<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">This has been a record year for US intermodal rail, but changes in shipping patterns apparently have lowered the autumn intermodal peak — or broken it into two smaller peaks.</div>

This has been a record year for US intermodal rail, but changes in shipping patterns apparently have lowered the autumn intermodal peak — or broken it into two smaller peaks.

<div><div><img></div>This has been a record year for US intermodal rail, but changes in shipping patterns apparently have lowered the autumn intermodal peak — or broken it into two smaller peaks. (Above: An intermodal train travels through California, United States.) Photo credit: Shutterstock.com.Without a noticeable sign of a monster peak season, <a>US intermodal</a> market companies (IMCs) are now wondering whether expectations were set too high in a year when normal seasonal trends have been turned upside down. For now, capacity is tight in California but normal elsewhere.Intermodal was unusually busy in the 2018 first quarter, normally the off-season. <a>Logistics providers</a> wondered,...

This has been a record year for US intermodal rail, but changes in shipping patterns apparently have lowered the autumn intermodal peak — or broken it into two smaller peaks. (Above: An intermodal train travels through California, United States.) Photo credit: Shutterstock.com. Without a noticeable sign of a monster peak season, US intermodal market companies (IMCs) are now wondering whether expectations were set too high in a year when normal seasonal trends have been turned upside down. For now, capacity is tight in California but normal elsewhere. Intermodal was unusually busy in the 2018 first quarter, normally the off-season. Logistics providers wondered, ‘If it’s this busy now, how insane will it get during peak season?’ A surge in container movement in March and July fueled lofty expectations for September and October, but now IMCs believe there will be two normal peaks (July and October/November) rather than a single behemoth-like season. What the industry doesn’t know is whether a second surge is under way or further tightness remains on the horizon. Intermodal is not on a descent, but rather container and trailer loadings are rising at a steady pace. Week 39 had the highest intermodal volume ever reported to the Association of American Railroads (AAR), and the Intermodal Association of North America reported a monthly record in August. The discussion is about intensity and stress on railroad networks during peak season. Intermodal loadings climb for 38th of 39 weeks, year over year Through September, the only period when container and trailer loadings were lower than 2017 when combining major Class I Railroads was week one, according to AAR. In no other year have loadings climbed in 38 of the first 39 weeks year over year, according to historical data, topping the previous record of 37 set in 2014. Year-over-year growth rates exceeded 10 percent industrywide in three weeks this year, more frequently than any time since 2014. This translated into fears of a capacity apocalypse in rail — similar to those raised in trucking by the electronic logging device mandate. Click to enlarge “Earlier in the year when we saw everyone so hungry and desperate for equipment, some of us were already jumping the gun, stating the end of the third or fourth quarter will be crazy,” Knichel Logistics chief operating officer Jon Krystek said. “What we will end up seeing is maybe a couple peaks that are short but very intense for a two- to three-week period.” “As we look back to what we were projecting earlier this year, the numbers are a little bit lighter than some we’re thinking, but I would still say the numbers are very robust,” added Todd Thompson, senior vice president of Mode Transportation. “Things are heating up, but not as much as we anticipated during [the] peak season. It should be super busy and we are just seeing busy,” said Mike Burton, CEO of C&K Holdings, which owns C&K Trucking of Chicago. Los Angeles marketplace is tight Domestic equipment seems to be harder to find in Southern California than elsewhere. COFC Logistics , a private-asset provider of 53-foot containers, announced a $2,000 penalty on street turns without prior approval beginning Oct. 8. Street turning refers to reusing a single box for more than one shipper, a practice that COFC encourages when arrangements are made ahead of time. It is the first time COFC has ever instituted such a policy. “We are seeing increased demand in California and need to restrict street turns to make sure we meet our commitments. At this time, we do see tightening in all markets, but are able to keep up with our commitments. As of [Oct. 9], 96 percent of our fleet is being utilized,” COFC president Garry Old told JOC.com. “We always have