<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">Having US ports return to a pre-COVID “status quo” depends on a slowing of cargo volumes and a return of labor to the logistics workforce in significant enough numbers to improve cargo flow.</div>

Having US ports return to a pre-COVID “status quo” depends on a slowing of cargo volumes and a return of labor to the logistics workforce in significant enough numbers to improve cargo flow.

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<div>At some point, the realization may set in that the ship queue outside the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and broader trans-Pacific container supply chain problems aren’t going away any time soon. That would be a change in thinking for a consensus of observers and would have implications for what happens next. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the baseline for ships waiting outside Los Angeles-Long Beach was zero. And because the pandemic had an outsized, although historically rare, impact on the supply chain, the collective industry has been asking, “When will the pre-pandemic status quo be restored?” since...

At some point, the realization may set in that the ship queue outside the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and broader trans-Pacific container supply chain problems aren’t going away any time soon. That would be a change in thinking for a consensus of observers and would have implications for what happens next. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the baseline for ships waiting outside Los Angeles-Long Beach was zero. And because the pandemic had an outsized, although historically rare, impact on the supply chain, the collective industry has been asking, “When will the pre-pandemic status quo be restored?” since ships started lining up 15 months ago. The answer, however, depends on two factors that are beyond the industry’s control: a slowing of cargo volumes due to a pullback in consumer spending, and a return of labor to the logistics workforce in significant enough quantities to improve overall cargo flow. For that to happen, the pandemic would likely need to transition into an endemic phase. “One would have to believe in a couple things for fluidity to return in the near term regardless of some operational improvements taking place on the margins: a sustained moderation in volumes, an easing in the massive dislocation/congestion of ocean assets, and a reduction in the negative impact of COVID on the workforce,” said Ron Widdows, CEO of chassis provider FlexiVan Leasing and a former CEO of ocean carrier APL. “These are global dynamics, not only a US challenge.” Referring to the situation in Los Angeles–Long Beach, Hapag Lloyd CEO Rolf Habben Jansen told CNBC on Jan. 18, “In the end, I personally think it is only really going to turn when we see the people coming back to work and we have most of this hopefully last COVID wave behind us.” For the ports and White House Port Envoy John Porcari, the perilous link between supply chain backups and inflation makes it politically impossible to sit back and wait for broader economic or public health trends to come to the rescue. As a result, the market has witnessed a series of actions in recent months — from encouraging importers to move to 24/7 operations to threatened fees on long-dwelling containers — that have thus far had a limited impact on alleviating the backups. Urgency as an upside But there is an upside. The historic levels of congestion have brought attention to the supreme task at hand, which is speeding cargo flow through the marine terminals. The problem has been known for years, but there has never been greater urgency or focus from the top of the US government. When import cargo flows too slowly through the terminals, especially at a time of heavy volume, the terminal yards fill up with containers, leaving no space to unload additional containers and forcing ships to remain at berth for longer and, eventually, to queue up outside the ports. On Jan. 14, there were 106 container vessels outside Los Angeles–Long Beach and stretched across the Pacific awaiting a berth, just three short of the record 109 ships reported on Jan. 9, according to the Marine Exchange of Southern California. IHS Markit Port Performance data shows that ships at the busiest US port complex were at berth for nearly 60 percent longer in the fourth quarter of 2021 versus the same period in pre-pandemic 2019. Ports for decades have watched with distaste as importers leaned on marine terminals as temporary storage space. Chronic overcapacity in the pre-pandemic container market led to contract terms that gave shippers weeks of free storage time on the terminals. Backups materialized whenever an unexpected surge occurred, such as in late 2018 when threatened Trump administration tariffs on Chinese-made goods led importers to front-load shipments ahead of the planned Jan. 1 implementation, leading to a rare 23 percent year-over-year spike in US imports from Asia in December 2018. Looking ahead, unless the plan is to wait out the pandemic, marine terminals must be viewed as sacrosanct. Cargo cannot be allowed to remain on the terminals beyond a few days, at most. Otherwise, the system will remain vulnerable even if the ship backup is eliminated. The question now becomes what the government is prepared to do about it, because all the evidence suggests that long-term solutions to terminal flow are beyond the capacity of the private sector. Long-imagined solutions such as intermodal rail shuttles to the Inland Empire, which the railroads have deemed unprofitable, or the creation of massive inland container yards, should be on the table. “Imagine if you simply said, ‘Let’s forget how much it costs, but we’re going to move containers en masse off of marine terminals, and we’re going keep terminal utilization at an optimal utilization which allows for consistent flow,’” Widdows said. “If this was to be considered a national emergency, [we would] condemn land, suspend regulation, and create massive inland container handling capacity. Then you can at least turn the ships and enable ships to operate on time. “The fact the containers are piling up out in the desert, that’s a different problem that you would have to reconcile, but by doing this you are eliminating port capacity as a constraint,” he added. Contact Peter Tirschwell at peter.tirschwell@ihsmarkit.com and follow him on Twitter: @petertirschwell .

