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<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">“Today the challenge is not the technology.”</div>

“Today the challenge is not the technology.”

<div>A lack of trust in the supply chain is a major obstacle to realizing the gains of shipping technology.LONG BEACH — The potential to use reasonably-priced technology to cut transportation costs is often squandered because of reluctance among beneficial cargo owners (BCOs), terminal operators, container lines, and truckers to share information.<div><img></div><a>Click to enlarge</a>“Today the challenge is not the technology,” Brian Moran, vice president of product management at Savi Technology, which provides asset-tracking products, told the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) Intermodal Expo Monday. “The resistance comes in getting everyone to share data,” Moran said.Dozens of technology providers exhibited their...

A lack of trust in the supply chain is a major obstacle to realizing the gains of shipping technology. LONG BEACH — The potential to use reasonably-priced technology to cut transportation costs is often squandered because of reluctance among beneficial cargo owners (BCOs), terminal operators, container lines, and truckers to share information. Click to enlarge “Today the challenge is not the technology,” Brian Moran, vice president of product management at Savi Technology, which provides asset-tracking products, told the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) Intermodal Expo Monday. “The resistance comes in getting everyone to share data,” Moran said. Dozens of technology providers exhibited their wares or addressed dialogue sessions at the annual IANA event in Long Beach, California. They showed products and services designed to promote information sharing and improve efficiency in every sector of the supply chain, from the marine terminal to the distribution center or rail ramp. BCOs and carriers do not shy away from these technological tools because of cost. “I don’t hear customers talking about cost,” said Adam Compain, chief executive of ClearMetal, which utilizes predictive analytics to improve cargo booking. “They ask about reliability and service to customers,” he said. However, even if a technology is proven to reduce costs and provide information on intermodal shipments that would be of value to service providers, the data too often remains locked up in small silos within the carriers, BCOs, or service providers because of security concerns with cloud-based technology, said James Pope, director of strategy and innovation at AT&T. In reality, the cloud can be made quite secure, he said. The Port of Los Angeles and GE Transportation are attempting to address these fears in a pilot project through which carriers, terminal operators, BCOs, freight forwarders, truckers, and railroads have access to information on shipments as much as two weeks before the vessel arrives in port. Jennifer Schopfer, vice president, transport logistics, at GE Transportation, said the port portal is working. “We anticipate eight to 12 product improvements,” she said. Nevertheless, despite the deliverables, the port and GE Transportation continue to encounter a resistance among supply chain partners as they attempt to extend the pilot portwide. The main challenge continues to be to convince business partners that “it’s OK to collaborate around shared data,” she said. Data sharing can be a challenge even within the same corporate family until deliverables are recorded and trust is rewarded. Scott Holland, vice president of global product management at Navis, which specializes in technology solutions to the marine terminal industry, noted that Maersk Line and its corporate sister APM Terminals embarked somewhat skeptically upon a data-sharing venture at the Port of Algeciras, Spain, but were convinced in the value of information sharing by a 14 percent gain in productivity. Technology providers said there is also a hesitancy to adopt technological solutions by companies within the intermodal supply chain because they fear it will require the hiring of technology-savvy employees or a retraining of existing workers to instill them with an entirely new skill set. “We don’t force them into new skill sets. We want to give them technology they can use today,” Moran said. Contact Bill Mongelluzzo at bill.mongelluzzo@ihsmarkit.com and follow him on Twitter: @billmongelluzzo .

Shippers losing out from reluctance to share data

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">The port will see almost half of its container capacity go offline beginning Thursday as the local longshore union declares an unlimited strike against two of Montreal’s largest marine terminals.</div>

The port will see almost half of its container capacity go offline beginning Thursday as the local longshore union declares an unlimited strike against two of Montreal’s largest marine terminals.

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<div class="phx-topic">Two marine terminals handling Mediterranean Shipping Co.’s Montreal container services face a work stoppage starting this week after longshore workers there voted to authorize an indefinite strike targeting nearly half of the port’s container capacity. Termont International said Monday that Local 375 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) notified it that an “unlimited strike” will occur at Montreal’s Maisonneuve and Viau terminals starting Thursday at 11 AM local time. The terminal operator urged shippers with cargo at both terminals to schedule pickups by Wednesday evening. The strike at the two terminals will idle more than 1 million TEUs of Montreal’s total 2.3 million TEUs in terminal capacity. The port’s two other international container terminals, Racine and Cast, won’t be affected by the work stoppage. Termont, a joint venture between MSC’s Terminal Investment Limited, SSA Marine and Canadian stevedore Logistec, primarily handles MSC’s trans-Atlantic and north-south services into Montreal. The services include the Montreal Express 1 from Italy, the Med Canadian service and the Canada Gulf Bridge service that spans Mexico and US Gulf ports. MSC’s current schedule shows at least four of its ships — Anya, Celine, Nahara and England — scheduled to arrive at the Termont terminals by the end of the week. Another two ships in MSC services — Levina III and OOCL St. Lawrence — are scheduled to arrive at Montreal’s other terminals. Local 375’s latest labor action represents a further escalation of pressure tactics against the Maritime Employers Association (MEA), which has yet to agree on a new contract covering the port’s 1,200 longshore workers. Local 375 also started <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/montreal-says-congestion-risk-grows-as-dockworkers-refuse-overtime-5751118">an ongoing boycott of overtime work</a> at the port and held <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/port-of-montreal-to-face-three-day-strike-against-two-terminals-next-week-5737483">a three-day work stoppage at the Viau and Maisonneuve terminals</a> at the start of October. This past Sunday, Local 375 conducted <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/montreal-dockworkers-plan-one-day-port-strike-on-sunday-5773614">a one-day, port-wide strike at Montreal</a>. Contact Michael Angell at <a href="mailto:michael.angell@spglobal.com ">michael.angell@spglobal.com</a>. </div>

