Commerce Truckload Capacity Index, which is based on truck counts at publicly owned companies. The index dropped 17.5 points from 2022 through 2024. The number of motor carrier authorities — held mostly by small firms — rose by 128,115 from 2019 through the end of 2022, and then fell by 39,481 through last month, according to the US Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). There were still 88,634 more carriers on the books last month than at the end of 2019, the FMCSA data shows. Those carriers typically work with third-party brokers to secure freight, and they’ve managed to survive a freight and rate downturn that has lasted three years. “The truckload sector reached a point recently where half of all drivers in the for-hire fleets drove for the one to 100 truck fleets,” Jeff Tucker, CEO of logistics provider Tucker Company Worldwide, said at the Journal of Commerce’s TPM25 conference earlier this month. “The average size of those fleets was one to five trucks, and you wouldn’t touch those fleets unless you’re a broker,” Tucker said. Drivers have been gradually shifting to small carriers since the 2008–09 recession, and more quickly since 2020, he said. “The spot market has become a platform for brokers to do business with their small carrier partners, and the brokers are going to market in a much more even footing with truckload carriers,” FTR’s Vise said in a separate interview last week. “Until the last few years, getting the next load was very difficult” for small carriers, he said. “Today, there’s a lot more visibility. Small carriers now can eke out more utilization which means the market can absorb more freight without increases in rates.” And the shift seen in that trend might be “permanent, or long-standing,” he said. Contact William B. Cassidy at <a href="mailto:bill.cassidy@spglobal.com">bill.cassidy@spglobal.com</a>.</div>

US employment data for February revealed a larger-than-expected shortfall in trucking employment, throwing light on a structural change in the US trucking market. The shortfall implies that truckload capacity — at least at larger carriers — could tighten more quickly when demand rises. It also underscores a shift in employment and resources from larger carriers to smaller trucking firms , a shift that may be permanent. That has implications for shippers and freight brokers planning for 2025 and beyond. Currently, shippers tell the Journal of Commerce they have not had trouble finding truckload capacity, and that truckload pricing, while rising, is climbing only by low single digits. An annual revision of employment data by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) found trucking employment had been over-reported in the period from 2022 through 2024, with the number of motor-carrier employees inflated by as much as 2% to 4%. The revision pulled down trucking employment numbers as far back as 2022 and left for-hire trucking payrolls at their lowest point since May 2021. With 1.49 million employees in February, those payroll numbers were lower than in the pre-pandemic year of 2019. The extent of the shortfall is evident in the Journal of Commerce For-Hire Trucking Employment Index. In January, pre-revision, the index reading was 101.4, based on a pool of about 1.55 million workers. Post-revision, the index reading dropped 3% to 98.4, based on a pool of about 1.49 million trucking employees. The index is based on the average trucking employment in the fourth quarter of 2018, non-seasonally adjusted. “We saw this coming,” Avery Vise, vice president of trucking at FTR Transportation Intelligence, told the Journal of Commerce. A growing divergence between the BLS’ monthly payroll report and its quarterly employment census was reported last fall . The quarterly BLS Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) is based on unemployment insurance filings, while the monthly Current Employment Statistics (CES) report draws on a large but random sample of business, including trucking companies. The monthly survey is benchmarked to the much broader QCEW, and in the past the trend lines of the two reports have closely matched, said Jason Miller, professor of supply chain management at Michigan State University. That began to change in 2022. “My general sense right now is that capacity is around where it was in 2019, with freight volumes also around those levels,” Miller said. “That would suggest we will have a year where capacity is generally available, with usual seasonal tightening.” The monthly BLS employment survey captures payroll data from carriers “with probably 10 trucks or more,” FTR’s Vise said. He also believes capacity among those motor carriers is essentially back to pre-pandemic levels, both in terms of drivers and trucks in their fleets. More small carriers However, the number of small carriers with one to five trucks is about 35% higher than before 2020, Vise said. That has kept the supply-demand balance in the shipper’s favor. “We still have a capacity overhang,” he said, but it’s on the small carrier side of the market. Truckload carriers with one to five trucks represent 90% of the truckload market, but carriers with 100 trucks or more account for half of all truckload capacity, Vise said. In past cycles, excess small carrier capacity exits as the market slogs through its trough. That hasn’t happened to the same extent as in previous cycles this time around. First, an unprecedented number of small carriers entered the market from 2020 through 2022, and “small carrier capacity is much more resilient” than it used to be, Vise said. “We’re trained to think of capacity in terms of how many trucks are out there for major truckload companies, but there’s been a structural change there,” said Vise. Large truckload carriers slashed truck capacity starting in 2022. Fleet cuts were evident in the Journal of Commerce Truckload Capacity Index, which is based on truck counts at publicly owned companies. The index dropped 17.5 points from 2022 through 2024. The number of motor carrier authorities — held mostly by small firms — rose by 128,115 from 2019 through the end of 2022, and then fell by 39,481 through last month, according to the US Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). There were still 88,634 more carriers on the books last month than at the end of 2019, the FMCSA data shows. Those carriers typically work with third-party brokers to secure freight, and they’ve managed to survive a freight and rate downturn that has lasted three years. “The truckload sector reached a point recently where half of all drivers in the for-hire fleets drove for the one to 100 truck fleets,” Jeff Tucker, CEO of logistics provider Tucker Company Worldwide, said at the Journal of Commerce’s TPM25 conference earlier this month. “The average size of those fleets was one to five trucks, and you wouldn’t touch those fleets unless you’re a broker,” Tucker said. Drivers have been gradually shifting to small carriers since the 2008–09 recession, and more quickly since 2020, he said. “The spot market has become a platform for brokers to do business with their small carrier partners, and the brokers are going to market in a much more even footing with truckload carriers,” FTR’s Vise said in a separate interview last week. “Until the last few years, getting the next load was very difficult” for small carriers, he said. “Today, there’s a lot more visibility. Small carriers now can eke out more utilization which means the market can absorb more freight without increases in rates.” And the shift seen in that trend might be “permanent, or long-standing,” he said. Contact William B. Cassidy at bill.cassidy@spglobal.com .

