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Equipment providers believe the chaos caused by two years of chassis shortages will end sometime next year as excessive street dwell times diminish and new domestic and foreign chassis manufacturers enter the US market.

Union Pacific has ejected Canadian Pacific from a shared pool of rail-owned domestic containers, a move likely related to the pending CP-Kansas City Southern merger that could take business away from UP.

The FMC’s emergency order on data sharing would seek to alleviate port congestion by requiring more visibility into appointment availability, empty container return times, and terminal closures.

The US producer price indexes (PPIs) for trucking dropped in August as contract pricing cooled and fuel prices and surcharges came down.

US imports from Asia remained strong through August despite container shipping indicators normally associated with a drop in cargo volumes.

Freight forwarders warned that shippers could face weeks of delays due to back-to-back typhoons that have battered China, while blank sailings are rising ahead of the Golden Week holiday.

CSX said its future CEO brings a deep understanding of the manufacturing and energy sectors, both critical customer bases for the eastern railroad.

A veteran of the US chassis market says “a lot more capacity” will be arriving into the sector to help relieve the shortages that have contributed to delays throughout the country’s supply chain.

Hapag-Lloyd insists that its core ocean container focus remains in place despite acquiring a significant stake in an Italian logistics company.

The tentative deal comes after a marathon 20-hour negotiating session lasting all day Wednesday and into Thursday at the Department of Labor, with Labor Secretary Marty Walsh hosting leadership from railroads and the unions.

While railroad management and unions were meeting with US Labor Secretary Marty Walsh to avert a strike, confidence is waning as shippers, railroads, and ports prepare for a shutdown early Friday.

Although West Coast longshore labor and management in July announced progress in the form of an interim agreement on health benefits, headway in recent weeks has been minimal on what are considered far more difficult issues.

The trans-Pacific accounted for 18 percent of Wan Hai’s total liftings in the first half of the year, up from 12 percent in the year-ago period.

There is no longer structural support for historically high ocean rates, although the softening taking place now is more of a market correction and not yet a true downturn, writes JOC analyst Lars Jensen.

NYSHEX has landed its third funding round in 24 months, a $25 million investment that supports the notion the shipping industry is starting to embrace mutually enforceable contracts.

US agriculture shippers still face challenges and elevated costs in reaching overseas markets due to unexpected billing from ocean carriers and uncertain vessel schedules.

All eyes turned to Washington amid the realization that a rail strike disrupting the already fragile US supply chain six weeks before crucial midterm elections would not be helpful to the White House and Congressional Democrats.

Linking ocean and air freight visibility has been an elusive challenge for shippers and logistics providers, which has led Vizion and BlueBox to combine their respective data products in a commercial partnership.

Typhoon Muifa is expected to make landfall in the Shanghai-Ningbo area Wednesday, just over a week after another storm forced the ports to close, delaying services for ocean carriers.

Carriers and their customers say they will not rush into contract negotiations this fall as they did last year, but rather wait for the volatility in the trans-Pacific to dissipate and the direction of the US economy to become clearer.

Runaway inflation has driven up union pay demands that employers are unwilling to meet, escalating industrial disputes in several sectors across the UK.

An eight-month probe into Australia's maritime industry was launched after complaints by shippers into soaring freight rates and ancillary fees.

MyCarrier has created automation partnerships with 15 less-than-truckload (LTL) carriers and will handle more than $1 billion in shipper freight spend, factors that induced venture firms to invest $22 million in the company.

Demand for rate benchmarking tools grew during the pandemic’s wild pricing swings in ocean shipping, which has helped fuel a new $80 million investment in Oslo-based software provider Xeneta.

The average manufacturing shipping volume rose 1 percent in August year over year, while other industries saw their truck shipments drop 4.6 percent, according to FourKites.

Shippers are in a wait-and-see mode as the obstacle to a deal with the country’s two largest rail unions is about lifestyle concerns rather than compensation, a source close to the negotiations told JOC.com.

About 20 percent of the 1,800 vehicles serving the Port of Vancouver would be phased out under the clean truck program that has been delayed for a second time.

Vessel capacity freed up from easing congestion, combined with the sheer size of the orderbook, will be difficult for carriers to manage in a weakening demand environment, shipping association BIMCO says.

MPV/HL ships could be harder to find in coming years as carriers have difficulty finding funding for new ship orders, despite strong demand and higher rates than they have been able to command for years.

The stakes are high for a rail labor deal to be reached because the Association of American Railroads estimates that a strike would cost the US economy $2 billion per day, while a disruption would be a political liability for the Biden administration.

The decline in outbound per-mile spot rates from US ports dropped more than the US average in August as normal seasonality and abnormal gridlock crimped demand, a JOC analysis shows.

Norfolk Southern will convert all its international intermodal terminals to ground container facilities beginning in 2023, saying it has learned from the import surge and longer dwells that stacking boxes is the best way to keep cargo flowing.

Ocean carriers are trimming trans-Pacific vessel capacity amid weakening market fundamentals, but the traditional slowdown from China’s Golden Week is likely at play as well.

A mandated “container available” data element related to demurrage fees is largely not being complied with yet as the shipping industry grapples with the immediate implications of OSRA-22.

A handful of reefer carriers, having received an unexpected shot in the arm during the pandemic, are adding vessel capacity despite the long-term decline of this niche fleet.

Production of green fuels will ramp up quickly as soon as viable alternative energy sources are found, but only if the right legislation is in place to attract investment critical for infrastructure and R&D, says Maersk.

Comparing the productivity of diversified third-party logistics providers is an imperfect science, but measuring a 3PL’s revenue per employee is one key metric.

Stung by lower tractor utilization rates and rising costs, truckload carrier US Xpress pares back its technology team and real estate, and focuses on adding truckload contract business.

There are growing expectations among analysts and NVOs that weakening US import demand and tumbling spot rate levels will trigger a new round of blank sailings.

Maersk has stopped accepting inland point intermodal freight for Fort Worth due to inland rail ramp congestion that has resulted in severe delays in the retrieval of import cargo.