North American ports

Industry confronts limited reach to solve US port woes

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">Severe disruptions have delayed cargo on both the northern and middle corridors over the past year, forcing Europe-based shippers to reassess their continued usage of the overland route. </div>

Severe disruptions have delayed cargo on both the northern and middle corridors over the past year, forcing Europe-based shippers to reassess their continued usage of the overland route.

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<div class="phx-topic">The threat of getting caught in the crossfire of the Russia-Ukraine war and ongoing infrastructure and weather-related concerns on the southern route is keeping European importers from China to stay off the tracks of the overland route. Lengthy disruptions have delayed cargo on both the northern corridor and middle corridor rail networks over the past year, forcing Europe-based shippers of high value and time-sensitive goods to reassess their continued usage of the overland route. ”The current geopolitical situation makes it difficult to consider shipping by train through Russia as a stable and reliable option,” said David Smrkovsky, global head of logistics procurement at Czech Republic-based automotive manufacturer Kostal Group. “Geopolitics influences shipping routes between Asia and Europe now more than ever. One can suddenly get weeks of delays, and you can quickly face production shutdowns because nobody can factor in a buffer of four- or five-weeks delay in the supply planning,” he added. Westbound rail traffic from China to Europe in the first half fell 27.4% year over year to 118,291 TEUs, with 93.4% of the volume entering Europe via Poland, according to Upply. The supply chain visibility provider noted in a market update September that shippers switching to rail as a substitute for ocean during the Red Sea disruption in the first half of 2024 had “most likely” returned to maritime transport where rates were more competitive. Rates from Chinese terminals to European terminals have been around $3,000 per FEU for most of the year, according to the Eurasian Alliance Rain Index (ERAI). Data from Platts, a sister company of the Journal of Commerce, shows that this week’s Asia-North Europe ocean rate was at $1,300/FEU. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, slammed the brakes on the China-Europe rail network where volume had expanded by almost 30 percent in 2021 to a record 1.46 million TEUs. More than 90% of the rail freight between China and Europe was transported via Russia and its ally Belarus, but in the days following the invasion, global forwarders <a href="https://www.joc.com/rail-intermodal/china-europe-rail-under-threat-volume-exits-russian-route_20220316.html">announced a stop on handling rail freight</a> traveling through those countries, in addition to their suspension of all cargo bookings to and from Russia and Belarus. While most western forwarders eschewed the Russia-transiting route over moral issues, Chinese forwarders had no such qualms and continued to provide overland services to Europe, although much of the volume on the rail network is also related to China-Russia trade. In the last two years, many of the global forwarders have returned to the trade lane that remains the fastest option for moving containers from China to Europe. At least, until unplanned border closures related to the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, and western sanctions on Moscow, bring rail trade to a standstill. On Sept. 12, the border between Poland and Belarus was closed for two weeks after Russian drones entered Polish airspace during war games in neighboring Belarus. Closing the main Małaszewicze border crossing between Poland and Belarus impacted thousands of trucks and 300 trains that were in transit on the northern corridor. Even though the border was reopened on Sept. 25, some of the bottlenecks are still being cleared. <h3>Impossible to plan for border closures </h3>Forwarders contacted by the Journal of Commerce declined to comment publicly on the volatile political situation, but an executive at a global logistics provider said Russia would continue to test EU neighbours with related