Trucking News

Trucking labor

Surface

Revised US payroll numbers underscore truckload market shift

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">The port will berth vessels at its smaller Ocean Terminal two miles downriver from the main Garden City terminal in order to cut waiting times outside the port and reduce ship backlogs. </div>

The port will berth vessels at its smaller Ocean Terminal two miles downriver from the main Garden City terminal in order to cut waiting times outside the port and reduce ship backlogs.

<div class="phx-topic">The Port of Savannah is using underutilized berth space at its smaller terminal to park ships ahead of their unloading at the port’s main container terminal. The port is doing so to reduce the number of ships idling at anchor, an issue that hit the port hard during a particularly tough winter but will also require long-term improvements in navigating the Savannah River. The Georgia Ports Authority (GPA) said in late February it would open a lay berth at its Ocean Terminal as a place to stage large ships prior to their arrival at GPA’s main Garden City marine terminal two miles upriver. GPA Chief Executive Griff Lynch told the Journal of Commerce last week that the opening of the Ocean Terminal lay berth means a ship can be immediately ready to dock at Garden City when there is an open berth. Currently, ships wait at anchor outside the port for a berth to open at Garden City, then make the 13-mile transit up the Savannah River when the navigation conditions are right. “It’s a parking spot at Ocean Terminal where a ship can be docked,” Lynch said. Having the lay berth will allow GPA to handle two more post-Panamax ships per week than it can currently, he added. GPA will also get more utilization out of Garden City as the idle time between ship calls for berths will go from 12 hours to three hours. The plans to open the lay berth at Ocean Terminal — part of the GPA’s broader strategy to increase container handling at the facility that serves a variety of cargoes — comes after the port faced a rare snowstorm in late January that contributed to a backlog of ships at anchor to start 2025. Winter storm Enzo dropped three to four inches of snow at Savannah, which closed Garden City for four days, Lynch said. The warming trend following Enzo caused heavy fog conditions during early February that also periodically closed the Savannah River to navigation. Lynch said the port lost 143 work hours due to the January snowstorm, which he said was among the “worse months for weather” that he has ever seen at Savannah. While the port had little backlog during December, the terminal closure and the fog led to a backlog of anchored vessels outside the port that reached as many as 20 to 25 ships on some days, Lynch said. <h3>Limits of Savannah River </h3>For shippers, the backlog meant further delays on receiving cargo. The median delay between the estimated time of arrival and the actual time of arrival for container ships calling Savannah reached over 10 days in February, according to data from visibility provider p44. That compares with a median delay of around four days for other major East Coast ports. Lynch, who said customers asked about delays during TPM25, said the worst is well past Savannah. The port is seeing about eight or nine ships at anchor at a time now, he said, adding that the wait time for an open berth at Garden City is only about three days, which is close to typical at most East Coast ports. Outside of weather events, the Ocean Terminal lay berth also offers GPA a workaround for the capacity limits of the Savannah River. The river is only wide enough for post-Panamax ships to travel in one direction at a time, further limiting arrivals and departures at Garden City. The Savannah River also has one of the largest tidal shifts along the Eastern seaboard that can impact the berthing window for ships coming into the port. The river, which is dredged to 47 feet, sees an average tidal shift of seven feet. That shift can impact the air clearance for large ships under the Talmadge Bridge just downriver from Garden City. The Georgia Department of Transportation is in the early stages of coming up with a new bridge design as it plans to demolish the Talmadge Bridge. The US Army Corps of Engineers is also looking at modifications to Savannah’s lower harbor that would allow for two-way ship traffic in some spots. But those projects will take time, Lynch said. “We have a challenge with the shipping channel,” he said. “A harbor modification that would enable passing zones will take a number of years. In the meantime, we have a solution for that through developing Ocean Terminal for container handling.” Lynch said a second lay berth for large ships will open at Ocean Terminal by mid-2026, something that will allow another two big ships per week to call Garden City. By 2027, Ocean Terminal is expected to start capital improvements that will enable it to become a dedicated container terminal for handling up to 1.5 million TEUs per year, Lynch said. Contact Michael Angell at <a href="mailto:michael.angell@spglobal.com">michael.angell@spglobal.com</a>. </div>