and will continue [to] allow street turns no matter the situation, if the IMC moves the container into a constrained or restricted market. In our system it is called a rebook.” There also seems to be a drain on rail-owned containers, which is normal for the peak season and one reason why Union Pacific Railroad instituted a $1,200 surcharge on excess freight out of Los Angeles . If UP had not more than doubled its surcharge from 2017, the problem may have been much worse. One IMC said it was not too difficult to find a UP container this past week. Surcharges are meant to avoid a dire shortage or eliminate an undesirable behavior. It's also a way to protect core customers who tender volumes all year around. “Drayage demand in Los Angeles has moved upward. I wish I could differentiate between demand for 20-foot and 40-foot port drayage and 53-foot container rail drayage,” said Jason Hilsenbeck, founder of LoadMatch and Drayage.com, an online intermodal directory connecting shippers to draymen. “I can see from the email activity there is still power for port drayage, but on the 53-foot container side there’s very high demand for empties. The power for rail drayage is also there; it’s the lack of empty 53-foot EMHU/UMAX containers.” EMHU refers to rail-owned containers used by UP, Norfolk Southern Railway , and Canadian Pacific Railway . UMAX refers to containers used between UP and CSX Transportation . Part of the equipment tightness in Southern California is due to equipment dislocation. Data obtained by JOC.com show equipment is plentiful east of the Mississippi but is not making its way back to Los Angeles quick enough. Data also show UP’s container and trailer loadings have grown by double digits for five out of the previous six weeks. Loadings have surpassed 80,000 units in eight of the last nine weeks, according to AAR. The 80,000-mark had never been topped until this year. Even though railroads don’t separate loadings by originating city, it would be reasonable to conclude the Los Angeles metropolitan area is experiencing higher volumes. Part of these numbers are end-of-month business, also Week 39 represents end of the third quarter. It's unclear whether this uptick is sustainable or a momentary blip, and it was also puzzling that intermodal business was so slow as late as the third week of September. Other major markets remain less busy “As far as the Eastern network, we really haven’t seen much impact as of yet. As a whole, there is ample container capacity,” Krystek said. CSX reported double-digit growth in container and trailer loadings only once in the previous 13 weeks (one quarter). NS had double-digit growth three times, and UP had it six times. Combined with the dislocation in Los Angeles, empty containers are available eastward. “It’s been very sporadic. Strong groundings but only for a few days here and there in Chicago area,” said Kevin Lhotak, president of Reliable Transportation. “Our other offices in the Southeast and other areas in the Midwest seem to be consistent but not a total blast. I am sure tariffs have some affect as well, as the busy season seems to be getting earlier and earlier every year.” Patrick Maher, executive vice president of Gulf Winds International, said activity has also been slower in Dallas-Fort Worth after a surge in July. “I’m expecting another push [in the] last few weeks of October. So maybe two [normal] peaks and we are in a bit of a lull. It sure feels like the calm before the storm.” he said. Amazon and UPS are the keys The intensity of October and November in retail cargo might be connected to two companies: UPS and Amazon . The parcel giant uses both trailer-on-flatcar (TOFC) and domestic containers on dedicated trains. Amazon uses TOFC and sources containers from railroads and private-asset companies such as J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Schneider National, Hub Group, and others. "How much freight will Amazon and UPS put on the rails? This is the big unknown heading into November and December. It played an impact last year in some of the capacity constraints, not just finding a container but also getting a spot on the train,” Thompson said. He continued, “IMCs ran into instances in which we could get a container into the railyard, but it sat an extra day or two because of so much freight moving from UPS or Amazon.” Why is this important to shippers? Planning. If Class I railroads , IMCs, and drayage providers can get an accurate snapshot of how the calendar will play out, then capacity can be tailored in a way to efficiently handle container movements with minimal disruptions. Shippers are watching Amazon because they worry the e-commerce giant is sapping too much truck and rail capacity and not leaving enough for others. Contact Ari Ashe at ari.ashe@ihsmarkit.com and follow him on Twitter at: @arijashe .