Two marine terminals handling Mediterranean Shipping Co.’s Montreal container services face a work stoppage starting this week after longshore workers there voted to authorize an indefinite strike targeting nearly half of the port’s container capacity. Termont International said Monday that Local 375 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) notified it that an “unlimited strike” will occur at Montreal’s Maisonneuve and Viau terminals starting Thursday at 11 AM local time. The terminal operator urged shippers with cargo at both terminals to schedule pickups by Wednesday evening. The strike at the two terminals will idle more than 1 million TEUs of Montreal’s total 2.3 million TEUs in terminal capacity. The port’s two other international container terminals, Racine and Cast, won’t be affected by the work stoppage. Termont, a joint venture between MSC’s Terminal Investment Limited, SSA Marine and Canadian stevedore Logistec, primarily handles MSC’s trans-Atlantic and north-south services into Montreal. The services include the Montreal Express 1 from Italy, the Med Canadian service and the Canada Gulf Bridge service that spans Mexico and US Gulf ports. MSC’s current schedule shows at least four of its ships — Anya, Celine, Nahara and England — scheduled to arrive at the Termont terminals by the end of the week. Another two ships in MSC services — Levina III and OOCL St. Lawrence — are scheduled to arrive at Montreal’s other terminals. Local 375’s latest labor action represents a further escalation of pressure tactics against the Maritime Employers Association (MEA), which has yet to agree on a new contract covering the port’s 1,200 longshore workers. Local 375 also started an ongoing boycott of overtime work at the port and held a three-day work stoppage at the Viau and Maisonneuve terminals at the start of October. This past Sunday, Local 375 conducted a one-day, port-wide strike at Montreal . Contact Michael Angell at michael.angell@spglobal.com .

Montreal dockworkers target MSC’s terminals for strike this week

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">It is the second major port investment the Marseilles-based carrier has made recently after paying $1.2 billion last month for a majority stake in Brazil’s largest terminal operator.</div>

It is the second major port investment the Marseilles-based carrier has made recently after paying $1.2 billion last month for a majority stake in Brazil’s largest terminal operator.

<div class="phx-topic">CMA CGM said Tuesday it has signed a joint venture deal with Moroccan port operator Marsa Maroc to equip and operate half the Nador West Med container terminal near the Gibraltar mouth of the Mediterranean. It is the second major port investment the Marseilles-based carrier has made recently after <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/cma-cgm-moves-to-take-over-top-brazilian-terminal-operator-5732689">paying $1.2 billion last month for a majority stake</a> in Brazil’s largest terminal operator Santos Brasil. Rodolphe Saadé, chairman and CEO of the CMA CGM Group, said in a statement Morocco was positioning itself as “a strategic logistics and port hub with strong growth potential.” “The partnership we are entering into with Marsa Maroc marks a key step for the CMA CGM Group, strengthening our presence through the Nador West Med container terminal,” Saadé said. ”Our ambition is to support the country’s development, particularly in the forward-looking sectors of logistics and alternative energies,” he added. The joint venture covers one-half of the Nador West Med container terminal, giving CMA CGM control of 750 meters of quay with a maximum draught of 18 meters, in addition to 35 hectares of an adjacent container yard. Within the framework of a 25-year sub-concession, CMA CGM and Marsa Maroc will jointly invest $280 million into the terminal with the aim of achieving annual output of 1.2 million TEUs. CMA CGM did not provide a timeframe for when that volume target would be reached. CMA CGM has had a long-standing presence in Morocco. Through its subsidiary Terminal Link, the carrier owns 100% of a Casablanca terminal and a 40% stake in the Eurogate Tangiers terminal. “This is a clear strategic path for many of the carriers that need to ensure they have access to terminals they own to avoid supply chain disruption,” Peter Sand, chief analyst at rate benchmarking platform Xeneta, told the Journal of Commerce Tuesday when commenting on the deal. “Interesting to see CMA CGM being more aggressive in this area, but it fits well with a strategy to build up transshipment capacity in Morocco,” Sand added. West Mediterranean terminals have become important transshipment hubs for cargo destined for southern Europe. With the Red Sea mostly unavailable to commercial shipping amid ongoing militant attacks, southern Europe and East Mediterranean cargo is offloaded in terminals at ports such as Tanger Med, Algeciras and Barcelona for onward shipment. Surging volume earlier in the year placed those <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/bottlenecks-flare-in-barcelona-as-port-battles-rise-in-transshipment-volumes-5244343">ports under extreme pressure, especially Barcelona</a>, which is a destination port not suited to large transshipment volume. Nador West Med is also earmarked as a maritime bunkering hub for new synthetic energies in the Mediterranean, including e-methane and e-methanol that will fuel CMA CGM’s growing fleet of dual-fuel LNG and methanol vessels. Contact Greg Knowler at <a href="mailto:greg.knowler@spglobal.com">greg.knowler@spglobal.com</a>. </div>