The Port of Savannah is using underutilized berth space at its smaller terminal to park ships ahead of their unloading at the port’s main container terminal. The port is doing so to reduce the number of ships idling at anchor, an issue that hit the port hard during a particularly tough winter but will also require long-term improvements in navigating the Savannah River. The Georgia Ports Authority (GPA) said in late February it would open a lay berth at its Ocean Terminal as a place to stage large ships prior to their arrival at GPA’s main Garden City marine terminal two miles upriver. GPA Chief Executive Griff Lynch told the Journal of Commerce last week that the opening of the Ocean Terminal lay berth means a ship can be immediately ready to dock at Garden City when there is an open berth. Currently, ships wait at anchor outside the port for a berth to open at Garden City, then make the 13-mile transit up the Savannah River when the navigation conditions are right. “It’s a parking spot at Ocean Terminal where a ship can be docked,” Lynch said. Having the lay berth will allow GPA to handle two more post-Panamax ships per week than it can currently, he added. GPA will also get more utilization out of Garden City as the idle time between ship calls for berths will go from 12 hours to three hours. The plans to open the lay berth at Ocean Terminal — part of the GPA’s broader strategy to increase container handling at the facility that serves a variety of cargoes — comes after the port faced a rare snowstorm in late January that contributed to a backlog of ships at anchor to start 2025. Winter storm Enzo dropped three to four inches of snow at Savannah, which closed Garden City for four days, Lynch said. The warming trend following Enzo caused heavy fog conditions during early February that also periodically closed the Savannah River to navigation. Lynch said the port lost 143 work hours due to the January snowstorm, which he said was among the “worse months for weather” that he has ever seen at Savannah. While the port had little backlog during December, the terminal closure and the fog led to a backlog of anchored vessels outside the port that reached as many as 20 to 25 ships on some days, Lynch said. Limits of Savannah River For shippers, the backlog meant further delays on receiving cargo. The median delay between the estimated time of arrival and the actual time of arrival for container ships calling Savannah reached over 10 days in February, according to data from visibility provider p44. That compares with a median delay of around four days for other major East Coast ports. Lynch, who said customers asked about delays during TPM25, said the worst is well past Savannah. The port is seeing about eight or nine ships at anchor at a time now, he said, adding that the wait time for an open berth at Garden City is only about three days, which is close to typical at most East Coast ports. Outside of weather events, the Ocean Terminal lay berth also offers GPA a workaround for the capacity limits of the Savannah River. The river is only wide enough for post-Panamax ships to travel in one direction at a time, further limiting arrivals and departures at Garden City. The Savannah River also has one of the largest tidal shifts along the Eastern seaboard that can impact the berthing window for ships coming into the port. The river, which is dredged to 47 feet, sees an average tidal shift of seven feet. That shift can impact the air clearance for large ships under the Talmadge Bridge just downriver from Garden City. The Georgia Department of Transportation is in the early stages of coming up with a new bridge design as it plans to demolish the Talmadge Bridge. The US Army Corps of Engineers is also looking at modifications to Savannah’s lower harbor that would allow for two-way ship traffic in some spots. But those projects will take time, Lynch said. “We have a challenge with the shipping channel,” he said. “A harbor modification that would enable passing zones will take a number of years. In the meantime, we have a solution for that through developing Ocean Terminal for container handling.” Lynch said a second lay berth for large ships will open at Ocean Terminal by mid-2026, something that will allow another two big ships per week to call Garden City. By 2027, Ocean Terminal is expected to start capital improvements that will enable it to become a dedicated container terminal for handling up to 1.5 million TEUs per year, Lynch said. Contact Michael Angell at michael.angell@spglobal.com .

