Commentary

LTL capacity will continue to be tight and rates will keep rising in 2022, but shippers can minimize the impact of this challenging market by modifying their shipping practices to be more carrier-friendly.

Disruption seen in the durable goods supply chain has devastated capacity and equipment supplies in the north–south trades in perishables, leaving growers with no vessel space and late-arriving cold chain perishables decaying on the docks.

Because freight moves through local, national, continental, and international networks, the federal government must take leadership in solving some of the current supply chain conundrums.

In today’s brittle supply chain, shippers must be able to plan for unexpected changes, shift resources, and communicate revised timelines at a moment’s notice.

Parcel providers are missing out by not recognizing that consumers will pay for customized delivery to suit the unique attributes of the products and their lifestyles.

The only time transportation focuses the public’s attention is when something goes wrong. We have been betrayed by leaders – public and private – who avoided tough decisions necessary for long-term sufficiency in favor of short-term results.

The Container Excess Dwell Fees certainly don’t pass the scrutiny of the FMC’s incentive principle contained in its interpretive rules for demurrage and detention.

Importers shouldn’t be on the hook for port demurrage when they can’t remove containers.

A three-way intersection on the horizon, where serverless, SaaS, and open-source platforms collide, will hasten this ongoing revolution we’re seeing take place.

A US regulatory cloud hangs over railroads amid service deterioration.

To blame the entirety of the supply chain problems on “foreign” carriers is a tried-and-true tactic — and grossly unfair.

Pricing from the National Motor Freight Classification still works and with some low-cost tweaks, it can work even better.

The challenges faced by the intermodal industry stem from treating intermodal like carload and paying insufficient attention to service.

As a starting point, it might be useful to consider what we do not have enough of.

Labor powering freight transportation is in the driver's seat.

In a tight market, shippers need forwarders more than ever. How can shippers make sure they have the right partners to lean on?

There is no better source for your order volume forecast accuracy than your downstream end-user.

San Pedro is the beating heart of our nation’s transportation system. Let’s hope the close-up is favorable.

Operators have been losing money for decades. As the city tries to shift the burden of the Queen Mary to the port, can we really expect the future to be any different?

At a time of stretched global supply chains, the answer is not for Washington policymakers to dictate a “solution” that would lead to fewer chassis.

The Suez Canal disruption shows that network constraints — known or unexpected — can generate disruptions and diseconomies of scale.

The constellation of problems facing intermodal rail is daunting, but not insurmountable, given proper attention. The issues of outsourcing, rigid scheduling, and insufficient attention to service can be overcome to bring in intermodal’s bright future.

Companies offering managed transportation management services have traditionally struggled to integrate parcel and last mile service into their traditional freight offerings, but the mandate to do so is growing thanks to e-commerce demand.

The Biden administration’s first priority should be immediate action to keep supply chains stable amid COVID-19.

As we begin 2021, we hope to leave behind the disruptions of 2020 — the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting global recession, collapsing oil prices, Brexit, and a bitter US presidential cycle, to name a few — but however brief it is, disruption always leaves permanent change in its wake.

Houston-based industry group offers mentoring and professional connections that are hard for students to find during the pandemic.

Someone on a ship may have weeks or months to go before getting home.

While it may not be necessary to completely re-create the Super Van network in the 21st century, the intermodal sector may need to move towards something closer to that so-called ancient model.

Companies that want to do business with carriers that support the TradeLens cloud service have no option but to join and supply the required data.

The federal government could accelerate electric trucking by allowing heavier trucks