North-American rail

Peak season: Were US intermodal rail expectations set too high?

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">While not yet reflected in freight rates, analysts and forwarders report growing space constraints out of Southeast Asian origins. </div>

While not yet reflected in freight rates, analysts and forwarders report growing space constraints out of Southeast Asian origins.

Feature image

<div class="phx-topic">European air freight importers are being indirectly affected by a tariff-driven shift in Asian trade flows that is putting capacity out of Southeast Asia under increasing pressure. While deployed air cargo capacity on routes from Southeast Asia to both Europe and the US remains flat this week compared with the average of the past four weeks, the shifting of volume from China to its southern neighbors is tightening available space, according to Jonathan Mellink, head of sales at air cargo analyst Rotate. “Shippers have shifted supply chains to cater for the differences in [US] tariff levies on different countries of origin, and we see these goods — computers, smartphones, auto parts — that were mostly coming out of China are being sourced in other locations,” Mellink told an air freight webinar hosted by Rhenus Logistics this week. For example, Mellink said 90% of all video game consoles were exported from China last year, but 50% of the products were now being sourced from Vietnam. Another example included Apple iPhones made in India, where significant volumes produced for the European market have been shifted to the US. While some electronics such as laptops, semiconductors and smartphones are excluded from the 10% US “reciprocal tariff” on Chinese imports, all imports of Chinese origin are subject to the 20% fentanyl tariff. “Shippers are trying to be agile and change their supply chains to benefit from at least some of the tariff differences out there,” Mellink said. Still, Chris Bode, vice president of global air freight at Rhenus Logistics, said exporters shifting thousands of tons of air freight from China to Southeast Asian manufacturing hubs such as Thailand and Vietnam risk overloading the outbound market. “[Thailand and Vietnam] are exporting roughly 40,000 tons a month on average, and when suddenly you have another 3,000 tons of a single commodity that was originally from China, it can affect global supply and demand,” Bode told the air freight webinar. “If a customer today is importing automotive-related cargo from Thailand into Germany, he will feel the impact of the US tariffs, even though he’s not involved directly with China-US trade,” he added. “It is important to understand how this new supply-demand is going to balance out and what its impact will be on customers that do not have direct trade flows with the US.” <h3>Keeping eggs ‘in the China basket’ </h3>The shifting of trade flows also poses a challenge to airlines, especially those deeply committed to the Chinese market, such as Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways. Leonard Rodrigues, director of revenue management and network planning at Etihad Cargo, told the webinar that the carrier in June signed a joint business agreement with Shenzhen-based SF Airlines, the largest cargo carrier in China. “It’s going to be very interesting to see what the impact of the tariffs and the trade volatility will be, because a big share of our eggs is in the China basket,” he told the air freight webinar, noting that Etihad in the past year has increased the number of weekly China flights from 11 to 18. However, Rodrigues said “making life easier” was the fact that Etihad Cargo had low exposure to the US, with only 3% of its freighter capacity deployed on Asia-US trade routes. Another factor insulating the carrier from the shifting trade flows was its size, as Etihad Cargo is a small player compared with the major air freight operators. Despite the shifting trade flows, Rodrigues pointed to the stability of air freight rates, with China-US rates this week close to levels seen during Chinese New Year in early February and China-North Europe up 10% over that time. China-North America rates were at $5.02 per kilogram this week while the China-Europe market was at $4.25/kg, according to the Baltic Air Index. Contact Greg Knowler at <a href="mailto:greg.knowler@spglobal.com">greg.knowler@spglobal.com</a>. </div>

European air freight importers are being indirectly affected by a tariff-driven shift in Asian trade flows that is putting capacity out of Southeast Asia under increasing pressure. While deployed air cargo capacity on routes from Southeast Asia to both Europe and the US remains flat this week compared with the average of the past four weeks, the shifting of volume from China to its southern neighbors is tightening available space, according to Jonathan Mellink, head of sales at air cargo analyst Rotate. “Shippers have shifted supply chains to cater for the differences in [US] tariff levies on different countries of origin, and we see these goods — computers, smartphones, auto parts — that were mostly coming out of China are being sourced in other locations,” Mellink told an air freight webinar hosted by Rhenus Logistics this week. For example, Mellink said 90% of all video game consoles were exported from China last year, but 50% of the products were now being sourced from Vietnam. Another example included Apple iPhones made in India, where significant volumes produced for the European market have been shifted to the US. While some electronics such as laptops, semiconductors and smartphones are excluded from the 10% US “reciprocal tariff” on Chinese imports, all imports of Chinese origin are subject to the 20% fentanyl tariff. “Shippers are trying to be agile and change their supply chains to benefit from at least some of the tariff differences out there,” Mellink said. Still, Chris Bode, vice president of global air freight at Rhenus Logistics, said exporters shifting thousands of tons of air freight from China to Southeast Asian manufacturing hubs such as Thailand and Vietnam risk overloading the outbound market. “[Thailand and Vietnam] are exporting roughly 40,000 tons a month on average, and when suddenly you have another 3,000 tons of a single commodity that was originally from China, it can affect global supply and demand,” Bode told the air freight webinar. “If a customer today is importing automotive-related cargo from Thailand into Germany, he will feel the impact of the US tariffs, even though he’s not involved directly with China-US trade,” he added. “It is important to understand how this new supply-demand is going to balance out and what its impact will be on customers that do not have direct trade flows with the US.” Keeping eggs ‘in the China basket’ The shifting of trade flows also poses a challenge to airlines, especially those deeply committed to the Chinese market, such as Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways. Leonard Rodrigues, director of revenue management and network planning at Etihad Cargo, told the webinar that the carrier in June signed a joint business agreement with Shenzhen-based SF Airlines, the largest cargo carrier in China. “It’s going to be very interesting to see what the impact of the tariffs and the trade volatility will be, because a big share of our eggs is in the China basket,” he told the air freight webinar, noting that Etihad in the past year has increased the number of weekly China flights from 11 to 18. However, Rodrigues said “making life easier” was the fact that Etihad Cargo had low exposure to the US, with only 3% of its freighter capacity deployed on Asia-US trade routes. Another factor insulating the carrier from the shifting trade flows was its size, as Etihad Cargo is a small player compared with the major air freight operators. Despite the shifting trade flows, Rodrigues pointed to the stability of air freight rates, with China-US rates this week close to levels seen during Chinese New Year in early February and China-North Europe up 10% over that time. China-North America rates were at $5.02 per kilogram this week while the China-Europe market was at $4.25/kg, according to the Baltic Air Index. Contact Greg Knowler at greg.knowler@spglobal.com .