Savannah’s ‘parking spot’ targets idle time for ships, main terminal

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">Ports across the continent are struggling to clear bottlenecks as containers stack up in terminals and delay inland and feeder connections.</div>

Ports across the continent are struggling to clear bottlenecks as containers stack up in terminals and delay inland and feeder connections.

<div class="phx-topic">Severe congestion continues to plague ports across Europe with new alliance vessel plans combining with strikes, bad weather and fully occupied container yards to delay ships and disrupt terminal operations. The bottlenecks are being felt in both North Europe and the Mediterranean, with carriers, terminals and forwarders reporting lengthy delays in some ports. Maersk said in its latest Europe advisory that all terminals in Antwerp were congested “due to the phase-in and phase-out of vessel plans,” a factor that was being exacerbated by late vessel arrivals from delays in previous ports. Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd are phasing in Gemini Cooperation services, with the new network expected to be fully deployed by the end of the second quarter. Likewise, Mediterranean Shipping Co. is moving services from its 2M Alliance with Maersk to a standalone network, and the Premier Alliance is adjusting to services without Hapag-Lloyd. Carrier executives have warned customers that operational disruptions to port schedules will be experienced, with some old and new services running in parallel. The new networks will require two full cycles from Asia to Europe and back to Asia before they will be fully rolled out. Maersk also reported delays in Bremerhaven, where several services were arriving late due to bad weather en route to the German port. In Rotterdam, the carrier said the Hutchinson Ports Delta II terminal was back to full operational productivity <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/strikes-storms-and-record-volumes-adding-to-north-europe-port-delays-5942119">after a month of slowdowns</a> following a tentative agreement between the company and dockworkers, but a backlog of inland cargo was still being cleared. South Korean carrier HMM warned customers it was taking an average of three days to secure a berth at Hamburg that was experiencing a strike by boat pilots, while berth waiting times at Le Havre were up to 5.7 days because of recurring strikes in the French hub. French unions are holding four-hour stoppages in Le Havre on eight separate days in March, in addition to a three-day strike planned this week from March 18–20. Significant disruption is already being experienced from the rolling industrial action, and the full-day strikes are set to bring container operations in France to a standstill this week. Spillover effects of the Le Havre strike are also affecting Rotterdam, according to HMM, which said the average berth waiting time at Europe’s largest container port was 5.6 days. <h3>Yards and berths fully occupied </h3>Kuehne + Nagel’s SeaExplorer visibility platform reported heavily disrupted operations at Rotterdam, Hamburg, Antwerp and Le Havre, with full container yards and most berths fully occupied. Although SeaExplorer put the average waiting time at Hamburg at 1.25 days, it said the port was experiencing “heavily disrupted operations.” The bottlenecks saw Hamburg terminal operator HHLA imposing container delivery restrictions from Monday at Container Terminal Burchardkai (CTB) and Container Terminal Tollerort (CTT). Export container deliveries will be managed on a ship-by-ship basis, “potentially causing delays and complicating daily operations,” HHLA noted. At Rotterdam’s ECT Euromax terminal, Hutchison Ports has announced that container stacks are so high it will not be able to accept empty containers delivered by road ​​from​March 23 “​​to prevent an unworkable situation.” The port bottlenecks are also impacting inland connections from Rotterdam and nearby Antwerp. Intermodal operator Contargo on Monday reported average waiting times for the handling of its barges have reached 75 hours in Antwerp and 72 hours in Rotterdam. Adding to the port congestion issues are seasonal low water levels in the Rhine River that restrict the loading of containers for inland destinations and are generating surcharges of about €50 ($54) per box. The low-water surcharges will rise as water levels drop further through the summer, with shifting cargo putting pressure on road and rail services. In the Mediterranean, HMM noted that the Greek hub of Piraeus has a berth waiting time of 4.4 days and six days for feeder vessels, while average berth wait times at Genoa and La Spezia were four days. Contact Greg Knowler at <a href="mailto:greg.knowler@spglobal.com">greg.knowler@spglobal.com</a>.</div>