border closures likely to become more common and impossible to plan for. “The full potential of the northern corridor will only be realized once the Ukraine conflict is fully resolved,” the forwarder said, adding that the middle corridor as a China-Europe option was “too long and too unpredictable.” Hellmann Worldwide Logistics had containers impacted by the Poland-Belarus border closure, but the Hamburg-based forwarder managed to find a way to mitigate the delays. “Luckily, we found solutions, and we have a few alternatives, but (border closures) remain difficult,” Helge Neumann-Lezius, global head of full container load at Hellmann, told the Journal of Commerce. One of the alternatives was railing containers to St. Petersburg and using ocean to Hamburg, but Taiwan-based forwarder Dimerco said all available space on that option was booked within two days of the Małaszewicze border point being shut, which demonstrated strong market demand for China-Europe rail. "This indicates that as long as alternative routes offer advantages over air and sea freight options, the China-Europe freight trains will continue to attract long-term attention,” Dimerco noted in a customer advisory following the Poland-Belarus border closure. But Dimerco acknowledged that the incident would hit market confidence in the short term, and the capacity availability and stability of alternative routes would become key variables. <h3>Customs checks bring trains to a standstill </h3>Not all disruptions can be resolved in weeks, or even months. In November last year, possibly in response to tightening sanctions, Russia decided to make physical checks on all cargo crossing its borders, bringing Europe-bound trains on the northern corridor to a standstill at the Kazakhstan-Russia checkpoint. Smrkovsky said large numbers of containers were sent back to China and had to be shipped by ocean, turning a 30-day transit into a three-month journey. He said many international shippers switched part of their volumes to the middle corridor through Kazakhstan and across the Caspian Sea to bypass Russian territory. But the sudden rise in volume quickly overwhelmed the multimodal route and combined with extreme weather resulted in unprecedented delays. “Last winter, the port of Aktau (on Kazakhstan’s Caspian Sea) was closed sometimes for a week, sometimes even longer on short notice and the throughput was severely reduced. I've been dealing with China-Europe rail transportation for 15 years and these were the most serious delays I have ever seen,” Smrkovsky said. “It was impossible to solve the situation for shippers and forwarders. There were containers in transit for over 100 days between China and Bulgaria. Containers were stuck in Aktau port in a rail yard and when they finally were able to move and the cargo reached Baku on the Azerbaijan side of the Caspian, the railways were unable to handle the volume, leading to another three weeks delay,” he said, adding that hundreds of production companies in Europe were affected. Investment into the middle corridor is trying to address some of the infrastructure concerns and the lack of capacity of rail ferries on the Caspian Sea, but Smrkovsky is not convinced. “Let’s see what the performance will be on the middle corridor during the upcoming winter,” he said. Thomas Kowitzki, global head of China rail at DHL Global Forwarding, Freight, said rail remained attractive for shippers requiring faster than ocean freight transit times or searching for a cheaper alternative to air freight. While Kowitzki said the northern rail route was running smoothly after the reopening of the Poland-Belarus border in late September, the middle corridor was problematic with a range of factors making the rail route unattractive for China to Europe traffic. “The trans-Caspian routing...does not yet provide the competitive advantage, as lead times are unstable and long due to extreme weather situations, lack of sufficient infrastructure at handling ports and capacity to cross the Caspian Sea,” he said, adding that the route was a better solution for China-Central Asia cargo than as a transport option between China and Europe. Contact Greg Knowler at <a href="mailto:greg.knowler@spglobal.com">greg.knowler@spglobal.com</a>. </div>

