Commentary

There are a lot of theories explaining the current freight recession, but there is no disputing that decreased demand, cutthroat competition, and plummeting rates have occurred simultaneously with inflationary cost components, writes Ted Prince.

As AI becomes embedded across global trade workflows, the companies that stand apart will be the ones that treat identity, consent and authorization as core infrastructure.

The future of LTL classification will be shaped by systems that function in real operations, standards that scale and modernization grounded in how freight actually moves.

The era of “good enough” visibility has ended, and data accuracy needs to match its operational and economic impacts.

The National Motor Freight Traffic Association issued new guidelines to promote dimensional pricing last July but ignored the fact that the LTL industry was riddled with excess capacity and languishing demand.

Any domestic intermodal growth in 2026 will depend largely on whether the mode can claw back share from the highway.

While there is little doubt that heightened regulatory enforcement has played some role in affecting dry-van truckload capacity in the fourth quarter of 2025, efforts to attribute the sharp rise in spot prices this month to regulatory enforcement are premature, writes Jason Miller.

If gaps in strategy are visible to informed observers, they will be obvious to the STB, competitors conducting discovery, and shippers evaluating claimed benefits.

The Department of Justice seems to be suggesting that if the Supreme Court pulls the plug on the IEEPA tariffs, it won’t stand in the way of refunds — at least not for parties who get themselves properly in front of the Court.

Until the whole container shipping industry improves its reliability, the scope for any form of premium/bonus for above-target performance is low, writes John McCauley.

With the proposed Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern merger, the US rail industry finds itself facing a new future but the same historical set of challenges.

If the proposed Union Pacific–Norfolk Southern merger proceeds, the balance of power inside a little-known cooperative that serves as the industry’s shared equipment pool could shift dramatically.

The LTL world of 2025 does not reward those who guess, but rather those who know — and knowing begins with visibility.

There are measures carriers can take around the edges, but if they really want to take control of supply — and thus price — collectively sidelining some high-caliber tonnage is the standout solution, writes Jeremy Masters.

The introduction of containerized shipping to Michigan presents an opportunity to reinforce the domestic maritime industrial base.

Creating a transcontinental railroad is a test of whether North American freight can become globally competitive before it’s leapfrogged by digital platforms, foreign investment and shifting supply chains.

Thanks in large part to the current tariff environment, boardrooms are now increasingly focusing on mitigating their exposure to these new taxes and ensuring they’ll have sufficient inventories no matter the disruption.

The win for the trucking company at the Texas Supreme Court sets a powerful precedent that narrows the scope of liability in vehicular negligence cases, especially those involving unpredictable, high-impact crashes.

The shipping industry needs a fundamentally new, collaborative approach to build true resilience.

New research into digital crane systems raises concerns of an information gap at the intersection of technology and operational risk for project cargo shippers.

Container market participants should be open to a better way to support their overall risk management, particularly with the amount of new tonnage scheduled to hit the market in the near future.

As agricultural exports enter their traditional peak season, it is prudent to be proactive now — while there is still an empty container supply extant in North America.

The Trump administration’s tariff policy is yet another milestone that has shaken the US economy over the past 60 years, writes Ted Prince.

The new global trade environment has significantly increased supply chain challenges, notably the arbitrary nature of the implementation of US tariffs.

The continued growth of the San Pedro Bay ports — and the inter-related rail and logistics systems — are vital to a healthy US supply chain, writes the CEO of the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority.

There is widespread recognition that the industry has been caught in the jaws of a historically unprecedented freight recession — rate deflation accompanied by cost inflation — and if carriers are to return to historical levels of profitability, there is a need for rate and volume increases to deliver top-line growth.

No matter what changes occur, a FedEx Freight spinoff as a standalone LTL carrier will be good for the entire industry, writes Satish Jindel.

What we have today in containerization is the opposite of Malcom McLean’s vision, writes Ted Prince — a vertically integrated enterprise of cost centers has been replaced by a network of profit centers that closely resembles the intermodal rail world.

FMCSA’s proposed rule serves no commercial purpose, violates principles of free trade and irresponsibly exposes confidential data to potential bad actors, writes Jeff Tucker.

When considering the outlook for intermodal, there are any number of factors that could drive results. But for now, it seems that the only inflection has been that of expectations — not volume.

After 200 years of building the world’s greatest economy on the settled Commerce Clause jurisprudence of Gibbons v. Ogden, no one has been reckless enough to try to upend it.

MSC, which embarked on a major journey to establish a competitive independent network post-2M, has been helped by forging something mutually beneficial with the Premier Alliance and ZIM.

The cyclical nature of container shipping hasn’t changed, but the industry has reached a point in which the big carriers can look forward to good long-term returns on investment and outside investor parties looking for a way in, writes Jeremy Masters.

It’s hard to see a world where AI isn’t a necessary component for financial durability in a sector that will always grapple with the volatility of freight rates and the ebbs and flows of demand and volumes.

The large fuel tanks needed for low-density alternative fuels could make them a non-starter for multipurpose vessels.

Beneficial cargo owners have numerous market factors and risks to weigh when formulating a strategy for negotiating next year’s service contracts, writes John McCauley.

Whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump wins, the result will likely mean an accelerated supply chain shift out of China, but to different degrees, writes the supply chain director for industrial packaging firm Procon Pacific.

The container shipping industry has been slow to innovate its core commercial and customer service product, according to Jeremy Masters.

Despite sometimes disappointing outcomes even following the best of intentions, it is still worth the effort for shippers to take the steps toward building partnerships with carriers and forwarders that can withstand the ever more frequent swings in the market, writes Kristian Ording, consultant and former logistics director

Today, there are armies of the modern-day equivalent of longshoremen who, instead of moving heavy bags of sugar using steel hooks, are keying and rekeying the same data between various systems.