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Keep this in mind: Every innovation in technology and transportation since the fax machine was invented, that was intended to disrupt or to disintermediate, was adopted and deployed first by 3PLs and carriers. Hence, your action item lies with your 3PLs and their carrier partners.

Shippers came to the JOC Inland Distribution Conference on Oct. 22-24 in Oak Brook, Illinois, to connect with carriers and third-party logistics providers, discuss problems, and get a sense of where the market is headed. But if they came hoping to hear that a buyer’s market in US transportation is around the corner, they were sorely disappointed.

Further, Asia-Europe rail is a trade transport mode in demand: shipper demand for a faster alternative to ocean freight is driving the rising volume and rapid development of new services on the intercontinental rail route.

Ports and regions are devising creative and needs-specific solutions to container shipping's chassis issue — a longtime bottleneck/trouble spot in the supply chain. Here is the Port of New York and New Jersey's progress.

In an era of tight US capacity and rising freight costs, shippers need a more ‘holistic’ approach to supply chain visibility, speakers at the JOC Logistics Technology Conference say.

The volume increases at Rotterdam and Antwerp come despite a steady decline in container imports from Asia that can be seen in the latest data from Container Trades Statistics.

China is expected to begin enforcing a rule early in 2019 that will allow only full trains leaving for Europe to be subsidized, but judging from the industry reaction to the move, it is not expected to have much impact on the rapidly expanding network.

Being driver-friendly is just the start, not the end goal, of being a shipper of choice, a business development specialist said at the JOC Inland Distribution Conference earlier this week. “It’s table stakes.”

Harsh weather and the electronic logging device mandate — requiring truck drivers to record their of hours of service digitally and cease use of paper logs to track drivers' time behind the wheel — have put pressure on Chicago and other US markets.

Sequential volume gains may have slowed, but year-over-year shipment increases are still substantial for two of the largest US trucking companies.

Money can address some factors, but until several key checkpoints in a container’s journey address operational inefficiencies, bottlenecks will persist, consultants and industry executives said at the JOC Inland Distribution Conference this week.

The latest news from the JOC Inland Distribution Conference in Oak Brook, Illinois. Check back with this document frequently for the latest news and insights from key logistics, shipping, and trade decision makers.

“Railroads and ports are spending billions of dollars for infrastructure. All of that of that is great, but let’s focus more on what is needed to get drivers into and out of the port. Railroads should look at their in-gates and out-gates. Most of the delays occur in the queue lines,” Patrick Maher, executive vice president of Gulf Winds International, told attendees at the JOC Inland Distribution Conference 2018 on Tuesday.

Two major developments have produced unusually strong price increases in both international and domestic freight movement this year, analysts on Tuesday told more than 370 attendees of the JOC Inland Distribution Conference.

Transport America's solo salary offers remuneration for a solo driver that is above the $75,000 a year that trucking executives have admitted would need to be breached to end the driver shortage.

Tight trucking capacity after the Mexico government introduced new regulations on truckers, along with congestion at the Pacific Coast Port of Manzanillo, have boosted Kansas City Southern's volume.

The trucking effects from the extreme weather the Southeast US experienced are expected to be temporary, with strong pre-holiday demand in November and possibly December likely to restore “balance” in the storm’s wake.

The electronic logging device rule imposed in the United States in November has already affected Canadian trucking, both cross-border and domestic services.

The new Amsterdam link will provide greater service resilience for the Netherlands-Italy rail option, as the connections to the two Dutch ports will run on different routes, enabling a flexible response to any rail-related or port-related delays, according to Samskip UK trade manager David Besseling.

This could be the best of times for Europe’s rail freight operators: the dominant trucking sector is short drivers and capacity, fuel prices are rising, and toll roads are boosting rates; meanwhile, barges still face congestion at Rotterdam and Antwerp. But can rail seize the day?

The revamped/upgraded rail link, which had its first train depart from Chennai on Monday with 80 TEU, is intended to speed freight handled via the government’s two flagship supply chain reforms — direct port delivery for imports and direct port entry for factory-stuffed exports.

CSX is the only Class I railroad offering better train speeds and lower terminal dwell times while volumes are on the rise.

The agreement will see the two companies provide their respective customer bases with tracking access to 175,000 multimodal carriers — 90,000 in North America and 85,000 in Europe.

Echoing analysis regarding the trans-Pacific, some analysts believe shippers tried to beat US tariffs on a slew of Chinese-made goods by moving up cargo activity into July.

After a year of double-digit increases, spot rate gains are slowing, and truck rates and revenue increases are expected to ‘moderate’ to the mid-single-digit range in 2019.

PierPass, the oldest extended-gates program in North America, was launched in 2005 to increase throughput capacity at the largest US port complex while diverting a sizable portion of the truck traffic from the peak daytime hours in order to relieve traffic congestion on local freeways and roads.

US trucking has entered a new era, in which a ‘new normal’ has been established. Even so, for shippers, there are some encouraging sector developments concerning driver recruitment and overall truck capacity.

There is no debate: US truck capacity is tight. Still, this supply and demand imbalance offers an opportunity for shippers to assess their shipping practices. They will find their inefficiencies are responsible for more cost in absolute dollars than the increase in expenditure that results from higher rates.

The new Harbor Trucking Association-Milestone pool at LA-LB is improving truck turn times and round-the-clock access to a variety of chassis types during the current peak season.

Storm damage reached from Florida into the Carolinas on Thursday and severed the I-10 east-west route. The likely outcome is higher costs and lengthy detours.

Shippers can and should stop using paper bills of lading (B/Ls). If truck drivers can live without paper logbooks, shippers can scrap paper B/Ls. Savings for carriers and shippers will result.

This has been a record year for US intermodal rail, but changes in shipping patterns apparently have lowered the autumn intermodal peak — or broken it into two smaller peaks.

Transplace CEO Frank McGuigan sees more rate hikes but also more lane-specific ‘minibids’ ahead, and he urges shippers to work together and deploy this new tactic to unlock capacity.

On Tuesday evening, the owners of trucks called off their strike after a meeting with government officials. The officials said they would communicate the strikers' concerns to the prime minster about a new law's traffic liability provisions.

For shippers, the results of the latest vote on a Teamsters union contract at UPS were nothing if not confusing. But don’t panic. There’s little chance the wheels will stop turning at UPS or UPS Freight.

During the past several years, the less-than-truckload industry and the analyst community have made a big deal of the need to convert to dimensional pricing instead of the classification system of the regulated era that ended in 1980.

Transplace, with headquarters in Frisco, Texas, near Dallas, has been growing rapidly in recent years and expects to move $8 billion through its network this year.

End-to-end visibility will make supply chains more efficient, Chicago-based project44’s President Tommy Barnes says, but only if shippers use data received to collaborate with partners.

For those who think that it’s somehow counterintuitive to have a pricing model designed to create a loss or to reduce operating margins, rest assured, it is.

Innovation and outside-the-box thinking are needed to help shippers and trucking companies kick old, bad habits and bring pricing into the 21st century. This is Part 1 in a 5-part series.