The threat of getting caught in the crossfire of the Russia-Ukraine war and ongoing infrastructure and weather-related concerns on the southern route is keeping European importers from China to stay off the tracks of the overland route. Lengthy disruptions have delayed cargo on both the northern corridor and middle corridor rail networks over the past year, forcing Europe-based shippers of high value and time-sensitive goods to reassess their continued usage of the overland route. ”The current geopolitical situation makes it difficult to consider shipping by train through Russia as a stable and reliable option,” said David Smrkovsky, global head of logistics procurement at Czech Republic-based automotive manufacturer Kostal Group. “Geopolitics influences shipping routes between Asia and Europe now more than ever. One can suddenly get weeks of delays, and you can quickly face production shutdowns because nobody can factor in a buffer of four- or five-weeks delay in the supply planning,” he added. Westbound rail traffic from China to Europe in the first half fell 27.4% year over year to 118,291 TEUs, with 93.4% of the volume entering Europe via Poland, according to Upply. The supply chain visibility provider noted in a market update September that shippers switching to rail as a substitute for ocean during the Red Sea disruption in the first half of 2024 had “most likely” returned to maritime transport where rates were more competitive. Rates from Chinese terminals to European terminals have been around $3,000 per FEU for most of the year, according to the Eurasian Alliance Rain Index (ERAI). Data from Platts, a sister company of the Journal of Commerce, shows that this week’s Asia-North Europe ocean rate was at $1,300/FEU. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, slammed the brakes on the China-Europe rail network where volume had expanded by almost 30 percent in 2021 to a record 1.46 million TEUs. More than 90% of the rail freight between China and Europe was transported via Russia and its ally Belarus, but in the days following the invasion, global forwarders announced a stop on handling rail freight traveling through those countries, in addition to their suspension of all cargo bookings to and from Russia and Belarus. While most western forwarders eschewed the Russia-transiting route over moral issues, Chinese forwarders had no such qualms and continued to provide overland services to Europe, although much of the volume on the rail network is also related to China-Russia trade. In the last two years, many of the global forwarders have returned to the trade lane that remains the fastest option for moving containers from China to Europe. At least, until unplanned border closures related to the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, and western sanctions on Moscow, bring rail trade to a standstill. On Sept. 12, the border between Poland and Belarus was closed for two weeks after Russian drones entered Polish airspace during war games in neighboring Belarus. Closing the main Małaszewicze border crossing between Poland and Belarus impacted thousands of trucks and 300 trains that were in transit on the northern corridor. Even though the border was reopened on Sept. 25, some of the bottlenecks are still being cleared. Impossible to plan for border closures Forwarders contacted by the Journal of Commerce declined to comment publicly on the volatile political situation, but an executive at a global logistics provider said Russia would continue to test EU neighbours with related border closures likely to become more common and impossible to plan for. “The full potential of the northern corridor will only be realized once the Ukraine conflict is fully resolved,” the forwarder said, adding that the middle corridor as a China-Europe option was “too long and too unpredictable.” Hellmann Worldwide Logistics had containers impacted by the Poland-Belarus border closure, but the Hamburg-based forwarder managed to find a way to mitigate the delays. “Luckily, we found solutions, and we have a few alternatives, but (border closures) remain difficult,” Helge Neumann-Lezius, global head of full container load at Hellmann, told the Journal of Commerce. One of the alternatives was railing containers to St. Petersburg and using ocean to Hamburg, but Taiwan-based forwarder Dimerco said all available space on that option was booked within two days of the Małaszewicze border point being shut, which demonstrated strong market demand for China-Europe rail. "This indicates that as long as alternative routes offer advantages over air and sea freight options, the China-Europe freight trains will continue to attract long-term attention,” Dimerco noted in a customer advisory following the Poland-Belarus border closure. But Dimerco acknowledged that the incident would hit market confidence in the short term, and the capacity availability and stability of alternative routes would become key variables. Customs checks bring trains to a standstill Not all disruptions can be resolved in weeks, or even months. In November last year, possibly in response to tightening sanctions, Russia decided to make physical checks on all cargo crossing its borders, bringing Europe-bound trains on the northern corridor to a standstill at the Kazakhstan-Russia checkpoint. Smrkovsky said large numbers of containers were sent back to China and had to be shipped by ocean, turning a 30-day transit into a three-month journey. He said many international shippers switched part of their volumes to the middle corridor through Kazakhstan and across the Caspian Sea to bypass Russian territory. But the sudden rise in volume quickly overwhelmed the multimodal route and combined with extreme weather resulted in unprecedented delays. “Last winter, the port of Aktau (on Kazakhstan’s Caspian Sea) was closed sometimes for a week, sometimes even longer on short notice and the throughput was severely reduced. I've been dealing with China-Europe rail transportation for 15 years and these were the most serious delays I have ever seen,” Smrkovsky said. “It was impossible to solve the situation for shippers and forwarders. There were containers in transit for over 100 days between China and Bulgaria. Containers were stuck in Aktau port in a rail yard and when they finally were able to move and the cargo reached Baku on the Azerbaijan side of the Caspian, the railways were unable to handle the volume, leading to another three weeks delay,” he said, adding that hundreds of production companies in Europe were affected. Investment into the middle corridor is trying to address some of the infrastructure concerns and the lack of capacity of rail ferries on the Caspian Sea, but Smrkovsky is not convinced. “Let’s see what the performance will be on the middle corridor during the upcoming winter,” he said. Thomas Kowitzki, global head of China rail at DHL Global Forwarding, Freight, said rail remained attractive for shippers requiring faster than ocean freight transit times or searching for a cheaper alternative to air freight. While Kowitzki said the northern rail route was running smoothly after the reopening of the Poland-Belarus border in late September, the middle corridor was problematic with a range of factors making the rail route unattractive for China to Europe traffic. “The trans-Caspian routing...does not yet provide the competitive advantage, as lead times are unstable and long due to extreme weather situations, lack of sufficient infrastructure at handling ports and capacity to cross the Caspian Sea,” he said, adding that the route was a better solution for China-Central Asia cargo than as a transport option between China and Europe. Contact Greg Knowler at greg.knowler@spglobal.com .