CMA CGM said Tuesday it has signed a joint venture deal with Moroccan port operator Marsa Maroc to equip and operate half the Nador West Med container terminal near the Gibraltar mouth of the Mediterranean. It is the second major port investment the Marseilles-based carrier has made recently after paying $1.2 billion last month for a majority stake in Brazil’s largest terminal operator Santos Brasil. Rodolphe Saadé, chairman and CEO of the CMA CGM Group, said in a statement Morocco was positioning itself as “a strategic logistics and port hub with strong growth potential.” “The partnership we are entering into with Marsa Maroc marks a key step for the CMA CGM Group, strengthening our presence through the Nador West Med container terminal,” Saadé said. ”Our ambition is to support the country’s development, particularly in the forward-looking sectors of logistics and alternative energies,” he added. The joint venture covers one-half of the Nador West Med container terminal, giving CMA CGM control of 750 meters of quay with a maximum draught of 18 meters, in addition to 35 hectares of an adjacent container yard. Within the framework of a 25-year sub-concession, CMA CGM and Marsa Maroc will jointly invest $280 million into the terminal with the aim of achieving annual output of 1.2 million TEUs. CMA CGM did not provide a timeframe for when that volume target would be reached. CMA CGM has had a long-standing presence in Morocco. Through its subsidiary Terminal Link, the carrier owns 100% of a Casablanca terminal and a 40% stake in the Eurogate Tangiers terminal. “This is a clear strategic path for many of the carriers that need to ensure they have access to terminals they own to avoid supply chain disruption,” Peter Sand, chief analyst at rate benchmarking platform Xeneta, told the Journal of Commerce Tuesday when commenting on the deal. “Interesting to see CMA CGM being more aggressive in this area, but it fits well with a strategy to build up transshipment capacity in Morocco,” Sand added. West Mediterranean terminals have become important transshipment hubs for cargo destined for southern Europe. With the Red Sea mostly unavailable to commercial shipping amid ongoing militant attacks, southern Europe and East Mediterranean cargo is offloaded in terminals at ports such as Tanger Med, Algeciras and Barcelona for onward shipment. Surging volume earlier in the year placed those ports under extreme pressure, especially Barcelona , which is a destination port not suited to large transshipment volume. Nador West Med is also earmarked as a maritime bunkering hub for new synthetic energies in the Mediterranean, including e-methane and e-methanol that will fuel CMA CGM’s growing fleet of dual-fuel LNG and methanol vessels. Contact Greg Knowler at greg.knowler@spglobal.com .

CMA CGM shores up West Med transshipment capacity with Moroccan JV

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">The completion of initial clearance improvements allows CSX to operate double-stack rail service on a temporary route from Baltimore along its network in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and into the Midwest. </div>

The completion of initial clearance improvements allows CSX to operate double-stack rail service on a temporary route from Baltimore along its network in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and into the Midwest.