Severe congestion continues to plague ports across Europe with new alliance vessel plans combining with strikes, bad weather and fully occupied container yards to delay ships and disrupt terminal operations. The bottlenecks are being felt in both North Europe and the Mediterranean, with carriers, terminals and forwarders reporting lengthy delays in some ports. Maersk said in its latest Europe advisory that all terminals in Antwerp were congested “due to the phase-in and phase-out of vessel plans,” a factor that was being exacerbated by late vessel arrivals from delays in previous ports. Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd are phasing in Gemini Cooperation services, with the new network expected to be fully deployed by the end of the second quarter. Likewise, Mediterranean Shipping Co. is moving services from its 2M Alliance with Maersk to a standalone network, and the Premier Alliance is adjusting to services without Hapag-Lloyd. Carrier executives have warned customers that operational disruptions to port schedules will be experienced, with some old and new services running in parallel. The new networks will require two full cycles from Asia to Europe and back to Asia before they will be fully rolled out. Maersk also reported delays in Bremerhaven, where several services were arriving late due to bad weather en route to the German port. In Rotterdam, the carrier said the Hutchinson Ports Delta II terminal was back to full operational productivity after a month of slowdowns following a tentative agreement between the company and dockworkers, but a backlog of inland cargo was still being cleared. South Korean carrier HMM warned customers it was taking an average of three days to secure a berth at Hamburg that was experiencing a strike by boat pilots, while berth waiting times at Le Havre were up to 5.7 days because of recurring strikes in the French hub. French unions are holding four-hour stoppages in Le Havre on eight separate days in March, in addition to a three-day strike planned this week from March 18–20. Significant disruption is already being experienced from the rolling industrial action, and the full-day strikes are set to bring container operations in France to a standstill this week. Spillover effects of the Le Havre strike are also affecting Rotterdam, according to HMM, which said the average berth waiting time at Europe’s largest container port was 5.6 days. Yards and berths fully occupied Kuehne + Nagel’s SeaExplorer visibility platform reported heavily disrupted operations at Rotterdam, Hamburg, Antwerp and Le Havre, with full container yards and most berths fully occupied. Although SeaExplorer put the average waiting time at Hamburg at 1.25 days, it said the port was experiencing “heavily disrupted operations.” The bottlenecks saw Hamburg terminal operator HHLA imposing container delivery restrictions from Monday at Container Terminal Burchardkai (CTB) and Container Terminal Tollerort (CTT). Export container deliveries will be managed on a ship-by-ship basis, “potentially causing delays and complicating daily operations,” HHLA noted. At Rotterdam’s ECT Euromax terminal, Hutchison Ports has announced that container stacks are so high it will not be able to accept empty containers delivered by road ​​from​March 23 “​​to prevent an unworkable situation.” The port bottlenecks are also impacting inland connections from Rotterdam and nearby Antwerp. Intermodal operator Contargo on Monday reported average waiting times for the handling of its barges have reached 75 hours in Antwerp and 72 hours in Rotterdam. Adding to the port congestion issues are seasonal low water levels in the Rhine River that restrict the loading of containers for inland destinations and are generating surcharges of about €50 ($54) per box. The low-water surcharges will rise as water levels drop further through the summer, with shifting cargo putting pressure on road and rail services. In the Mediterranean, HMM noted that the Greek hub of Piraeus has a berth waiting time of 4.4 days and six days for feeder vessels, while average berth wait times at Genoa and La Spezia were four days. Contact Greg Knowler at greg.knowler@spglobal.com .

