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Total US trucking costs rose in November, with revised US producer price index figures for truckload and LTL services indicating at least a temporary reversal in a months-long decline.

Ryder System is joining the race to deploy more drop-and-hook trailer pools for shippers that need greater flexibility to reduce costs and counter supply chain disruption.

A broad shift in China-Europe rail from the northern route through Russia to the middle corridor transiting Central Asia is unlocking new and largely untapped containerized markets for service providers.

Less-than-truckload shipping volumes in the US are falling in the fourth quarter from all-time highs, but rates are slower to drop as carriers push back on absorbing higher costs.

Norfolk Southern furloughed thousands of employees during the early days of the pandemic and struggled to rehire the workforce necessary to handle the surge in intermodal volumes.

The traditional increase in bookings for December and January shipments out of Asia is nowhere to be seen as importers in destination markets struggle with surplus stock levels and weakening demand.

Moving a significant share of Europe’s inland cargo from road to rail will be costly and challenging, but it is achievable through better utilization of door-to-door combined transport, a new report has found.

J.B. Hunt, Uber Freight, and Convoy are partnering to develop and drive broad industry adoption of a standard process for truckload appointment scheduling.

Hiring expectations fell short across many transportation sectors in November, with real trucking employment dropping while warehousing firms and couriers added workers.

Stubbornly strong industrial output and pent-up demand are expected to keep pressure on trailer manufacturers to increase supply, even during a US economic slowdown.

The Senate measure ends the threat of a country-wide rail strike that could have begun Dec. 9, crippling cargo movement in the midst of the holiday season.

Several US truckload shippers say they are leery of using the spot market because they wish to maintain strong relationships with their trucking partners rather than be seen as transactional when the market flips in favor of carriers.

The US House of Representatives has waded into ongoing rail negotiations, passing a bill to prevent a potential strike and a second resolution that would give workers seven paid sick days.

Trade groups representing railroads and shippers are confident Congress will act to prevent a potential strike in December, but that is not stopping them from discussing the stakes involved.

Lawmakers in Washington will face pressure to bridge the divide between rail labor and management because any job action could snarl supply chains in the weeks leading up to end-of-year holidays.

Union Pacific Railroad will no longer cap storage fees at seven inland ramps beginning next week, citing declining import volumes on the West Coast that has restored more typical cargo flow.

UP is navigating congestion as ocean containers pile up in stacks in Chicago and Dallas, but the western US railroad believes it will clear the backlog at both terminals before the end of the year.

The US producer price indexes for long-distance truckload and less-than-truckload took separate routes in October, with LTL pricing essentially unchanged and the truckload index falling.

Greenscreens.ai has seen its roster of truckload broker customers grow to 70 this year, with previous investor Tiger Global putting another $5 million in the Florida-based software vendor.

The International Brotherhood of Boilermakers has become the third union to reject a collective bargaining agreement with US railroads reached in September, but no strike or lockout can take place until December.

Freight volumes are dropping month to month but remain higher than a year ago, buoyed by inventory repositioning and easing supply constraints for manufacturers, according to the latest Cass Freight Index.

The investigation by US authorities into whether Pitts Enterprises evaded duties on chassis may have serious ramifications for the South Carolina Ports Authority, which ordered 11,000 chassis from a Pitts subsidiary to launch its own pool next March.

The aggressive moves by intermodal providers to keep business with lower pricing come after North American domestic intermodal demand fell 10 percent between March and September.

US transportation companies with cash on hand are acquiring asset-based truckers and non-asset freight brokers alike to add services and shipper customers and build network density.

After rising strongly from the third quarter of 2021 through the second quarter of this year, the JOC Truckload Capacity Index dropped slightly last quarter, but demand for equipment is still high.

Congestion continues at BNSF’s Logistics Park Chicago terminal as chassis shortages have led to prolonged turn times for truckers using LPC or other BNSF spillover lots.

The acquisition of ReedTMS Logistics not only expands Werner’s brokerage reach, it also delivers shipper customers in the staple food and beverage industries.

While three rail unions have yet to vote, one more has ratified the tentative five-year contract brokered in mid-September, bringing US Class I railroads and the dozen unions one step closer to a national bargaining agreement.

US truckload capacity isn’t so much declining as it is shifting, according to data, and that will pose challenges to shippers and carriers trying to access trucks, trailers, and drivers.

For-hire trucking companies added almost 20,000 jobs last month, erasing September’s payroll cut as capacity shifts between trucking sectors.

With softer import volumes coming from Los Angeles-Long Beach, BNSF has made significant progress clearing the backlog of ocean containers at its Dallas-area terminal and hopes to restore normal conditions within weeks.

Two of the United States’ biggest logistics providers say they are focused on controlling costs amid growing concern about the direction of the US economy.

The acquisition of Fastmore Logistics will give Echo Global Logistics more access to international freight forwarders, linking domestic and international cargo networks.

Tonnage began increasing year over year at XPO late in the third quarter and continued to rise in October as the less-than-truckload carrier expands capacity.

Shippers affected by the closure of a free less-than-truckload transportation management system in October have been given a pathway to migrate to another system connected to 15 LTL carriers.

The truckload market is still searching for a single platform that aggregates shipper loads and carrier capacity, a role that investors are backing Chicago-based Newtrul to eventually fill.

Regional stress is running through US truckload markets as demand softens, with price and capacity fluctuations that challenge shippers and carriers.

A refusal by some truck drivers to call at congested rail ramps in Toronto and Montreal has caused the clogs to extend back to Vancouver, where rail container dwells are on the rise again after improving in September.

The JOC Intermodal Savings Index shows intermodal contracts saved shippers a lot of money in the third quarter, but spot rail rates saved very little, especially on short hauls in the eastern US.

Hub Group and Schneider National sidestepped questions about intermodal contracts for 2023, a far different approach than the two companies took a year ago when the pricing power was on their side.