Surface

A systems outage that has left less-than-truckload carrier Estes grappling with email, website and data exchange issues is the latest such incident to befall the logistics and transportation industry.

Cross-border trade with Mexico is one of the few hot spots in trucking, but fuel prices and other costs are putting more pressure on rates.

North American Class I railroads understand why shippers and logistics providers are skeptical about intermodal service, but they believe disruptions experienced in recent years will not happen again.

CPKC and CSX hope the new joint service will boost volumes along the route, which is not a popular one for intermodal business.

If history is any indication, it is unlikely intermodal providers will be able to implement a rate increase in 2024 contracts until the trucking market rebounds.

Rising labor costs — both behind the wheel and at the warehouse, elevated diesel prices and cross-dock scarcity in major cities are making it more costly to run transportation networks, attendees at the Journal of Commerce’s Inland Distribution Conference were told.

The Class I railroad said it and Florida East Coast Railway are looking to take more trucks off the road with the additional intermodal service offering.

Halifax and Saint John are expanding their container terminals as Class I railroads see an opportunity to serve major inland destinations from the Eastern Canadian ports.

A muted peak and post-peak season for imports and intermodal activity has shippers and service providers eyeing a freight rebound no earlier than late 2024.

Solar panels and energy drinks are among the top targeted goods for truckload theft, with major markets such as Los Angeles, Houston and Chicago particularly ripe for those crimes.

The US Transport Department will back improvements along tracks that span the ports of Mobile and New Orleans to allow freight and passenger service to coexist.

Less-than-truckload freight once hauled by Yellow is being redistributed among other carriers in waves as shippers shop for the best fit in price, capacity, technology and service.

A US bankruptcy court approved a $1.525 billion bid by Estes Express Lines to be the “stalking horse” that sets the floor price for Yellow’s terminals at auction, controlling their sale in November.

The Class I railroad and DrayNow will launch an app in 2024 designed to digitize, organize and streamline processes that have previously been performed via email or over the phone.

Cuts in oil production and increased fuel use globally are pushing up trucking fuel surcharges and, in turn, transportation costs for US shippers.

Owning and operating potential supply chain chokepoints is a competitive advantage, and we should expect to see major carriers — flush with cash post-pandemic — be very active in attempting to secure such assets, writes analyst Lars Jensen.

The division of BNSF Logistics between BNSF Railway and J.B. Hunt is aimed at helping to improve service to joint customers at a time when freight demand is weak.

Estes Forwarding Worldwide, a subsidiary of the LTL trucking provider, is buying Superior Brokerage Services, a step that increases Estes’ ability to offer end-to-end logistics services as other providers look to do the same.

Railroads told the IANA conference they have made important operational changes that will translate into reliable service when demand picks up, but some logistics companies are not convinced.

Railroads told the Intermodal Association of North America conference they must concentrate on providing more reliable, consistent service at a competitive rate over the long term to reverse the recent market share loss to long-haul trucking.

Sanctions imposed on Moscow following its invasion of Ukraine continue to limit the attractiveness of transport times as low as 12 days offered by forwarders on the China-North Europe rail network.

If the looming strike against the “big three” US automakers comes to pass, then domestic intermodal will surely take another big hit in an environment where there are certainly more downside risks than upside potential for the rest of 2023, writes analyst Larry Gross.

Steady gains in US-Mexico cross-border truck freight have spurred the logistics provider to open a 400,000-square-foot cross-dock warehouse in Laredo, a US border entry point already bursting with freight.

The intermodal provider’s CEO believes there will be a small peak season between now and early November despite data from the US Surface Transportation Board showing volumes are down compared with last year.

The Intermodal Association of North America is building a geofence library for rail and marine terminals, which could provide better tracking of when containers enter and exit the terminals.

Freight brokers, load boards, technology providers and law enforcement are attempting to contain the growing threat of truckload cargo theft and the fraudulent schemes that underpin it.

While the country’s second-largest LTL provider gained shipments in August after the demise of Yellow, it sees no signs that overall freight demand is improving.

While the importance of drayage came to the fore during the pandemic, the current freight hangover is cramping the sector’s ability to take advantage of technology options on the market.

Saia and XPO are the latest LTL carriers to report volume gains in August, a month when trucking employment dropped more than 2% following Yellow’s shutdown.

Inventories are falling, but orders and shipments aren’t necessarily climbing as US retailers seek greater “inventory productivity” by closely tracking customer demand. 

The German-based forwarder remains the largest and most attractive takeover target in a cash-rich industry where the main players are all looking for opportunities to consolidate.

BNSF is testing the use of cameras on yard hostlers, poles and drones which can read and log the location of containers in the hopes of increasing fluidity through rail terminals.

Regional LTL carrier A. Duie Pyle and point-to-point trucking firm Hercules Freight are finding opportunities to expand as shippers adjust to the loss of Yellow’s capacity.

Given the short duration of the port and terminal closures, impacts appeared minimal as Jacksonville, Savannah and Charleston resumed normal operations.

An LTL carrier such as Yellow is an extremely complicated business, and similar to the railroads, the enterprise software it used was developed internally — often over decades — because there was no “off-the-shelf” solution, writes analyst Ted Prince.  

Since new services from CPKC and CN were launched in May, intermodal volume out of Mexico has surged more than 30% year over year through the end of July.

ArcBest less-than-truckload (LTL) subsidiary ABF Freight is taking on additional volume and raising rates as a broad realignment of the US LTL sector gains speed.

Schneider believes once demand picks up for rail transportation, the intermodal industry can return to pre-pandemic levels of productivity for containers.

The Harbor Trucking Association is teaming with Yusen Terminals in Los Angeles to increase the number of appointment slots each day by cutting the container receiving window from two hours to 90 minutes.

Norfolk Southern’s launch of an appointment system for import boxes in Memphis has not been smooth, but the railroad hopes to learn from the problems to make the October rollout in Atlanta better.