Air Cargo

Air Cargo Carriers News

Tariff-linked trade flow shift tightens Asian air freight capacity

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">Cargo movers are holding back on executing breakbulk and project cargo shipments as much as possible until there is a clearer picture of costs in the current unsettled market. </div>

Cargo movers are holding back on executing breakbulk and project cargo shipments as much as possible until there is a clearer picture of costs in the current unsettled market.

<div class="phx-topic">“Strategic inaction” is the order of the day in the tariff uncertainty-hit multipurpose vessel (MPV) sector, shippers say. Carlos Cortes, supply chain director for North America at wood products shipper CMPC Forest Products, told the Journal of Commerce the company is continuing to monitor tariff developments, “but we are holding back on executing until we can get better visibility of the final situation,” a direction he described as “strategic inaction.” Cortes noted a slight decline in North American MPV freight rates, but said it was “nothing significant” for contracted rates. “For me, the main takeaway is that the North America market is stable and holding on amid the geopolitical and economic conditions,” he said. Cortes added that he hadn’t seen major changes to capacity availability. “We are expediting vessels as much as we can and for now haven’t experienced major disruptions,” he said. “We will need to see how this changes if [tariffs] are finally confirmed in August.” Continued stability in multipurpose freight rates could be the “calm before the storm” or an indication of a resilient market environment, said specialist broker Toepfer Transport. In its July 25 Multipurpose Shipping Report, the broker said its bellwether Toepfer Multipurpose Index (TMI) remains stable, with almost no significant up or down movement. The index stood at $12,905 per day for July, up just 0.07% from June. The TMI is based on expected average rates for six- to 12-month time charters for 12,500-deadweight-ton (dwt) “F-Type” vessels with safe working loads (SWLs) of 240 to 360 metric tons, as reported to Toepfer by owners and operators. <div class="wrapper-narrow"><dynamic-object type="jocchartid" resource-id="ea382181-08cd-4298-912f-87c79836bcf7"></dynamic-object></div><h3>Geopolitical tensions continue to bite </h3>Toepfer said the hoped-for reopening of Red Sea routes to the Suez Canal by the end of the year <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/new-houthi-attacks-likely-kill-hopes-of-shipping-returning-to-red-sea-this-year-6040923">has gone by the boards due to the recent Houthi attacks on commercial vessels</a> and tensions surrounding Israel and Iran. “The expected decline in tonnage-miles for breakbulk and project cargoes associated with the resumption of the Suez transit will not occur in the near future,” the broker said. Meanwhile, the volatility around US import tariffs has compounded market uncertainty, making it difficult to predict project costs and risks involving the US supply chain. A similar downbeat forecast applies to Europe, where weak exports are still sufficient to sustain break-even income for carriers, but “there is no indication of improvement over the next few months,” Toepfer said. A silver lining for the MPV market is that exports from the Far East “continue to ensure the effective utilization of the fleet and the generation of sufficient income for carriers,” Toepfer said. And in Africa, carriers have reported to the broker that there has been “a significant increase of cargo export.” Charters are also steadily moving with the majority of F500 and F600 XL-type MPVs ordered on speculation and fixed at rate levels that reflect the stable-to-positive sentiment of carriers and the expectations of the investors and banks behind the newbuildings. While ordering activity in the MPV space is currently limited — a fault of the “current mismatch between charter rates and prices,” Toepfer said — behind the scenes, there is “a sense of optimism and a readiness to seize opportunities, as many are eager to be prepared once the conditions align.” Contact Carly Fields at <a href="mailto:carly.fields@spglobal.com">carly.fields@spglobal.com</a>. </div>