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The world of LTL is slow to embrace change. Business anachronisms permeate current supply chain processes. These vestiges of the way things used to work define the LTL freight transportation procurement process of many modern shippers.David Knuth, logistics specialist at IEWC, a global supplier of cable and wire based in Wisconsin, is happy to have modernized the RFP process, automating the entire LTL bidding procedure with Bid$ense, SMC³’s automated truckload and LTL freight transportation sourcing solution. But when prompted, he can still recall what once was.In his previous job, a large part of his duties were consumed by creating an intermodal bid package for carriers. In a spreadsheet, Knuth detailed the company’s volumes lane by lane, taking care to delete any errant keystrokes or misleading data. He would then email out the information to each carrier, taking time to respond to detailed technical questions about the spreadsheet data. Finally, he had to compile all the results, create an algorithm that would compare the carriers on each lane, and award the business.“It was a huge undertaking. It took about four months to do,” Knuth said of the old process. “It was almost a full-time job for that part of the year, every year.”In his new job at IEWC, he sat down with Bid$ense on day one and was amazed at the capabilities. Knuth had never before used a bid tool. SMC³’s latest versions of Bid$ense automate the process even further, taking truckload and LTL RFPs entirely online. The tool draws on RFP best-practices protocols to streamline the bidding communication process, enabling bidding carriers to respond accurately and promptly to shipper requests. The solution also does all the distribution work automatically, electronically submitting shipper bid data to carriers based on their actual service capabilities and performance records. Carriers are alerted with timely prompts for RFP deliverables, so shippers aren’t waiting by the phone for responses.Another benefit of automating the process is the data-cleansing assistance. When Knuth sent spreadsheets to carriers, data errors might cloud the bidding process; he might have to resend data or simply accept a price that did not truly reflect the costs of doing business. Data cleansing is incredibly beneficial, he said.The spreadsheet technique also made bidding analysis an onerous task. Since Bid$ense automates and streamlines the entire RFP process, intensive examination is now simple. SMC³ knows that each bid has more than one best outcome. With uniform responses from each carrier, shippers can quickly rank results and create an unlimited quantity of what-if scenarios to make the optimal procurement decision.Jesse Burnett of Central Garden &amp; Pet experiences many of the same benefits. Founded in 1980, Central Garden &amp; Pet has spent the last three decades growing from a small garden supply company to a provider of a range of products from dog chews and bird seed to soil supplements and natural insecticides. For much of its life, the company shipped these disparate goods via LTL and truckload carriers to retailers throughout the country, relying on each business unit to negotiate directly with their freight transportation providers. This arrangement worked fairly well for a small company, but as Central Garden &amp; Pet expanded, leadership decided to consolidate decision making.Burnett helped centralize the transportation decision making in 2015 with SMC³’s Bid$ense. Before Bid$ense, every business unit operated independently as far as negotiating with carriers.“There were a lot of different things just floating around,” he said. “We didn’t have master agreements in place; no national pricing at all. The pricing from carriers was just all over the place, depending on where you were.”The transformations he saw with Bid$ense were immediate. Burnett has been using the tool about every other year since its implementation at the company. Central Garden and Pet’s $19.6 million 2019 LTL bid saved the company just more than 9 percent when compared to its historical average. For Burnett, though, bid automation extends far beyond savings.“We knew that we weren’t getting the best pricing offer from our carriers just because nothing was centralized,” he continued. “We knew that if we combined everything from all these business units and paired it with one corporate offering, then it would drive some cost benefit with it.”When the company initially decided to centralize bid procurement, executives researched a number of different methodologies and technologies. In the end, though, Burnett found that Bid$ense was both widespread and well known, and that his carrier partners already knew how to use the application. Burnett also highlighted the data-cleansing process as a major benefit, saying the rigorous process ensures that carriers always return the best price.“It definitely has helped drive savings,” he said. “Any time you go out there and you drive that competitiveness with the carriers and they know they’re in a bid environment, it seems to sharpen their pencils.”Transportation procurement is an integral part of the modern supply chain. With Bid$ense, shippers can develop a strategic implementation plan that saves them time and money, but also helps them create strong relationships with their carrier partners. These carriers appreciate the solution’s data-cleansing process; when carriers receive a complete shipment history and future volume forecast, they don’t have to guess on pricing. Carriers that receive more data from shippers get a complete picture of that shipper’s freight, allowing them to accurately plan instead of simply preparing for the worst-case scenario. Clean data presented through an automated system can lead to both bigger shipment savings and a lasting partnership between carrier and customer.Whether customers are looking to streamline over-the-road transportation bidding by automating the RFP process or create an entirely new, centralized sourcing process, Bid$ense has the analytical horsepower to get the job done.SMC³ 2020 Customer Case Study