<div class="phx-topic">CSX Transportation has begun double-stacked intermodal service out of the Port of Baltimore after completing the first round of tunnel and track improvements from the port that will ultimately boost Baltimore’s current container handling capacity by one-third. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said in a statement Monday the start of double-stacked rail operations from Baltimore comes after the completion of vertical clearance improvements at rail bridges north of the port as part of the Howard Street Tunnel Project. The $466 million Howard Street project, which began in 2022, <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/federal-grant-boost-baltimores-dock-rail-capacity_20220601.html">consists of raising tunnels and bridge clearances and lowering tracks along 22 locations on CSX tracks between Baltimore and Philadelphia</a>. The most complex part of the project involves raising the height of the 1.7-mile Howard Street tunnel. Moore’s office said the completion of the first clearance improvements allows CSX to operate double-stack rail service on a temporary route from Baltimore along its network in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and into the Midwest until the work is complete in 2026. Baltimore has the shortest rail track mileage into Chicago from major East Coast ports. “This is a significant milestone for intermodal rail service between Baltimore and Midwest markets and wouldn’t be possible without the ongoing collaboration between our federal, state, and local project partners,”CSX CEO Joe Hinrichs said in the statement. Once the Howard Street project is fully complete, the double-stacking capability is expected to increase business at the port by approximately 160,000 containers annually. During the 12-month period ending in September, Baltimore handled 457,566 containers, according to data from the Maryland Port Administration. The Seagirt Marine Terminal, which has nominal capacity of 800,000 TEUs annually, is <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/new-msc-backed-baltimore-container-terminal-on-track-for-2028-debut-5220430">undergoing a densification project that will allow it to handle 1.2 million TEUs annually</a>. The Howard Street project will also allow double stacking of containers on intermodal service from Baltimore’s proposed Sparrows Point Container Terminal. Contact Michael Angell at <a href="mailto:michael.angell@spglobal.com">michael.angell@spglobal.com</a>. </div>

CSX Transportation has begun double-stacked intermodal service out of the Port of Baltimore after completing the first round of tunnel and track improvements from the port that will ultimately boost Baltimore’s current container handling capacity by one-third. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said in a statement Monday the start of double-stacked rail operations from Baltimore comes after the completion of vertical clearance improvements at rail bridges north of the port as part of the Howard Street Tunnel Project. The $466 million Howard Street project, which began in 2022, consists of raising tunnels and bridge clearances and lowering tracks along 22 locations on CSX tracks between Baltimore and Philadelphia . The most complex part of the project involves raising the height of the 1.7-mile Howard Street tunnel. Moore’s office said the completion of the first clearance improvements allows CSX to operate double-stack rail service on a temporary route from Baltimore along its network in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and into the Midwest until the work is complete in 2026. Baltimore has the shortest rail track mileage into Chicago from major East Coast ports. “This is a significant milestone for intermodal rail service between Baltimore and Midwest markets and wouldn’t be possible without the ongoing collaboration between our federal, state, and local project partners,”CSX CEO Joe Hinrichs said in the statement. Once the Howard Street project is fully complete, the double-stacking capability is expected to increase business at the port by approximately 160,000 containers annually. During the 12-month period ending in September, Baltimore handled 457,566 containers, according to data from the Maryland Port Administration. The Seagirt Marine Terminal, which has nominal capacity of 800,000 TEUs annually, is undergoing a densification project that will allow it to handle 1.2 million TEUs annually . The Howard Street project will also allow double stacking of containers on intermodal service from Baltimore’s proposed Sparrows Point Container Terminal. Contact Michael Angell at michael.angell@spglobal.com .

Intermodal providers

First track improvements allow CSX to double-stack containers from Baltimore

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">A stronger manufacturing recovery is needed to increase demand in both the truckload and LTL sectors, speakers said during a Journal of Commerce webcast. </div>

A stronger manufacturing recovery is needed to increase demand in both the truckload and LTL sectors, speakers said during a Journal of Commerce webcast.