“Strategic inaction” is the order of the day in the tariff uncertainty-hit multipurpose vessel (MPV) sector, shippers say. Carlos Cortes, supply chain director for North America at wood products shipper CMPC Forest Products, told the Journal of Commerce the company is continuing to monitor tariff developments, “but we are holding back on executing until we can get better visibility of the final situation,” a direction he described as “strategic inaction.” Cortes noted a slight decline in North American MPV freight rates, but said it was “nothing significant” for contracted rates. “For me, the main takeaway is that the North America market is stable and holding on amid the geopolitical and economic conditions,” he said. Cortes added that he hadn’t seen major changes to capacity availability. “We are expediting vessels as much as we can and for now haven’t experienced major disruptions,” he said. “We will need to see how this changes if [tariffs] are finally confirmed in August.” Continued stability in multipurpose freight rates could be the “calm before the storm” or an indication of a resilient market environment, said specialist broker Toepfer Transport. In its July 25 Multipurpose Shipping Report, the broker said its bellwether Toepfer Multipurpose Index (TMI) remains stable, with almost no significant up or down movement. The index stood at $12,905 per day for July, up just 0.07% from June. The TMI is based on expected average rates for six- to 12-month time charters for 12,500-deadweight-ton (dwt) “F-Type” vessels with safe working loads (SWLs) of 240 to 360 metric tons, as reported to Toepfer by owners and operators. Geopolitical tensions continue to bite Toepfer said the hoped-for reopening of Red Sea routes to the Suez Canal by the end of the year has gone by the boards due to the recent Houthi attacks on commercial vessels and tensions surrounding Israel and Iran. “The expected decline in tonnage-miles for breakbulk and project cargoes associated with the resumption of the Suez transit will not occur in the near future,” the broker said. Meanwhile, the volatility around US import tariffs has compounded market uncertainty, making it difficult to predict project costs and risks involving the US supply chain. A similar downbeat forecast applies to Europe, where weak exports are still sufficient to sustain break-even income for carriers, but “there is no indication of improvement over the next few months,” Toepfer said. A silver lining for the MPV market is that exports from the Far East “continue to ensure the effective utilization of the fleet and the generation of sufficient income for carriers,” Toepfer said. And in Africa, carriers have reported to the broker that there has been “a significant increase of cargo export.” Charters are also steadily moving with the majority of F500 and F600 XL-type MPVs ordered on speculation and fixed at rate levels that reflect the stable-to-positive sentiment of carriers and the expectations of the investors and banks behind the newbuildings. While ordering activity in the MPV space is currently limited — a fault of the “current mismatch between charter rates and prices,” Toepfer said — behind the scenes, there is “a sense of optimism and a readiness to seize opportunities, as many are eager to be prepared once the conditions align.” Contact Carly Fields at carly.fields@spglobal.com .

Maritime

Breakbulk News

MPV shippers adopt ‘strategic inaction’ operating model to counter instability

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">A wave of AI-based tools for software developers is likely to raise shipper expectations around the effectiveness and cost of logistics software applications. </div>

A wave of AI-based tools for software developers is likely to raise shipper expectations around the effectiveness and cost of logistics software applications.