Rail News

International rail

Surface

Geopolitics, weather delays undermine China-Europe rail viability

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">“Stone age” thinking on technology to support breakbulk cargo moves has left engineering, procurement and procurement companies in a tech void. </div>

“Stone age” thinking on technology to support breakbulk cargo moves has left engineering, procurement and procurement companies in a tech void.

<div class="phx-topic">While the container sector has sprinted toward digitalization, shippers of specialized cargo are being left behind by systems that cannot cope with complexity, with some resorting to taking steps backward rather than forward, according to project cargo shippers. A core issue, according to several senior logistics managers speaking to the Journal of Commerce, remains the systemic reluctance to modernize by those controlling the physical assets. One executive said multipurpose vessel carriers are “still in the stone age with tech and AI,” suggesting the fundamental data pipeline is broken before it even reaches the cargo owners. While some third-party logistics providers (3PLs) and forwarders have developed slick interfaces, there is a lack of interoperability if a shipper uses multiple service providers. “A forwarder can have an awesome platform but if you don’t want a solo forwarding contract you’re stuck,” said one shipper. For software developers, the distinction between a box and an industrial cargo continues to be misunderstood: “The platforms exist, but boxes are easier for a software provider. The big box software guys don’t know project logistics.” The result is stagnation, with one engineering, procurement and construction company noting they had gone through “two years of pain” with a software installation and had been forced to take a step back to reset. <h3>Let down by weak supplier forecasting </h3>Operational data deficiencies are compounding the technological headache and forecasting remains a major bottleneck. “We have 100-plus suppliers. Trying to get forecasts 3/6/12 months ahead from them is impossible,” said another shipper. “Until we have that information, we can’t take this forward and streamline the process.” The project cargo shipper-vendor relationship also often suffers from a post-sale decline in support, requiring significant internal adjustments. “When you are sold a system, it also requires processes and people to support it,” a shipper said. But the “A” vendor team that installs the system is pulled back after set-up and the shipper is left with the “D” vendor team for continued operation, they said. This disillusionment is driving a shift away from monolithic systems and toward bespoke integration with project cargo shippers reaching the conclusion that one-size-fits-all solutions are ill-suited for industrial projects. The consensus is that the future lies in connecting specialized tools: “I think the old school way of doing it where one tech company does everything is dead.” Instead, focus is shifting to highly adaptive integration layers: “Where tech is going it’s more about middleware that sits between different systems and pushes and pulls data. There are a few people dabbling with that,” said another shipper. Contact Carly Fields at <a href="mailto:carly.fields@spglobal.com">carly.fields@spglobal.com</a>. </div>

While the container sector has sprinted toward digitalization, shippers of specialized cargo are being left behind by systems that cannot cope with complexity, with some resorting to taking steps backward rather than forward, according to project cargo shippers. A core issue, according to several senior logistics managers speaking to the Journal of Commerce, remains the systemic reluctance to modernize by those controlling the physical assets. One executive said multipurpose vessel carriers are “still in the stone age with tech and AI,” suggesting the fundamental data pipeline is broken before it even reaches the cargo owners. While some third-party logistics providers (3PLs) and forwarders have developed slick interfaces, there is a lack of interoperability if a shipper uses multiple service providers. “A forwarder can have an awesome platform but if you don’t want a solo forwarding contract you’re stuck,” said one shipper. For software developers, the distinction between a box and an industrial cargo continues to be misunderstood: “The platforms exist, but boxes are easier for a software provider. The big box software guys don’t know project logistics.” The result is stagnation, with one engineering, procurement and construction company noting they had gone through “two years of pain” with a software installation and had been forced to take a step back to reset. Let down by weak supplier forecasting Operational data deficiencies are compounding the technological headache and forecasting remains a major bottleneck. “We have 100-plus suppliers. Trying to get forecasts 3/6/12 months ahead from them is impossible,” said another shipper. “Until we have that information, we can’t take this forward and streamline the process.” The project cargo shipper-vendor relationship also often suffers from a post-sale decline in support, requiring significant internal adjustments. “When you are sold a system, it also requires processes and people to support it,” a shipper said. But the “A” vendor team that installs the system is pulled back after set-up and the shipper is left with the “D” vendor team for continued operation, they said. This disillusionment is driving a shift away from monolithic systems and toward bespoke integration with project cargo shippers reaching the conclusion that one-size-fits-all solutions are ill-suited for industrial projects. The consensus is that the future lies in connecting specialized tools: “I think the old school way of doing it where one tech company does everything is dead.” Instead, focus is shifting to highly adaptive integration layers: “Where tech is going it’s more about middleware that sits between different systems and pushes and pulls data. There are a few people dabbling with that,” said another shipper. Contact Carly Fields at carly.fields@spglobal.com .

Logistics Technology News

Breakbulk carriers

Project cargo

Breakbulk News

Maritime

Shippers disillusioned by project cargo technology

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">The start-and-stop nature of the Trump administration’s tariffs means changes are coming at a pace that exceeds the supply chains’ ability to react, writes Larry Gross.</div>

The start-and-stop nature of the Trump administration’s tariffs means changes are coming at a pace that exceeds the supply chains’ ability to react, writes Larry Gross.