<div class="phx-topic">US trucking demand in the fourth quarter — whether truckload or less-than-truckload (LTL) — is essentially weak, and that isn’t likely to change until US manufacturing output strengthens substantially, speakers said during a Journal of Commerce webcast Thursday. “We’re just not seeing significant signs of a true, meaningful uptick in demand, even if we do have more seasonality,” Jason Miller, Eli Broad professor of supply chain management at Michigan State University said during the peak season trucking outlook webcast. The monthly for-hire trucking ton-mile index Miller produces was down 0.6% year over year in August, the latest month for which data is available. <div class="wrapper-narrow"><dynamic-object type="jocchartid" resource-id="6d467649-a5c0-4834-9bf8-3dec9f76e301"></dynamic-object></div>Even after seasonal adjustment to trucking ton-miles data, “we’re coming up flat,” said Miller, who is also a Journal of Commerce analyst. Despite higher US imports in 2024, “we’re not seeing any signs yet of a significant breakout from a demand standpoint.” Similar comments have been made by large publicly owned trucking companies, which over the past week have reported soft demand in their quarterly earnings reports. That makes a strong increase in either truckload or LTL rates unlikely in early 2025. “I don’t expect there to be a real sharp inflection” in truck pricing in the first quarters of 2025, Knight-Swift Transportation Holding CEO Adam Miller said during an Oct. 23 earnings call. “I think it’s somewhat of a grind upwards,” at least for truckload pricing. “Our customers have simply had fewer shipments,” Old Dominion Freight Line (ODFL) CEO Marty Freeman told investment analysts during his company’s Oct. 23 earnings call. ODFL’s daily LTL shipment count dropped 1% year over year in the third quarter. “Looking at all the data, there’s good reason to expect freight volumes today have reverted back to 2019 levels overall,” Miller told the Journal of Commerce. Truck capacity is higher than in 2019 but trucking employment is heading toward pre-pandemic levels, he said. “You combine those two things and you get a market that’s generally soft,” he said. “It’s a shipper’s market, but you still have seasonality.” That seasonality may tighten the truckload spot market in the last two months of 2024, but not by much, Miller forecast. <h3>LTL capacity shrinks </h3>After <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/us-ltl-sector-growth-efficiencies-still-fueled-by-loss-of-yellow-5715785">the collapse of Yellow in 2023</a>, LTL capacity is lower than it was in 2019, according to Miller. The failure of the then third-largest LTL provider took 323 terminals and about 19,000 doors of LTL capacity out of the market, and that capacity hasn’t been replaced. “Half of that [Yellow] capacity has not even been sold yet,” Scooter Sayers, founder of Sayers Logistics and a sales executive for Cubiscan, a maker of dimensioning systems, said during the webcast. Yellow recently put <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/yellow-puts-remaining-112-ltl-terminals-on-the-block-5737425">112 terminals up for auction</a>. “I think the LTL carriers are looking at where they want to be five or 10 years down the road but they’re also looking at where the market is right now,” meaning they may not be too eager to bring terminals they’re buying from Yellow online quickly, Sayers said. While companies such as Estes, Saia, XPO and Knight-Swift have reopened former Yellow terminals, others are going to wait “until the time looks better,” Sayer said. “I think LTL capacity is going to double as the market lifts,” when it eventually does rebound. That could happen in the first half of 2025 if the US Federal Reserve continues to cut interest rates, Miller said. That could drive greater investment in manufacturing and factory output. “Freight volumes are so muted because of the industrial economy,” he said. He cited ongoing weakness in industries such as machine production, fabricated metals, wood products and paper manufacturing. “Paper manufacturing saw a big drop-off starting in the second quarter of 2022, and production is still down almost 10%,” he said. Paper manufacturers are the fourth-largest contributor to US truckload volumes, Miller said. “Paper manufacturing alone generates about seven million truckload shipments a year, as much if not more than all containerized imports,” he said. Contact William B. Cassidy at <a href="mailto:bill.cassidy@spglobal.com">bill.cassidy@spglobal.com</a>.</div>

US trucking demand in the fourth quarter — whether truckload or less-than-truckload (LTL) — is essentially weak, and that isn’t likely to change until US manufacturing output strengthens substantially, speakers said during a Journal of Commerce webcast Thursday. “We’re just not seeing significant signs of a true, meaningful uptick in demand, even if we do have more seasonality,” Jason Miller, Eli Broad professor of supply chain management at Michigan State University said during the peak season trucking outlook webcast. The monthly for-hire trucking ton-mile index Miller produces was down 0.6% year over year in August, the latest month for which data is available. Even after seasonal adjustment to trucking ton-miles data, “we’re coming up flat,” said Miller, who is also a Journal of Commerce analyst. Despite higher US imports in 2024, “we’re not seeing any signs yet of a significant breakout from a demand standpoint.” Similar comments have been made by large publicly owned trucking companies, which over the past week have reported soft demand in their quarterly earnings reports. That makes a strong increase in either truckload or LTL rates unlikely in early 2025. “I don’t expect there to be a real sharp inflection” in truck pricing in the first quarters of 2025, Knight-Swift Transportation Holding CEO Adam Miller said during an Oct. 23 earnings call. “I think it’s somewhat of a grind upwards,” at least for truckload pricing. “Our customers have simply had fewer shipments,” Old Dominion Freight Line (ODFL) CEO Marty Freeman told investment analysts during his company’s Oct. 23 earnings call. ODFL’s daily LTL shipment count dropped 1% year over year in the third quarter. “Looking at all the data, there’s good reason to expect freight volumes today have reverted back to 2019 levels overall,” Miller told the Journal of Commerce. Truck capacity is higher than in 2019 but trucking employment is heading toward pre-pandemic levels, he said. “You combine those two things and you get a market that’s generally soft,” he said. “It’s a shipper’s market, but you still have seasonality.” That seasonality may tighten the truckload spot market in the last two months of 2024, but not by much, Miller forecast. LTL capacity shrinks After the collapse of Yellow in 2023 , LTL capacity is lower than it was in 2019, according to Miller. The failure of the then third-largest LTL provider took 323 terminals and about 19,000 doors of LTL capacity out of the market, and that capacity hasn’t been replaced. “Half of that [Yellow] capacity has not even been sold yet,” Scooter Sayers, founder of Sayers Logistics and a sales executive for Cubiscan, a maker of dimensioning systems, said during the webcast. Yellow recently put 112 terminals up for auction . “I think the LTL carriers are looking at where they want to be five or 10 years down the road but they’re also looking at where the market is right now,” meaning they may not be too eager to bring terminals they’re buying from Yellow online quickly, Sayers said. While companies such as Estes, Saia, XPO and Knight-Swift have reopened former Yellow terminals, others are going to wait “until the time looks better,” Sayer said. “I think LTL capacity is going to double as the market lifts,” when it eventually does rebound. That could happen in the first half of 2025 if the US Federal Reserve continues to cut interest rates, Miller said. That could drive greater investment in manufacturing and factory output. “Freight volumes are so muted because of the industrial economy,” he said. He cited ongoing weakness in industries such as machine production, fabricated metals, wood products and paper manufacturing. “Paper manufacturing saw a big drop-off starting in the second quarter of 2022, and production is still down almost 10%,” he said. Paper manufacturers are the fourth-largest contributor to US truckload volumes, Miller said. “Paper manufacturing alone generates about seven million truckload shipments a year, as much if not more than all containerized imports,” he said. Contact William B. Cassidy at bill.cassidy@spglobal.com .