<div class="phx-topic">Logistics software vendors and third-party logistics providers (3PLs) are turning en masse toward a relatively new cohort of artificial intelligence (AI)-based code development tools, a trend that’s likely to accelerate and broaden the scope of products aimed at shippers across modes. The impact of these tools is only just starting to reveal itself, with technology providers, whether standalone or part of a 3PL, telling the Journal of Commerce they are using code development tools in an ever-expanding way. Those tools — which notably include fast-growing brands such as Cursor, Windsurf, Base44 and Lovable, among dozens of others — help companies generate, test and audit code, depending on their strengths. The potential impacts of the tools on customers are numerous. Logistics technology providers can build applications, features, or whole new products faster. They can expand the capacity of their engineering teams, without adding headcount, by having coding products build or edit base code, theoretically bringing down a provider’s operating costs. They can also audit code faster and, in general, more accurately than human engineers are able to. “Over 55% of our net new code is now AI-generated using tools like Cursor,” said project44 CEO Jett McCandless. “This includes everything from feature scaffolding to test creation. AI is now an embedded part of how we write and review code.” McCandless said project44 went from virtually no AI-generated code in late 2024 to 45% by March 2025, surpassing 50% by June. “The speed of adoption reflects both developer enthusiasm and a company-wide shift to treat AI as a foundational tool, not a novelty,” he said. <h3>Not alone </h3>And project44 is hardly alone on this fast-moving path. “We started using Cursor almost a year ago, and by the end of 2024 we were at 36% and currently on a journey to get it to 50%,” said Graham Parker, CEO of logistic software vendor ShipAngel. “We were at 44% in June — a little behind target but still an insane leap in a single year. And some of our [venture capital investor’s] portfolio companies in other sectors are at 80% already. “Headcount-wise, you could look at it and say you can now do the work of 20 engineers with maybe five to seven.” Parker pointed to the CEOs of major tech companies such as Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic all saying 90% of code will be written with AI within a year. Journal of Commerce parent company S&amp;P Global recently signed a deal with Anthropic, whose code generation software Claude is one of the cohort of tools being used by developers. “It’s hard to disagree when they likely see unreleased models with this capability or least the clear path to it,” Parker said. Among software developers catering to the logistics industry, the biggest value is the speed and efficiency with which they can create what’s known in software circles as minimum viable products (MVPs). “We’ve probably cut the time to complete a project in half, but that doesn’t necessarily correlate into that project being more worthwhile,” said Tobias Haahr Nielsen, founder of Anthem Agency, which does outsourced software production work in the supply chain and logistics industry. “One major value of AI is that creating MVPs is significantly easier because you can get the AI to do what would otherwise take a long time to write out.” That means, for instance, the MVP might not hit the target, but testing five different iterations would be faster than building one in a traditional development environment. “It’s significantly cheaper to just get an AI agent that has an 80% accuracy rate,” Nielsen said. “So one-fifth fail, but we’re aware of it. That’s very valuable if you’re just testing out the solution. It helps answer the question: would there actually be a use case here?” <h3>Different tools for different uses </h3>The breadth of code development tools available also signals a diversified market that assumes not every technology provider’s needs are the same. Some companies need advanced code generation tools to reduce the costs of hiring and retaining high-level engineering talent. Others want tools that allow people in semi-technical roles — say, a product manager — to build a quick prototype based on a conversation with a customer. There are even products that allow beginners to spin up basic applications through natural language prompts akin to asking ChatGPT to create a PowerPoint presentation. “It gives smaller companies an advantage in that we don’t have to adhere to what tools our development team can and can’t use,” said Jake Hoffman, chief technology officer at logistics software provider Gnosis Freight. “If there’s something that will help us, we’re going to try it out.” Hoffman said Gnosis has “doubled down” on AI development tools, including Cursor, Windsurf and Devin. He said those tools will bridge the gap between developers and non-technical logistics experts in the way no-code and low-code software products bridged the gap between super users and entry-level users of logistics software. He said the tools Gnosis uses tackle tasks as varied as code generation, comprehending how existing code works, and checking for “AI hallucination.” “If I write something six months ago and we hire a new person, we can have that program explain to them why it was written and what it’s intended for,” Hoffman said. <h3>Humans remain important </h3>McCandless said project44’s engineers still take the lead on security-sensitive logic, performance-critical systems and new architectures. “That’s where judgment, experience, and creativity outperform AI suggestions,” he said. “We let AI handle the bulk and humans handle the edge cases and innovation. We prioritize engineers who can design systems and collaborate with AI. Some roles, like manual quality assurance or maintenance, are shrinking as AI absorbs that work. Teams are leaner but more productive.” But the tools are not magic bullets yet. “Cursor works best when the scope is clear and repetitive,” McCandless said. “It’s less effective in legacy codebases or workflows that require interpreting ambiguous business logic. That’s where engineers step in to guide the process.” Parker, however, said he’s seen Cursor improve at tasks with which it once struggled. “Cursor started out being good at writing basic code, then it became good at editing, then auditing, and now architecture,” he said. “You can talk to it and ask questions and it will give you the ‘why.’” While logistics software companies seem largely convinced of the power of AI code development tools, some say the jury is still out on whether it is making engineers more efficient. METR, a research non-profit group measuring the impact of AI capabilities, said in early July that a test of nearly 250 coding tasks undertaken using AI tools slowed developers by 19% when the developers believed they would be 24% faster using those tools. “When AI is allowed, developers spend less time actively coding and searching for information, and instead spend time prompting AI, waiting on or reviewing AI outputs, or idle,” METR said in its report. That has specific relevance to the logistics industry, where the going theory has been that developers with domain expertise in freight and transportation are more effective because they understand the nuances of what customers want. “It’s not the process itself, it’s the nuance in a process,” Hoffman said. “You have code and AI agents that can now speak to the nuance of a process.” For instance, a developer that understands the business case for the software he or she is building can be more effective in prompting AI code generation tools. “The prompt for a new customer can be, ‘look how we implemented for these customers. Do the same, but for this customer call it discharge instead of available date,’” Hoffman said. <h3>Tech titans fuel progress </h3>In terms of the pace of development, Hoffman said the logistics industry is benefiting from intense competition in the generative AI world in both general purpose and industry-specific solutions. “All the big companies in our industry are building on top of OpenAI, Gemini and Grok, and they’re all beating each other up on models,” he said. “So there are two layers of competition where it’s getting better all the time.” Parker said the usage rate in logistics tech will inevitably lag other sectors. “Some of these products are trained on large existing code bases and, as we know, there is a lot less modern logistics code than, say, in [customer relationship management] software,” he said. But he has no doubt that customers will come to demand products from companies using AI development tools. “This era will usher in a new capability to create great products much faster than before, replace legacy products and iterate at lightning speed,” Parker said. “For customers of logistics software, it will drive a higher bar and better products.” Contact Eric Johnson at <a href="mailto:eric.johnson@spglobal.com">eric.johnson@spglobal.com</a>. </div>