<div class="phx-topic">I’ve just returned from the Journal of Commerce’s Inland 2025 conference in Chicago, where I had conversations with multiple beneficial cargo owners (BCOs) and listened to the panelists. One major theme of these conversations was a basic sense of fatigue stemming from the tariff changes that are emanating from the Trump administration with machine-gun rapidity and the consequent lack of forward visibility. I was reminded of a recent experience I had driving in remote Durango, Co. What’s the connection? Stay tuned, I assure you there is one. My wife and I were driving home up US 550 north of town, a 60-mph high-quality road with wide lanes and good sightlines – but no lights. And it gets plenty dark in rural Colorado. All was in order until a very large mule deer buck sidled into our headlights from the highway shoulder just ahead. I have had it drilled into me that the proper reaction in such instances is to jam on the brakes, but do not swerve to avoid the animal. The logic here is that if you swerve, there is a pretty good chance that the animal will leap the wrong way and end up back in the line of fire. Meanwhile, you have dramatically increased the odds of other mishaps including over-steering, leaving the road and other calamities that could involve far worse damage than coming into contact with the creature. <div class="wrapper-narrow float-right-element"><img src="/images/phoenix/6091458_0.1.jpg"></img></div>Dutifully following instructions, I jammed on the brakes, and thanks to the ABS, managed to come to a complete stop just before reaching the deer. Remarkably, he took no heed of his narrow escape and continued his stroll across the highway in a leisurely, uninterrupted fashion. Luckily, there was no one coming the other way to forestall his progress. This, I believe, is now how importers are beginning to react, or more accurately, not react, to various tariff threats and actions. The changes are coming at a pace which exceeds the supply chains’ ability to react. When a threat comes across the wire, the normal importer response is to plot a corrective course of action. Often these emergency revisions add cost, complexity and time to the pre-existing, presumably optimized shipping arrangements. The problem is that currently there is a very high likelihood that the threat will be rescinded prior to implementation, or that a new threat will be announced that may very well target your newly relocated source. It seems that being proactive just does not make sense right now. <h3>Waiting for clarity </h3>Rather, what most importers seem to be doing is staying the course, but stepping on the brakes, bringing in the minimum amount of product that they need to get by, while waiting for the future to crystallize. Most have shifted out of the mode of bringing in more product than is needed at present. If this logic holds, then we have probably already seen the peak for 2025. From an intermodal perspective, both of the years since the end of the post-pandemic surge, 2023 and 2024, had unusually late peaks. In 2024, the two biggest weeks of the year were in December, far later than the usual peak (based on pre-pandemic patterns) of the last week in September. This week (Week 41 on the calendar) will show very positive comps versus the prior year because last year, eastern US intermodal activity was hammered by hurricane disruptions. But that relief will be short-lived. The question is whether normal seasonality will reappear in the fourth quarter. In such a case, volume should slide downward from here. This will make for some rather painful comparisons versus the prior year late in Q4. Alternatively, if consumer demand comes in unexpectedly strong, then perhaps we will see another late-year mini-surge to restock those empty shelves. But either way, it appears that the start-stop of trade flows into the US is waning as importers tire of trying to keep up with a fast-changing situation that defies logical predictions. Larry Gross is president and founder of Gross Transportation Consulting. Contact him at <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/lgross@intermodalindepth.com">lgross@intermodalindepth.com.</a></div>

I’ve just returned from the Journal of Commerce’s Inland 2025 conference in Chicago, where I had conversations with multiple beneficial cargo owners (BCOs) and listened to the panelists. One major theme of these conversations was a basic sense of fatigue stemming from the tariff changes that are emanating from the Trump administration with machine-gun rapidity and the consequent lack of forward visibility. I was reminded of a recent experience I had driving in remote Durango, Co. What’s the connection? Stay tuned, I assure you there is one. My wife and I were driving home up US 550 north of town, a 60-mph high-quality road with wide lanes and good sightlines – but no lights. And it gets plenty dark in rural Colorado. All was in order until a very large mule deer buck sidled into our headlights from the highway shoulder just ahead. I have had it drilled into me that the proper reaction in such instances is to jam on the brakes, but do not swerve to avoid the animal. The logic here is that if you swerve, there is a pretty good chance that the animal will leap the wrong way and end up back in the line of fire. Meanwhile, you have dramatically increased the odds of other mishaps including over-steering, leaving the road and other calamities that could involve far worse damage than coming into contact with the creature. Dutifully following instructions, I jammed on the brakes, and thanks to the ABS, managed to come to a complete stop just before reaching the deer. Remarkably, he took no heed of his narrow escape and continued his stroll across the highway in a leisurely, uninterrupted fashion. Luckily, there was no one coming the other way to forestall his progress. This, I believe, is now how importers are beginning to react, or more accurately, not react, to various tariff threats and actions. The changes are coming at a pace which exceeds the supply chains’ ability to react. When a threat comes across the wire, the normal importer response is to plot a corrective course of action. Often these emergency revisions add cost, complexity and time to the pre-existing, presumably optimized shipping arrangements. The problem is that currently there is a very high likelihood that the threat will be rescinded prior to implementation, or that a new threat will be announced that may very well target your newly relocated source. It seems that being proactive just does not make sense right now. Waiting for clarity Rather, what most importers seem to be doing is staying the course, but stepping on the brakes, bringing in the minimum amount of product that they need to get by, while waiting for the future to crystallize. Most have shifted out of the mode of bringing in more product than is needed at present. If this logic holds, then we have probably already seen the peak for 2025. From an intermodal perspective, both of the years since the end of the post-pandemic surge, 2023 and 2024, had unusually late peaks. In 2024, the two biggest weeks of the year were in December, far later than the usual peak (based on pre-pandemic patterns) of the last week in September. This week (Week 41 on the calendar) will show very positive comps versus the prior year because last year, eastern US intermodal activity was hammered by hurricane disruptions. But that relief will be short-lived. The question is whether normal seasonality will reappear in the fourth quarter. In such a case, volume should slide downward from here. This will make for some rather painful comparisons versus the prior year late in Q4. Alternatively, if consumer demand comes in unexpectedly strong, then perhaps we will see another late-year mini-surge to restock those empty shelves. But either way, it appears that the start-stop of trade flows into the US is waning as importers tire of trying to keep up with a fast-changing situation that defies logical predictions. Larry Gross is president and founder of Gross Transportation Consulting. Contact him at lgross@intermodalindepth.com.