US trucking demand at 2019 levels, constraining rate hikes: analysts

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">The Port of Virginia is enjoying a 372% surge in breakbulk cargo volumes thanks largely to handling cargo shipments supporting a 2.6-gigawatt offshore wind project. </div>

The Port of Virginia is enjoying a 372% surge in breakbulk cargo volumes thanks largely to handling cargo shipments supporting a 2.6-gigawatt offshore wind project.

<div class="phx-topic">Progress on a gigantic wind farm off the US mid-Atlantic coast is picking up speed, and it’s driving a surge of project cargo to the Port of Virginia. In the first nine months of 2024, breakbulk cargo volumes through the port shot up 372% year over year to 360,976 tons, according to the Virginia Port Authority (VPA). The cargo windfall is largely coming from the 2.6-gigawatt Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, which Virginia utility Dominion Energy is developing in the mid-Atlantic, about 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, VPA spokesman Joe Harris told the Journal of Commerce. The first cargo shipment for the project arrived at the port in October 2023. Since May, Dominion has installed 78 of the 176 total monopile foundations planned for the site, with the remaining installations on track for completion by late 2026, Dominion spokesman Jeremy Slayton told the Journal of Commerce. To ensure the port can handle the weight and size of the offshore wind project’s massive components, over $220 million in upgrades are underway at the 287-acre Portsmouth Marine Terminal, the staging site for the offshore wind project’s components and one of VPA’s two multipurpose terminals in Norfolk Harbor. Harris said the improvements — which include reconstructing the berth, reinforcing the cargo yard’s pavement, and reworking the vessel mooring configuration — are 85% complete and scheduled to be fully complete in January 2025. “We’re still pouring concrete and doing some heavy work, but we are nearing the end,” he said. In the meantime, Dominion is readying to take delivery of the Charybdis, the first US-flag compliant wind turbine installation vessel. The 472-foot vessel, which has been under construction in Brownsville, Texas, since 2020, should be ready for deployment by early 2025, Slayton said. The $715 million Charybdis will ferry wind components from the port to the installation site in compliance with the Jones Act, the federal law requiring that goods shipped between domestic ports are transported on ships that are US-built, owned and operated. “We knew early on that a Jones Act vessel was going to be key to not only our project, but also to offshore wind development in the US,” Slayton said. Components including monopile foundations and pin piles are being directly loaded onto the heavy-lift vessel Orion, owned by Belgium’s DEME Group, at Portsmouth Marine Terminal. From there, Jones Act vessels including tugs and barges will be used to install transition pieces, and then the Charybdis will install wind turbine components once the vessel is ready to go into service. Monopile installations will be paused from Nov. 1 to April 30 to allow for whale migration past the project area. The breakbulk boom in Virginia comes as project development in the US has decelerated “due largely to uncertainty around the presidential election,” according to industry group Oceantic Networks’ third quarter 2024 market report. However, states have revamped their project portfolios <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/transportation-industry-welcomes-project-cargo-reality-check-5703049">after several cancellations and delays in 2023 and early 2024</a>, federal permitting is being simplified, and funding from the Inflation Reduction Act is now being released, setting up the industry for growth, the report said. Contact Autumn Giusti at <a href="mailto:autumn@autumngiusti.com">autumn@autumngiusti.com</a>. </div>