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Shippers save money, time with automated transportation bidding tools

If there’s one immutable truth in the world of logistics, it’s this: LTL is an inherently complex form of transportation. Tariffs, rates, DIM weights, transit times — it’s enough to confuse even seasoned logistics professionals. The solution to this knowledge gap has historically been on-the-job training or university supply chain education, but for a variety of reasons there is now a pressing need for third-party, remote LTL training that prepares logistics workers for transportation success. Global Scope Can Overlook Local Intricacies In the past, professionals looking to move into a supply chain career learned about the basics of supply chain from universities. However, many of these college supply chain programs are now global in scope, focusing on worldwide supply chain management instead of the intricacies of specialized domestic transportation. And even these programs, which used to be widespread, are becoming less common. LTL is not an industry of broad-brush strokes; supply chain professionals really need a pointillistic understanding of the logistics of LTL in order to excel in the industry. Accelerating Need for Dedicated LTL Education This lack of specified training put the onus on employers to prepare new hires with the LTL knowledge needed to do their jobs. Dedicated LTL study is a necessity, not a luxury. At the same time, changes in LTL and the broader supply chain world are accelerating. The reliance on e-commerce has ballooned since the start of the pandemic, and last-mile LTL shipments and related e-commerce strains on the supply chain won’t diminish once social distancing abates. That genie isn’t going back into the bottle. So supply chain employers need logistics workers that are fully versed in all aspects of the industry, ready to solve unique shipping and delivery problems based on their extensive supply chain knowledge But why care about LTL? It’s been reported that some shippers in today’s world are no longer concerned with what mode is used to ship their goods. A Multimodal Approach Ensures On-Time Delivery This mode agnosticism means supply chain stakeholders have to be well versed in all modes of transportation. As unforeseen weather events and other disruptions, such as protests, become more common, savvy logistics employees will need to be armed with familiarity of all modes, not just the most popular, to ensure that freight is delivered on time, without damage, and in the most financially expedient way possible. Offerings like SMC³’s LTL online education courses cover a wide range of topics from LTL basics and operations to more advanced concepts like pricing analytics and transportation law. The company also has plans to continually refresh content, adding new expert presenters and taking the feedback of students to make the courses even better as time goes on. Learn more about&nbsp;<a href="https://logisticstrainingcenter.com/smc3-courses/" rel="noreferrer" class="joc_admin__link">SMC³’s LTL Online Education program</a>&nbsp;and view the 2021 hybrid schedule, featuring live industry experts,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.smc3.com/onlinelearning2021/" rel="noreferrer" class="joc_admin__link">here.</a>

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Filling the Supply Chain Education Gap with LTL Education Courses

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