Surface

Air conditioning, heat shields and air intake vents are coming to UPS package cars as the Teamsters and their largest employer move closer to a tentative five-year labor agreement. 

Tiger Cool Express was an innovator in the intermodal industry, one of the first to fully embrace containerized reefer intermodal when it began ramping up operations in late 2013.

Flexible transactional pricing is helping ArcBest LTL subsidiary ABF Freight increase shipment volumes and attract new shippers despite reduced demand from core customers. 

Norfolk Southern is a step closer to consolidating its Michigan intermodal business at one site after receiving a grant from the state for improvements at the Livernois yard.

Data from analysts and carriers shows less-than-truckload providers are staying disciplined when it comes to pricing despite a freight recession and softer US economy.

Yellow claims its ability to “continue as a going concern” is being impaired by Teamster opposition to its restructuring.

While the FMC has jurisdiction over ocean carriers, it cannot regulate railroads simply because of their association with container lines, CSX said in a motion to disentangle itself from a demurrage complaint.

Trucking analysts believe the downward pressure on rates has ended — or is close to ending, but an upward surge isn’t necessarily on the horizon, either.

US consumers are still spending, but at a slower rate, and that’s pushing major restocking of goods further toward the back half of 2023, analysts and retailers say.

The appointment of a new CEO for the US’s largest logistics provider comes six months after the dismissal of ex-CEO Bob Biesterfeld, who was let go amid slowing freight demand, rate declines and investor unrest.

ILWU Canada rank-and-file will vote later this week on whether to issue a 72-hour strike notice, raising the unprecedented prospect of disruption on Canada’s West Coast amid job actions by labor along the US West Coast.

The American Trucking Associations said Julie Su’s track record of supporting California’s A.B. 5 law and a lack of support for the trucking industry has failed to reassure them she would be a successful Secretary of Labor.

Container carrier Evergreen argues the FMC ignored “critical facts” when applying the incentive rule in a December case and, in doing so, inadvertently set a precedent that detention cannot be charged on a holiday weekend.

The railroad is reducing demurrage fees and restoring additional free time that was eliminated in the past two years as international intermodal volumes have fallen sharply from East Coast ports.

An index based on truck counts at large truckload carriers dropped nearly 5% in the first quarter from late 2022 as those carriers adjusted to a softer market and lower contract and spot rates.

Union Pacific’s launch of direct intermodal service from Houston comes two weeks after competitor BNSF announced it would begin a new service from the port’s Barbours Cut marine terminal.

Weeks after starting a new daily train between central Mexico and Chicago, CPKC is introducing 1,000 temperature-controlled containers to the service in a bid to court freight from reefer shippers.

The long drop in truckload spot market rates has eased, revealing a soft bottom for pricing, but more demand is needed to fuel any upswing benefiting truckers, observers say.

As shippers scramble to shed unwanted inventory, more than 80% responding to a Journal of Commerce survey reported that they’ve kept 53-foot domestic containers for too long, incurring detention fees.

More freight density, a tighter point-to-point network and better data have enabled successive rounds of transit time cuts at Roadrunner, which company executives claim is gaining shipments.

Shippers want Congress to address their inability to challenge rail demurrage fees when they contract for merchant haulage, but finding a solution will be tricky, writes Journal of Commerce Executive Editor Mark Szakonyi.

The Singapore-headquartered terminal operator has extended its reach deeper into the landside business, targeting the growing Central Asia rail freight market.

Pricing for refrigerated truckload service is shooting up along the US-Mexico border and outbound from California, in some cases by more than 20 cents per mile from April’s averages, as fruit and vegetable crops start moving to market.

Trailer marketplace technology provider vHub estimates a quarter of truckload trailers are out of network for the nation’s carriers, with an abrupt shift in demand exacerbating that dislocation.

A “perfect storm” of poor schedule reliability, persistently high electricity prices, weak demand and cheaper diesel for trucking continues to undermine Europe’s rail-dominated combined transport sector.

Greater demand for manufactured goods, especially automotive parts, is spurring Mexico-to-US cross-border trucking, with more nearshoring of production on the horizon.

Customers were largely satisfied with intermodal service in early 2023, citing CSX and J. B. Hunt as the top overall providers in North America, according to a Journal of Commerce biannual survey.

Flexport has lured a key figure in the development of Uber Freight and Coyote Logistics in a move likely to shake up the domestic third-party logistics market.

Rail storage has been at the forefront of recent regulatory discussion as the FMC solidifies its final rulemaking on detention and demurrage, with shippers wanting ocean carriers to be the billing party for such charges.

The railroad will start a twice-weekly service to Dallas and once-weekly service to Denver, but no ocean carrier as yet is offering inland moves from Houston.

Many businesses are being forced to tighten controls over how goods are shipped and who they ship them with, but the technology that helps them may also be used against them, according to industry sources.

Excess capacity is lingering in US freight markets because fewer carriers than expected have gone bankrupt so far this year, analysts say.

Rail storage fees continue to be a point of contention for shippers and the National Shipping Advisory Committee wants the FMC to step up and take ownership.

One might expect that Western Canadian ports have benefited from cargo bound for the US Midwest being diverted from the US West Coast to avoid potential labor disruption, but that has not been the case, notes analyst Larry Gross.

US trucking companies added jobs for the second straight month, but the employment wave hasn’t reached package delivery firms or warehouses.

Activity at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach has a direct impact on the domestic intermodal market, large intermodal providers say, which is why rail volumes were so poor in the first quarter.

Currently, there is no US regulatory agency with direct authority to oversee application of rail storage fees under ocean carriers’ through bills of lading and to determine whether those charges are assessed properly.

Intermodal shippers are saving less than a year ago, but they should anticipate that savings will increase in the months ahead as more annual contracts are signed.

Jones Act carrier Crowley will offer a new international container service from Mexico’s Gulf Coast into Mobile that will use Canadian National for inland reach to the US Midwest and Canada.

New York-New Jersey port truckers who worked five days per week last year are now down to about half that amount, sending spot drayage rates well below levels seen in 2021 and 2022.