Progress on a gigantic wind farm off the US mid-Atlantic coast is picking up speed, and it’s driving a surge of project cargo to the Port of Virginia. In the first nine months of 2024, breakbulk cargo volumes through the port shot up 372% year over year to 360,976 tons, according to the Virginia Port Authority (VPA). The cargo windfall is largely coming from the 2.6-gigawatt Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, which Virginia utility Dominion Energy is developing in the mid-Atlantic, about 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, VPA spokesman Joe Harris told the Journal of Commerce. The first cargo shipment for the project arrived at the port in October 2023. Since May, Dominion has installed 78 of the 176 total monopile foundations planned for the site, with the remaining installations on track for completion by late 2026, Dominion spokesman Jeremy Slayton told the Journal of Commerce. To ensure the port can handle the weight and size of the offshore wind project’s massive components, over $220 million in upgrades are underway at the 287-acre Portsmouth Marine Terminal, the staging site for the offshore wind project’s components and one of VPA’s two multipurpose terminals in Norfolk Harbor. Harris said the improvements — which include reconstructing the berth, reinforcing the cargo yard’s pavement, and reworking the vessel mooring configuration — are 85% complete and scheduled to be fully complete in January 2025. “We’re still pouring concrete and doing some heavy work, but we are nearing the end,” he said. In the meantime, Dominion is readying to take delivery of the Charybdis, the first US-flag compliant wind turbine installation vessel. The 472-foot vessel, which has been under construction in Brownsville, Texas, since 2020, should be ready for deployment by early 2025, Slayton said. The $715 million Charybdis will ferry wind components from the port to the installation site in compliance with the Jones Act, the federal law requiring that goods shipped between domestic ports are transported on ships that are US-built, owned and operated. “We knew early on that a Jones Act vessel was going to be key to not only our project, but also to offshore wind development in the US,” Slayton said. Components including monopile foundations and pin piles are being directly loaded onto the heavy-lift vessel Orion, owned by Belgium’s DEME Group, at Portsmouth Marine Terminal. From there, Jones Act vessels including tugs and barges will be used to install transition pieces, and then the Charybdis will install wind turbine components once the vessel is ready to go into service. Monopile installations will be paused from Nov. 1 to April 30 to allow for whale migration past the project area. The breakbulk boom in Virginia comes as project development in the US has decelerated “due largely to uncertainty around the presidential election,” according to industry group Oceantic Networks’ third quarter 2024 market report. However, states have revamped their project portfolios after several cancellations and delays in 2023 and early 2024 , federal permitting is being simplified, and funding from the Inflation Reduction Act is now being released, setting up the industry for growth, the report said. Contact Autumn Giusti at autumn@autumngiusti.com .

Offshore project delivers Virginia cargo windfall

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The world of LTL is slow to embrace change. Business anachronisms permeate current supply chain processes. These vestiges of the way things used to work define the LTL freight transportation procurement process of many modern shippers.David Knuth, logistics specialist at IEWC, a global supplier of cable and wire based in Wisconsin, is happy to have modernized the RFP process, automating the entire LTL bidding procedure with Bid$ense, SMC³’s automated truckload and LTL freight transportation sourcing solution. But when prompted, he can still recall what once was.In his previous job, a large part of his duties were consumed by creating an intermodal bid package for carriers. In a spreadsheet, Knuth detailed the company’s volumes lane by lane, taking care to delete any errant keystrokes or misleading data. He would then email out the information to each carrier, taking time to respond to detailed technical questions about the spreadsheet data. Finally, he had to compile all the results, create an algorithm that would compare the carriers on each lane, and award the business.“It was a huge undertaking. It took about four months to do,” Knuth said of the old process. “It was almost a full-time job for that part of the year, every year.”In his new job at IEWC, he sat down with Bid$ense on day one and was amazed at the capabilities. Knuth had never before used a bid tool. SMC³’s latest versions of Bid$ense automate the process even further, taking truckload and LTL RFPs entirely online. The tool draws on RFP best-practices protocols to streamline the bidding communication process, enabling bidding carriers to respond accurately and promptly to shipper requests. The solution also does all the distribution work automatically, electronically submitting shipper bid data to carriers based on their actual service capabilities and performance records. Carriers are alerted with timely prompts for RFP deliverables, so shippers aren’t waiting by the phone for responses.Another benefit of automating the process is the data-cleansing assistance. When Knuth sent spreadsheets to carriers, data errors might cloud the bidding process; he might have to resend data or simply accept a price that did not truly reflect the costs of doing business. Data cleansing is incredibly beneficial, he said.The spreadsheet technique also made bidding analysis an onerous task. Since Bid$ense automates and streamlines the entire RFP process, intensive examination is now simple. SMC³ knows that each bid has more than one best outcome. With uniform responses from each carrier, shippers can quickly rank results and create an unlimited quantity of what-if scenarios to make the optimal procurement decision.Jesse Burnett of Central Garden &amp; Pet experiences many of the same benefits. Founded in 1980, Central Garden &amp; Pet has spent the last three decades growing from a small garden supply company to a provider of a range of products from dog chews and bird seed to soil supplements and natural insecticides. For much of its life, the company shipped these disparate goods via LTL and truckload carriers to retailers throughout the country, relying on each business unit to negotiate directly with their freight transportation providers. This arrangement worked fairly well for a small company, but as Central Garden &amp; Pet expanded, leadership decided to consolidate decision making.Burnett helped centralize the transportation decision making in 2015 with SMC³’s Bid$ense. Before Bid$ense, every business unit operated independently as far as negotiating with carriers.“There were a lot of different things just floating around,” he said. “We didn’t have master agreements in place; no national pricing at all. The pricing from carriers was just all over the place, depending on where you were.”The transformations he saw with Bid$ense were immediate. Burnett has been using the tool about every other year since its implementation at the company. Central Garden and Pet’s $19.6 million 2019 LTL bid saved the company just more than 9 percent when compared to its historical average. For Burnett, though, bid automation extends far beyond savings.“We knew that we weren’t getting the best pricing offer from our carriers just because nothing was centralized,” he continued. “We knew that if we combined everything from all these business units and paired it with one corporate offering, then it would drive some cost benefit with it.”When the company initially decided to centralize bid procurement, executives researched a number of different methodologies and technologies. In the end, though, Burnett found that Bid$ense was both widespread and well known, and that his carrier partners already knew how to use the application. Burnett also highlighted the data-cleansing process as a major benefit, saying the rigorous process ensures that carriers always return the best price.“It definitely has helped drive savings,” he said. “Any time you go out there and you drive that competitiveness with the carriers and they know they’re in a bid environment, it seems to sharpen their pencils.”Transportation procurement is an integral part of the modern supply chain. With Bid$ense, shippers can develop a strategic implementation plan that saves them time and money, but also helps them create strong relationships with their carrier partners. These carriers appreciate the solution’s data-cleansing process; when carriers receive a complete shipment history and future volume forecast, they don’t have to guess on pricing. Carriers that receive more data from shippers get a complete picture of that shipper’s freight, allowing them to accurately plan instead of simply preparing for the worst-case scenario. Clean data presented through an automated system can lead to both bigger shipment savings and a lasting partnership between carrier and customer.Whether customers are looking to streamline over-the-road transportation bidding by automating the RFP process or create an entirely new, centralized sourcing process, Bid$ense has the analytical horsepower to get the job done.SMC³ 2020 Customer Case Study

