Commentary

Although port labor strikes are anything but a recent phenomenon, the recent pace of strikes is quickening in response to escalating economic changes worldwide.

I believe it’s safe to say that among all of the aspects of international trade, the most misunderstood and misused element of an international transaction is the correct application of shipping Incoterms.

Other than last week’s stunning collapse of the P3 Network, there’s arguably no hotter issue in the container shipping world than port productivity.

Everywhere you turn, people are bullish on the future of online retailers. It’s reflected in Amazon’s stock price, which has grown rapidly thanks to … free shipping.

The timing could have hardly been worse. Two days after the U.S. trucking industry scored a rare Senate victory against last year’s revision to truck driver hours of service rules, a tractor-trailer slammed into a limousine van on the New Jersey Turnpike, killing comic James McNair and badly injuring his fellow comedian and TV star Tracy Morgan.

The ocean shipping industry faces two overriding challenges: improving cost efficiencies and improving customer experiences.

It is well documented that U.S. West Coast ports face a number of competitive challenges.

Unlike McDonald’s, where a Big Mac is the same wherever you go, services provided by ocean carriers are anything but uniform, and that leads to much of the chaos we see today at terminals and inland points when it comes to first- and last-mile operations.

ACT Research sees an increase in active truck capacity this year, in terms of the numbers of Class 8 tractors, the first since 2007 — good news for shippers.

Contract negotiations between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and U.S. West Coast waterfront employers are shining a light on the integrity of the U.S. ports system.

For those who haven’t been paying attention to TransForce, Canada’s largest trucking operator, it’s time to start.

Executive Editor Chris Brooks discusses what shippers are seeing, as revealed in recent surveys.

If there’s one thing Americans can agree on, it’s that we have a vast infrastructure deficit.

It’s a well-established axiom in the intermodal world that the drayage carrier has always been the low man on the totem pole.

When a company such as uShip links up occasional shippers with carriers for moving larger-than-parcel items, are there legal pitfalls? Is it acting as a freight broker?

Accelerating freight growth is raising questions about capacity at North American ports, the truckload market and other troublesome bottlenecks.

Columnist Jerry Peck identifies the five most popular business departments responsible for trade compliance.

Cyber-warfare. The word causes shudders throughout the e-tailing business, and you need to look no further than Target, Michaels and Neiman Marcus for the latest examples of significant consumer data theft.

A shipper finds one of its brokers is factoring its receivables. What would be the shipper’s defense if it pays the factor, the broker doesn’t pay the carrier, and the carrier demands payment?

To improve profits, carriers need to put down the big trailers and deploy straight trucks in pickup and delivery operations.

The Panama Canal expansion has triggered some serious consideration about a port’s place in the new world order of larger ships and the place of its neighbor(s).

What are shippers really willing to pay for? Better documentation? Better customer service and problem resolution?

The driving public may not know it yet, but its sustained desire to eliminate the risk of fatal truck accidents is leading inexorably to a future of automated trucks on U.S. highways. Jarring as that may seem, it’s not a bad thing at all. Everyone will be safer, and the business benefits will be huge.

The U.S. maritime industry is experiencing two trends — one promising and the other much less so. How the industry and the federal government craft a policy and implement it to harness shipbuilding momentum and aid the ailing Merchant Marine will determine whether the so-called rising tide does indeed lift all boats.

Yesterday was gray, gloomy and rainy in Newark, New Jersey — just the kind of day Conrad H.C. Everhard would have picked for a luncheon in his memory.

These are heady days for Hamburg, with its home carrier Hapag-Lloyd on the verge of acquiring the Chilean line CSAV’s container assets to leapfrog a couple of Asian rivals into fourth place in the global rankings just five years after it was rescued from a near-certain bankruptcy and a humiliating takeover by Singapore’s Neptune Orient Lines.

It’s easy to get carried away in building extra time into supply chains in the chaotic environment of 2014. Fear of disappointing customers just once can lead to overly cautious transit time assumptions.

Brokers beware: A new interpretation of law regarding who may be held responsible for events that result in injury may land you in court — or worse.

The baking of literally billions of Girl Scout cookies and the subsequent distribution and delivery of tens of millions of boxes must be accomplished within a narrow time frame, creating one of today’s truly remarkable logistical feats, and earning admiration from corporate and military logistics alike.

In her 2008 book, “The Celebrity Experience: Insider Secrets to Delivering Red Carpet Customer Service,” author and motivational speaker Donna Cutting delivers some simple advice to companies of all types when dealing with those who buy their services: “Give them their chicken soup.”

As much of North America thaws out from a brutal winter, the burning question in freight transportation is whether the heavy congestion experienced in many areas was solely a weather-related phenomenon or whether limits in transportation capacity are finally starting to be revealed.

In my 42-plus years in the industry, I’ve seen many variations of what we now call alliances — joint services, slot-charter arrangements, vessel-sharing agreements, alliances and now mega-alliances — and more no doubt will follow.

Congress again will consider an infrastructure fund, this time supported by a 1 percent tax on freight charges. Why shippers shouldn’t lose sleep about it becoming law.

Few in the industry combine the breadth of experience and willingness to share their opinions in an open forum. Ron Widdows, former NOL-APL chief who now heads Hamburg-based Rickmers Group, is one of them.

If you think drayage is a tough job today, imagine doing it with horses.

Though it seems odd to hear myself called an “elder statesman,” my 42 years in transportation allow me an opinion of the industry today. Is it better or worse, or just different?

Combine several hundred longshoremen on a work break with energetic speakers using microphones they don’t need, and you get a lot of noise.