Commentary

The shipping and steel industries never quite seem able to match supply and demand well enough to ensure steady profitability.

The government of the destination country may get pretty inquisitive about exactly where the fruit you’re shipping was grown, and who did the growing, and may even require — as does the United States — that the origin be reflected at any time that the fruit is offered for sale within its borders.

An early contract extension at West Coast ports would present an opportunity to restore shipper trust and regain cargo they have diverted to the East and Gulf coasts.

Both presidential candidates have excoriated international trade almost to the point of saying it is the source of everything wrong in this country.

It seems there are two federal transportation departments, the one regulating new highway technology and the one regulating railroads, and they don’t seem to be on the same page.

Shippers want assurance from ocean carrier alliances that there are emergency plans in place if one of their container lines can’t deliver its own cargo and that of its member partners.

Technology will influence the 2016 retail holiday season in more ways than ever before, and with heightened consumer demand starting to put pressure upon home delivery operations, retail success is increasingly dependent upon advanced home delivery solutions.

After a fully crated shipment was delivered with no visible damage, a customer submits a claim for one piece of the shipment. The carrier agrees to pay one-third of the claim, saying the shipper, receiver, and carrier all had hands on the product. Is there recourse for the customer?

The Hanjin Shipping situation again illustrates the fragility of today’s supply chains. Shippers would be mistaken if they think they only need to be on guard for such issues on the seas.

The Port of Oakland looked to an old recipe for success in the unprecedented crisis caused by the failure of Hanjin Shipping: teamwork.

For cities looking to tap into the $1.95 trillion US export market, there are a few key characteristics that will provide a solid foundation for building an exporting industry.

The hybrid airship is an aircraft that is nearly the length of a football field and requires no supporting infrastructure is capable of delivering up to 500 tons of supplies and equipment to the most austere locations imaginable and at a price point roughly equivalent to that of a truck on a dirt road.

The new healthy eating trend and Panama Canal expansion, coupled with technological port advancements and a modernized supply chain network, created the perfect storm that helped carve out an opportunity for refrigerated cargo growth in the South.

The logistics industry is one of the worst performing when it comes to implementing annual price increases with their customers.

There are no negative consequences to the shipper for its container missing a ship. For the ocean carrier, the costs are huge.

Speaking at the JOC Container Trade Europe Conference in Hamburg, Rolf Habben Jansen, CEO of Hapag-Lloyd, set back his forecast for a “degree of recovery” in the container shipping industry another 12 to 24 months.

The failure of Hanjin Shipping has raised profound questions regarding the risks of ocean container transportation in corporate boardrooms throughout the world.

The growth of intermodal has been dramatic over the past 20 years, and the attractiveness of insourcing is undeniable.

A bill of lading is a legally binding contract, and the consignee becomes party to it, and bound by its terms, by taking delivery of the shipment. A carrier has every reason to look to the consignee for its money.

Container lines seem to not have learned the most important lesson from the collapse of Hanjin Shipping and all indications suggest they will squander this opportunity to align supply and demand.

It is a known fact that a significant portion of fuel spent by trucking companies is due to idling, but that cost can be seriously reduced if idling allotments are based on ambient weather temperatures.

Data point to NVOs as a group being clearly more nervous about Hanjin than BCOs were in the months leading up to the collapse of Hanjin Shipping. This would make sense because being close to the market is a full-time job for NVOs. It’s what they do for a living.

For ocean carriers, Hanjin’s demise might just be the event that tilts the playing field back in their favor for the first time since 2010.

Tense relations between China and the United States in the South China Sea have the potential to spawn an international crisis that threatens assets, shipping and supply chains, and the safety of employees.

As ridesharing companies like Uber and Lyft become ubiquitous and stories about driverless cars and trucks dominate the news, the trucking industry is stealthily starting to use autonomous vehicle, or AV, technology to increase efficiency and safety.

If the shipping industry succeeds in getting the International Maritime Organization to postpone the low-sulfur rule in October, it will prove to be a pyrrhic victory.

A significant change proposed in the standard-form motor carrier bill of lading involves carrier negligence as related to freight loss-and-damage claims. Heretofore, it’s been up to the carrier to prove itself free from negligence, where negligence is an issue in a claim; the new B/L would instead place the legal burden on the shipper to prove the carrier was in fact negligent.

Swept up by brutally low rates across all trades, Maersk finally joined the rest of the container shipping industry in the financial bloodletting.

Carriers come into the market, and then go out of business. This year will be the sixth consecutive year the industry will lose money.

Any shipper that depends on container transportation must be looking with great concern at developments in this extraordinary year of 2016.

Strong liner-terminal relations could protect and grow the volumes of ports and terminals around the world, but maybe not, as there are also more powerful factors at play.

How can alliances maintain enduring links with hubs if the alliances themselves are constantly in flux?

After posting solid growth in 2014, the top trucking companies experienced a down year in 2015. Although lower fuel surcharge revenues were responsible for driving revenue downturns in the truckload and LTL markets, base rate growth also slowed from 2014.

Shippers aware of the fragility of the demand imbalance in the truckload sector are voicing concerns with their trucking partners, carriers say.

Affordable in-truck technologies can help companies make smart routing decisions with a high degree of accuracy and, in the process, save money and increase their return on investment.

It’s a fundamental principle of our free market system: payment for services.

The Federal Railroad Administration is making it easier for inspectors and agency lawyers to initiate criminal investigations, and to impose more and higher civil penalties, beginning this month.

The Automated Commercial Environment has given U.S. Customs and Border Protection new insights and tools to help it improve enforcement efforts.

An upcoming decision at the International Maritime Organization will implement in 2020 or delay until 2025 a requirement for low-sulfur fuel to be used globally by all ships, including ones carrying containers. Although the debate has been confined largely to policy circles, it’s easily the most important environmental rule coming down the pike affecting the container sector.

The optimal price increase process should have three phases and consider nine aspects.