Logistics software vendors and third-party logistics providers (3PLs) are turning en masse toward a relatively new cohort of artificial intelligence (AI)-based code development tools, a trend that’s likely to accelerate and broaden the scope of products aimed at shippers across modes. The impact of these tools is only just starting to reveal itself, with technology providers, whether standalone or part of a 3PL, telling the Journal of Commerce they are using code development tools in an ever-expanding way. Those tools — which notably include fast-growing brands such as Cursor, Windsurf, Base44 and Lovable, among dozens of others — help companies generate, test and audit code, depending on their strengths. The potential impacts of the tools on customers are numerous. Logistics technology providers can build applications, features, or whole new products faster. They can expand the capacity of their engineering teams, without adding headcount, by having coding products build or edit base code, theoretically bringing down a provider’s operating costs. They can also audit code faster and, in general, more accurately than human engineers are able to. “Over 55% of our net new code is now AI-generated using tools like Cursor,” said project44 CEO Jett McCandless. “This includes everything from feature scaffolding to test creation. AI is now an embedded part of how we write and review code.” McCandless said project44 went from virtually no AI-generated code in late 2024 to 45% by March 2025, surpassing 50% by June. “The speed of adoption reflects both developer enthusiasm and a company-wide shift to treat AI as a foundational tool, not a novelty,” he said. Not alone And project44 is hardly alone on this fast-moving path. “We started using Cursor almost a year ago, and by the end of 2024 we were at 36% and currently on a journey to get it to 50%,” said Graham Parker, CEO of logistic software vendor ShipAngel. “We were at 44% in June — a little behind target but still an insane leap in a single year. And some of our [venture capital investor’s] portfolio companies in other sectors are at 80% already. “Headcount-wise, you could look at it and say you can now do the work of 20 engineers with maybe five to seven.” Parker pointed to the CEOs of major tech companies such as Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic all saying 90% of code will be written with AI within a year. Journal of Commerce parent company S&P Global recently signed a deal with Anthropic, whose code generation software Claude is one of the cohort of tools being used by developers. “It’s hard to disagree when they likely see unreleased models with this capability or least the clear path to it,” Parker said. Among software developers catering to the logistics industry, the biggest value is the speed and efficiency with which they can create what’s known in software circles as minimum viable products (MVPs). “We’ve probably cut the time to complete a project in half, but that doesn’t necessarily correlate into that project being more worthwhile,” said Tobias Haahr Nielsen, founder of Anthem Agency, which does outsourced software production work in the supply chain and logistics industry. “One major value of AI is that creating MVPs is significantly easier because you can get the AI to do what would otherwise take a long time to write out.” That means, for instance, the MVP might not hit the target, but testing five different iterations would be faster than building one in a traditional development environment. “It’s significantly cheaper to just get an AI agent that has an 80% accuracy rate,” Nielsen said. “So one-fifth fail, but we’re aware of it. That’s very valuable if you’re just testing out the solution. It helps answer the question: would there actually be a use case here?” Different tools for different uses The breadth of code development tools available also signals a diversified market that assumes not every technology provider’s needs are the same. Some companies need advanced code generation tools to reduce the costs of hiring and retaining high-level engineering talent. Others want tools that allow people in semi-technical roles — say, a product manager — to build a quick prototype based on a conversation with a customer. There are even products that allow beginners to spin up basic applications through natural language prompts akin to asking ChatGPT to create a PowerPoint presentation. “It gives smaller companies an advantage in that we don’t have to adhere to what tools our development team can and can’t use,” said Jake Hoffman, chief technology officer at logistics software provider Gnosis Freight. “If there’s something that will help us, we’re going to try it out.” Hoffman said Gnosis has “doubled down” on AI development tools, including Cursor, Windsurf and Devin. He said those tools will bridge the gap between developers and non-technical logistics experts in the way no-code and low-code software products bridged the gap between super users and entry-level users of logistics software. He said the tools Gnosis uses tackle tasks as varied as code generation, comprehending how existing code works, and checking for “AI hallucination.” “If I write something six months ago and we hire a new person, we can have that program explain to them why it was written and what it’s intended for,” Hoffman said. Humans remain important McCandless said project44’s engineers still take the lead on security-sensitive logic, performance-critical systems and new architectures. “That’s where judgment, experience, and creativity outperform AI suggestions,” he said. “We let AI handle the bulk and humans handle the edge cases and innovation. We prioritize engineers who can design systems and collaborate with AI. Some roles, like manual quality assurance or maintenance, are shrinking as AI absorbs that work. Teams are leaner but more productive.” But the tools are not magic bullets yet. “Cursor works best when the scope is clear and repetitive,” McCandless said. “It’s less effective in legacy codebases or workflows that require interpreting ambiguous business logic. That’s where engineers step in to guide the process.” Parker, however, said he’s seen Cursor improve at tasks with which it once struggled. “Cursor started out being good at writing basic code, then it became good at editing, then auditing, and now architecture,” he said. “You can talk to it and ask questions and it will give you the ‘why.’” While logistics software companies seem largely convinced of the power of AI code development tools, some say the jury is still out on whether it is making engineers more efficient. METR, a research non-profit group measuring the impact of AI capabilities, said in early July that a test of nearly 250 coding tasks undertaken using AI tools slowed developers by 19% when the developers believed they would be 24% faster using those tools. “When AI is allowed, developers spend less time actively coding and searching for information, and instead spend time prompting AI, waiting on or reviewing AI outputs, or idle,” METR said in its report. That has specific relevance to the logistics industry, where the going theory has been that developers with domain expertise in freight and transportation are more effective because they understand the nuances of what customers want. “It’s not the process itself, it’s the nuance in a process,” Hoffman said. “You have code and AI agents that can now speak to the nuance of a process.” For instance, a developer that understands the business case for the software he or she is building can be more effective in prompting AI code generation tools. “The prompt for a new customer can be, ‘look how we implemented for these customers. Do the same, but for this customer call it discharge instead of available date,’” Hoffman said. Tech titans fuel progress In terms of the pace of development, Hoffman said the logistics industry is benefiting from intense competition in the generative AI world in both general purpose and industry-specific solutions. “All the big companies in our industry are building on top of OpenAI, Gemini and Grok, and they’re all beating each other up on models,” he said. “So there are two layers of competition where it’s getting better all the time.” Parker said the usage rate in logistics tech will inevitably lag other sectors. “Some of these products are trained on large existing code bases and, as we know, there is a lot less modern logistics code than, say, in [customer relationship management] software,” he said. But he has no doubt that customers will come to demand products from companies using AI development tools. “This era will usher in a new capability to create great products much faster than before, replace legacy products and iterate at lightning speed,” Parker said. “For customers of logistics software, it will drive a higher bar and better products.” Contact Eric Johnson at eric.johnson@spglobal.com .