North-American rail

Intermodal providers

Supply chain

Importers pump brakes as they tire of ever-changing US tariff policy: analyst

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">The port will go ahead with the first phase of developing more container handling capability at its second-largest marine terminal, which is also providing temporary parking for big ships. </div>

The port will go ahead with the first phase of developing more container handling capability at its second-largest marine terminal, which is also providing temporary parking for big ships.

<div class="phx-topic">The Port of Savannah has approved the first phase in building out container handling capacity at Ocean Terminal, its second-largest marine terminal that has a new role serving as a lay berth for big ships calling the larger Garden City terminal. The lay berth’s startup last month comes as anchorage delays at Savannah have fallen to about one day. The board of the Georgia Ports Authority (GPA) this week approved $614 million in spending for the first phase of improvements at Ocean Terminal, including the container yard, terminal and other infrastructure. The first phase of the terminal’s renovation is expected to be completed in 2027. A second phase of Ocean Terminal’s buildout will be completed in the second half of 2028 for a total investment in the facility of $1.54 billion, the GPA said in a statement. While Ocean Terminal has limited lift capability for small container ships, the 200-acre site is expected to handle two large container ships simultaneously at full buildout, with nominal capacity of 2 million TEUs per year. Along with berth improvements, the GPA plans to build expanded truck gates and a new exit ramp for trucks from Ocean Terminal. The GPA this spring completed some of the first renovation work at Ocean Terminal, opening a berth to handle super-post-Panamax ships. <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/savannahs-parking-spot-targets-idle-time-for-ships-main-terminal-5964038">That berth is now available as a “parking spot” for ships</a> to wait for a working berth at nearby Garden City rather than sit outside the port at anchor and wait out the tidal delays for transiting the Savannah River. “This lay berth, combined with our eight start times for ship labor, creates exciting new possibilities for ships to stay on schedule or make up time,” GPA Chief Executive Griff Lynch said in the statement. <h3>Lay berth cutting idle time </h3>The GPA said the first ship to use Ocean Terminal’s lay berth arrived in September, cutting 12 to 15 hours of idle time down to about three.The GPA did not identify the vessel, but tracking data from Sea-web, a sister company of the Journal of Commerce within S&amp;P Global, shows that the Hamburg Sud-operated 9,030-TEU CCNI Arauco arrived at Ocean Terminal on Sept. 11 and spent just over two hours there before proceeding to Garden City. The Arauco spent over two days sitting at anchorage outside of Savannah before calling Ocean Terminal, but that time at anchorage appears to be an outlier. Sea-web data shows the 267 container ships that called Savannah in the third quarter sat at anchorage for an average of just over 29 hours. When the GPA first proposed the lay berth, it was working down a severe backlog of ships sitting outside of Savannah due to winter weather. In the first quarter of 2025, 319 container ships sat at anchor for an average of 61 hours, according to Sea-web. Contact Michael Angell at <a href="mailto:michael.angell@spglobal.com">michael.angell@spglobal.com</a>.</div>