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Shippers save money, time with automated transportation bidding tools

If there’s one immutable truth in the world of logistics, it’s this: LTL is an inherently complex form of transportation. Tariffs, rates, DIM weights, transit times — it’s enough to confuse even seasoned logistics professionals. The solution to this knowledge gap has historically been on-the-job training or university supply chain education, but for a variety of reasons there is now a pressing need for third-party, remote LTL training that prepares logistics workers for transportation success. Global Scope Can Overlook Local Intricacies In the past, professionals looking to move into a supply chain career learned about the basics of supply chain from universities. However, many of these college supply chain programs are now global in scope, focusing on worldwide supply chain management instead of the intricacies of specialized domestic transportation. And even these programs, which used to be widespread, are becoming less common. LTL is not an industry of broad-brush strokes; supply chain professionals really need a pointillistic understanding of the logistics of LTL in order to excel in the industry. Accelerating Need for Dedicated LTL Education This lack of specified training put the onus on employers to prepare new hires with the LTL knowledge needed to do their jobs. Dedicated LTL study is a necessity, not a luxury. At the same time, changes in LTL and the broader supply chain world are accelerating. The reliance on e-commerce has ballooned since the start of the pandemic, and last-mile LTL shipments and related e-commerce strains on the supply chain won’t diminish once social distancing abates. That genie isn’t going back into the bottle. So supply chain employers need logistics workers that are fully versed in all aspects of the industry, ready to solve unique shipping and delivery problems based on their extensive supply chain knowledge But why care about LTL? It’s been reported that some shippers in today’s world are no longer concerned with what mode is used to ship their goods. A Multimodal Approach Ensures On-Time Delivery This mode agnosticism means supply chain stakeholders have to be well versed in all modes of transportation. As unforeseen weather events and other disruptions, such as protests, become more common, savvy logistics employees will need to be armed with familiarity of all modes, not just the most popular, to ensure that freight is delivered on time, without damage, and in the most financially expedient way possible. Offerings like SMC³’s LTL online education courses cover a wide range of topics from LTL basics and operations to more advanced concepts like pricing analytics and transportation law. The company also has plans to continually refresh content, adding new expert presenters and taking the feedback of students to make the courses even better as time goes on. Learn more about&nbsp;<a href="https://logisticstrainingcenter.com/smc3-courses/" rel="noreferrer" class="joc_admin__link">SMC³’s LTL Online Education program</a>&nbsp;and view the 2021 hybrid schedule, featuring live industry experts,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.smc3.com/onlinelearning2021/" rel="noreferrer" class="joc_admin__link">here.</a>

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