Surface

The Federal Maritime Commission briefed the STB this week about the efforts of Memphis shippers and truckers to establish a chassis pool to eliminate a common cause of rail demurrage penalties.

Seasonal adjustments and other factors may have amplified a surprising truck tonnage gain reported by the American Trucking Associations last month.

Around nine in 10 investments by venture capital firms generally fail, but the risky nature of VC investment is driving increased investment and innovation in logistics. And more than that, the model is here to stay.

The Surface Transportation Board put Class I railroads on the hot seat about demurrage and accessorial policies that rail shippers have described as unreasonable and revenue generators.

The San Francisco-based firm is one of a small number of venture capital groups looking to change the way VC-backed logistics software startups are viewed within the industry.

Group Mexico’s purchase of Florida East Coast Railway has opened up new opportunities for Florida ports to court all-water service from Mexico to bypass the congestion of Texas border crossings.

Quarter-to-quarter, the acceleration of the Truckload Capacity Index is slowing, indicating large carriers’ parking lots are getting full.

The massive expansion of Mexico’s second largest port will include a second rail line that will allow direct access for Kansas City Southern of Mexico in addition to Ferrosur at present.

Transloading or cross-docking helps expedite northbound freight as cross-border capacity imbalances and delays become more frequent.

Retail giants Walmart and Amazon have entered into conversations directly with Class I railroads to enter in service agreements, bucking the historical structure in which shippers are required to use intermediaries to procure space.

Shipper interest in a free trade zone in Zhuhai, China, is being driven by a shortage of logistics space and rocketing rental prices across the Pearl River in Hong Kong.

By adding an asset-based drop-and-hook trailer program to its digital brokerage platform, J.B. Hunt Transport Services is redrawing traditional business boundaries.

At a time when freight volumes should be increasing, they’re slowing, casting a shadow over the outlook for US trucking and intermodal rail operators.

J.B. Hunt Transport Services has received a license to be a non-vessel operating common carrier and ocean freight forwarder to take greater control of the transportation of its containers and chassis from China.

Shippers need contingency plans, and action, to deal with the threat of more truck congestion and freight delays at the US-Mexico border, logistics executives tell JOC.com.

With a new five-year contract finally in place, YRC Worldwide is working to recover less-than-truckload shippers who withheld or shifted business in the months before the Teamsters contract was approved.

The FMCSA is seeking comments on plans for a second pilot program testing whether 18- to 20-year-olds should drive trucks in interstate commerce.

Shippers shouldn’t be worried about large carriers shutting down, but smaller trucking firms are vulnerable as the freight market softens.

BNSF Railway, Norfolk Southern, and CSX say domestic intermodal contract rates have risen by upper single-digit percentages in the first quarter, but some non-asset intermodal marketing companies tell quite a different story.

The costs of climate change and impacts to business are typically discussed as abstract and distant, but a review of recent history shows those costs are already here, and climbing.

Truck registrations are surging, but shippers are getting better at their game, creating new capacity through efficiencies, speakers say at the Transplace Shipper Symposium.

Coastal transshipment at Indian ports has grown considerably since the relaxation of cabotage rules, but detractors argue that privately operated minor ports have reaped more of the benefits than their publicly run counterparts.

Historically, intermodal rail has offered a slower, lower-cost option for shippers, but with truckload prices falling, intermodal rail is now more expensive than trucking in some secondary markets.

Trucking companies say a proposal by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to charge a fee for vehicles entering a “congestion pricing” zone in Manhattan would drive up costs that would then be passed on to shippers.

Fast-rising operating expenses for Europe’s road freight industry have overpowered the traditional supply-demand effect with an increase in both capacity and rates.

Harding most recently served as vice president, freight market intelligence consortiums, and developed transportation market intelligence products for shippers and 3PLs at the supply chain consulting firm Chainalytics.

A new contract was approved by 60 percent of YRC Worldwide Teamsters, but the rejection of one supplement holds up ratification.

Union Pacific Railroad will be closing the Global III terminal northwest of Chicago as part of its precision scheduled railroading operations in a shakeup that will send domestic intermodal volumes to Global II and international traffic to Global IV.

US shippers have pricing power over truckers now, but their advantage may slip away by the end of 2019, Coyote Logistics warns.

A rush to get wind towers in place before production tax credits expire is causing a capacity crunch in the oversize-overweight trucking business.

XPO Logistics CEO Brad Jacobs says the company has “gotten its mojo back” after losing a $600 million account, and although there is plenty of data to suggest XPO will be fine in the long term, there are still some concerns that the road ahead will be bumpy.

Speculation has run rampant over the past three years that the e-commerce giant would eventually compete with the parcel carriers that move its freight, but it turns out Amazon actually has its sights set on the brokerage market.

Uber Freight has established a direct integration into SAP’s widely used TMS, enabling the digital broker to expand the demand side of its marketplace and SAP users to tap into Uber’s driver network.

Canadian National is the latest Class I railroad to launch a mobile application for truck drivers to move more quickly through intermodal terminals by submitting documents ahead of time.

An infusion of trucks and tractors from bankrupt NEMF would help Estes stretch its service offerings further beyond LTL and deeper into flatbed and dedicated truckload markets.

Some of the biggest trucking companies are riding the 2018 wave well into 2019, and they’re focused more on building profit than revenue as the US economy slows.

Leandro Carelli Barreto, a director for consulting firm Solve Shipping, tells JOC.com recent concessions granted to truck drivers don’t address underlying overcapacity.

The nation’s largest truckload operator is keeping a firm grip on costs and lowering its expectations for the second quarter as US motor carriers prepare for a potentially bumpy road ahead.

Two inland ports tied to the Port of New York and New Jersey by rail could help get trucks off the road but, if completed, they won’t alleviate storage pressure expected to rise as the port grows its discretionary rail volume to the Midwest.

Norfolk Southern saw big gains in international containers in the first quarter, but the railroad rejects the idea of domestic intermodal weakness in 2019 and is confident that rail pricing won’t be challenged by a much looser truck market.