The Port of Savannah has approved the first phase in building out container handling capacity at Ocean Terminal, its second-largest marine terminal that has a new role serving as a lay berth for big ships calling the larger Garden City terminal. The lay berth’s startup last month comes as anchorage delays at Savannah have fallen to about one day. The board of the Georgia Ports Authority (GPA) this week approved $614 million in spending for the first phase of improvements at Ocean Terminal, including the container yard, terminal and other infrastructure. The first phase of the terminal’s renovation is expected to be completed in 2027. A second phase of Ocean Terminal’s buildout will be completed in the second half of 2028 for a total investment in the facility of $1.54 billion, the GPA said in a statement. While Ocean Terminal has limited lift capability for small container ships, the 200-acre site is expected to handle two large container ships simultaneously at full buildout, with nominal capacity of 2 million TEUs per year. Along with berth improvements, the GPA plans to build expanded truck gates and a new exit ramp for trucks from Ocean Terminal. The GPA this spring completed some of the first renovation work at Ocean Terminal, opening a berth to handle super-post-Panamax ships. That berth is now available as a “parking spot” for ships to wait for a working berth at nearby Garden City rather than sit outside the port at anchor and wait out the tidal delays for transiting the Savannah River. “This lay berth, combined with our eight start times for ship labor, creates exciting new possibilities for ships to stay on schedule or make up time,” GPA Chief Executive Griff Lynch said in the statement. Lay berth cutting idle time The GPA said the first ship to use Ocean Terminal’s lay berth arrived in September, cutting 12 to 15 hours of idle time down to about three.The GPA did not identify the vessel, but tracking data from Sea-web, a sister company of the Journal of Commerce within S&P Global, shows that the Hamburg Sud-operated 9,030-TEU CCNI Arauco arrived at Ocean Terminal on Sept. 11 and spent just over two hours there before proceeding to Garden City. The Arauco spent over two days sitting at anchorage outside of Savannah before calling Ocean Terminal, but that time at anchorage appears to be an outlier. Sea-web data shows the 267 container ships that called Savannah in the third quarter sat at anchorage for an average of just over 29 hours. When the GPA first proposed the lay berth, it was working down a severe backlog of ships sitting outside of Savannah due to winter weather. In the first quarter of 2025, 319 container ships sat at anchor for an average of 61 hours, according to Sea-web. Contact Michael Angell at michael.angell@spglobal.com .

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Savannah to fund Ocean Terminal improvements as lay berth opens

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">Mario Cordero has frequently said that his goal as Long Beach’s port director was to grow cargo volumes while promoting environmental sustainability in port operations.</div>

Mario Cordero has frequently said that his goal as Long Beach’s port director was to grow cargo volumes while promoting environmental sustainability in port operations.

<div class="phx-topic">Mario Cordero, who, as executive director of the Port of Long Beach, oversaw the port’s 28% growth in container volumes over the past eight years, will retire at the end of 2025. The Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners will meet “soon ... to discuss next steps for a transition plan,” the port said in a statement Thursday. “I could not be more grateful for what has been the opportunity of a lifetime to lead the Port of Long Beach,” Cordero said in the statement. Before becoming Long Beach’s executive director in May 2017, Cordero served as a Long Beach harbor commissioner and was a member of the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) in Washington. He’s a Los Angeles native who practiced law for more than 30 years. Cordero has frequently said in public appearances that his goal as Long Beach’s port director was to grow cargo volumes while promoting environmental sustainability in port operations. He proposed the port’s green initiative in 2003 while serving as a member of the Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners. The board ratified the Green Port Policy in 2005. Cordero served as a member of the port’s governing board from 2003 until being appointed to the FMC by President Barack Obama in 2011. He served as FMC chairman from 2013 to 2017. He left the FMC in May 2017 to become executive director of the Port of Long Beach. The port handled 7.5 million laden and empty TEUs in 2017, Cordero’s first year as executive director. Last year, Long Beach moved 9.6 million TEUs, according to the port’s website. “Mario has always stepped up to serve...,” Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson said in the statement. “He has guided one of the world’s busiest seaports through unprecedented times with vision and steady leadership.” Contact Bill Mongelluzzo at <a href="mailto:bill.mongelluzzo@spglobal.com">bill.mongelluzzo@spglobal.com</a>.</div>

Mario Cordero, who, as executive director of the Port of Long Beach, oversaw the port’s 28% growth in container volumes over the past eight years, will retire at the end of 2025. The Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners will meet “soon ... to discuss next steps for a transition plan,” the port said in a statement Thursday. “I could not be more grateful for what has been the opportunity of a lifetime to lead the Port of Long Beach,” Cordero said in the statement. Before becoming Long Beach’s executive director in May 2017, Cordero served as a Long Beach harbor commissioner and was a member of the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) in Washington. He’s a Los Angeles native who practiced law for more than 30 years. Cordero has frequently said in public appearances that his goal as Long Beach’s port director was to grow cargo volumes while promoting environmental sustainability in port operations. He proposed the port’s green initiative in 2003 while serving as a member of the Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners. The board ratified the Green Port Policy in 2005. Cordero served as a member of the port’s governing board from 2003 until being appointed to the FMC by President Barack Obama in 2011. He served as FMC chairman from 2013 to 2017. He left the FMC in May 2017 to become executive director of the Port of Long Beach. The port handled 7.5 million laden and empty TEUs in 2017, Cordero’s first year as executive director. Last year, Long Beach moved 9.6 million TEUs, according to the port’s website. “Mario has always stepped up to serve...,” Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson said in the statement. “He has guided one of the world’s busiest seaports through unprecedented times with vision and steady leadership.” Contact Bill Mongelluzzo at bill.mongelluzzo@spglobal.com .

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Cordero to retire at end of 2025 after eight years as Long Beach executive director

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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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