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The Port of Virginia has scored a major victory to deepen its harbor to 55 feet and make the location one of the most attractive on the US East Coast for beneficial cargo owners.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Thursday provided guidance on when drivers can use trucks for personal conveyance, among other guidance areas.

Through 2018's first quarter, India's trade performance has substantially outpaced the global trade growth rate.

The new tractors will be a combination of replacement and new vehicles that will help the second-largest less-than-truckload operator improve service and utilization — and attract drivers.

At Shanghai — the first port to handle 40 million TEU in a year (2017) — even the slightest delay quickly causes bottlenecks to build, and the spring fog 'season' this year was more severe than it has been in the past.

Starting Friday, China Customs will require manifest submissions 24 hours prior to loading, or risk missing the intended sailing. One supply chain director called the order nothing new, but another called it a non-tariff barrier deployed mainly against the United States, but also Europe.

Less-than-truckload carriers are in expansion mode as freight pours in from traditional and non-traditional sources. But will available industrial real estate limit their growth?

Via frequent outreach to truckers, beneficial cargo owners, and railroads — including a culture change — Total Terminals International has gone from having the worst truck turn times at the ports of Los Angeles-Long Beach to becoming one of the more efficient terminals.

Shippers could face challenges finding trucks June 5 to 7 as an annual three-day roadside safety blitz tests electronic logging and hours-of-service compliance.

Concerning the peak season fee, at the same time that Hapag-Lloyd added a $1 fuel surcharge, the ocean carrier surprised the market with a peak season surcharge of $55 per TEU that it said will be levied from June 1 on all trades out of China.

Less than 24 hours after engineers and conductors walked out and joined the picket line, Canadian Pacific Railway reached a tentative, four-year deal with the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference.

Austin, Texas, may one day be on air cargo operators' “A-List” for cargo pick-up, but until then shippers will continue to adapt, develop creative air transport solutions, and find air service niches to transport products to customers.

Ocean carriers, shippers, and other business decision makers have big plans for Canada, where strong container trade growth is expected in the immediate years ahead. The key task now is to fully fund vital infrastructure improvement and expansion projects to maintain that promising momentum.

The provisional settlement came after officials from the Indian Ports Association met union leaders in Mumbai and expressed the government’s willingness to discuss and resolve workers’ charter of demands.

Chassis splits — when a trucker is diverted to a second location for a chassis — are not new, but shippers and trucking companies are concerned about how these chassis shortages and splits throw off delivery windows, hours of service, and costs.

Shippers are suffering throughout the logistics chain, with essential supplies not getting through and imports and exports frozen at the country’s main ports. Perishables are rotting away in many trucks or are stuck at the “full to bursting” port facilities.

The four vessels will more than double the transport capacity via this mode, as three vessels are already in operation, and more are expected to join the fleet in the coming months.

Shippabo’s founder Nina Luu says shippers struggling to find drayage trucks should start their search at sea, with better visibility into inbound containers. That means using technology to better connect importers, ocean carriers, freight forwarders, customs brokers, and trucking operators in flexible networks.

Stevedore service rates at Russian seaports have risen substantially since January, due to several factors, Russian transport officials and shippers confirmed. Further, stakeholders expect additional rate hikes ahead, given likely continued Russian economic and trade growth.

Integra, founded in 2003, has offices in Houston, Dallas, and Chicago and is also an intermodal marketing company and third-party logistics provider.

With Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust shippers increasingly opting to use speedy, direct port delivery to minimize logistics costs, third-party logistic providers no longer enjoy the bargaining power they had in the past.

Rising confidence in the air cargo market is good news for air cargo providers, as shippers and their forwarders move to lock in space and avoid the capacity constraints that characterized peak 2017.

China’s import rules and increased inspections have sent US exporters of scrap on a new market search.

As with many other consumer industries, it’s not that the toy industry pie is shrinking, it’s merely being split differently.

After a robust 2017, another strong year for electronics imports to the United States is likely in 2018, given the iPhone/smartphone era and the utility of apps. And only an all-out China/US trade war would slow that trend.

After a year of modest growth, chemical exporters face a more challenging market in 2018, largely due to tougher regulations in key markets, especially China.

Strong demand from emerging market countries points to another good year for US foodstuffs in 2018, but like so much of the US trade picture, political variables — including trade war/tariff tensions with key destination markets — may affect sales.

In 2017, US imports of household goods jumped as home projects and construction soared on economic strength, and the outlook calls for continued growth in 2018.

While the data on the phenomenon are in their infancy and hardly comprehensive, it appears less-than-containerload shipping is being propelled higher by several postmodern trends that are changing the nature of global trade, including the rise of e-commerce, more frequent shipping, and technology enabling supply chain monitoring and optimization.

Rodolphe Saadé, group CEO of CMA CGM, announced the surcharge along with first-quarter results, which saw revenue surge. Despite that increase in demand, fuel costs resulted in a $77-million net loss for the quarter.

DHL has launched "DHL SmarTrucking" in India, which the company claims will substantially increase the emerging market economy's over-the-road supply chain efficiency.

However, freight forwarders and shippers said they did not expect the disappearance of two carrier’s trans-Atlantic services to have much impact on capacity on the United States-Northern Europe route.

With such a sharp increase in bunker fuel prices that dragged carriers into a loss-making first quarter, it is no surprise that Maersk and Mediterranean Shipping Co. will levy an emergency bunker surcharge from June 1.

The United States is early in trucking’s “new normal” era, but what is already clear is this: shippers will have to use all options — whether truckload, intermodal rail, less-than-truckload, or even package van — if they want to secure surface transportation capacity.

The Oakland Portal that the Northern California port launched Thursday will help beneficial cargo owners, terminal operators, truckers, and other port users share shipment information on a single platform rather than having to access dozens of different websites.

US forest product and paper industry exports have rebounded, aided by eased environmental regulations.

Railroads are no longer taking on new contracts for peak domestic intermodal business later this year out of Southern California. And that means small-size and mid-size shippers will likely be hurt the most because they don’t have the necessary volume to gain leverage in negotiations; they will be forced to supplement any truckload serve with record-high spot rates on the rails.

Shippers and other Vancouver trade stakeholders hope precautionary actions by the transportation ministry and terminal operator Global Container Terminals Canada, to increase driver pay rates and shift from a congestion-based appointment charge to a flat fee effective June 1, prevent driver strikes and congestion that have substantially delayed cargo in the past.

When talking about capacity, shippers too often focus on drivers, facilities, and assets. Time, however, is a key element in transportation capacity, and one that needs to be addressed if shippers hope to find freight space at reasonable prices and ship “more with less” in 2018.

Shippers that view Montreal as a quick and direct way to move cargo in and out of Canada, and perhaps connect to the United States, can rest easier regarding their assessment; a pilot program that extended gates by 4.5 hours appears to have diminished congestion inside the port.