Supply chain

Logistics Technology News

Code generation tools altering efficiency, capacity for logistics technology providers

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">As tariff fatigue sets in, US retailers are concentrating more on their product delivery needs rather than adjusting their supply chains on the fly to the vagaries of the Trump administration’s trade policy.</div>

As tariff fatigue sets in, US retailers are concentrating more on their product delivery needs rather than adjusting their supply chains on the fly to the vagaries of the Trump administration’s trade policy.

<div class="phx-topic">The whiplash reality of the Trump administration’s tariff policy is no longer driving sharp swings in import volumes from Asia, but expectations of more blank sailings to curb the capacity overhang in the trans-Pacific could still jostle the weakening inbound trade. US retailers are giving less thought to the tariffs in terms of their ordering for the rest of the year, having gained at least some degree of clarity through the several trade deals that have been announced to date. Importantly, a growing number of retail logistics managers and importers, exhausted by the US’ ever-shifting trade policy, have given up on trying to beat moving tariff deadlines. “It doesn’t seem that tariffs and trade deals are quite the driving factor that they had been as recently as six to eight weeks ago,” Stephen Nothdurft, vice president of sales for North America at the forwarder MOL Consolidation Services, told the Journal of Commerce. “The import community has kind of decided, ‘It is what it is, and we can’t control it, but what we can control is just making sure our freight is on the shelf when we need it.’” Indeed, the prospects of a final rush of cargo tied to US trade policy announcements are fading, even if some forwarders and carriers hold out for a final pop in volumes in August. “Strategic planning and long-term decision-making based on tariff deadlines makes no sense because you just don’t know what those deadlines will be from week to week,” the logistics manager of a national furniture retailer told the Journal of Commerce. Ocean carriers <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/looming-august-tariff-deadline-prompts-carriers-to-pull-trans-pacific-capacity-6045526">plan to deploy less tonnage</a> from Asia to the United States in August than in July, according to ocean visibility provider eeSea. So far, ocean carriers are planning to blank less capacity next month than in July, although carriers warn that may change as container spot rates keep falling. <div class="wrapper-narrow"><dynamic-object type="jocchartid" resource-id="88ff376b-3b44-447f-ae0f-22d6a0011592"></dynamic-object></div>Spot rates, a measure of how capacity matches up with demand, have been falling since late May and early June, according to various indexes. At a little more than $2,000 per FEU, spot rates from China to the US West Coast are down 70% from a year ago, according to the Shanghai Containerized Freight Index. Some cargo owner customers are still uncertain whether the Aug. 1 deadline — in which the 10% blanket tariff on all US imports will revert to higher levels for countries that haven’t hashed out an agreement with the Trump administration — will hold, a carrier executive said. He added that while some tariff-related price increases have taken place, they haven’t blunted consumer demand enough to have a noticeable impact on import volumes. One automotive industry importer said that at the current 10% reciprocal tariff rate, his company can move product as the sector has absorbed that level. “However, we will not take product into the US at rates above 15% to 20% as some countries have negotiated,” he said. “We have completely pulled out of China due to tariffs.” <h3>GRIs unlikely to stick </h3>While carriers may attempt to impose general rate increases (GRIs) on the first and 15th of each month, forwarders and importers on the trans-Pacific <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/pause-in-tariff-hikes-drives-big-gains-in-trans-pacific-spot-rates-6017111">do not expect any further rate hikes this peak season to stick.</a> “There’s no impetus to keep prices high,” Nothdurft said. “I don’t know what the carriers are banking on in August, but it doesn’t appear that those ships are full, either.” A steady stream of frontloading of fall and holiday merchandise has taken the wind out of carrier attempts to sustain price increases. “A lot of cargo for the rest of the year is already here in the US so there is no need for anyone to rush any huge amounts of cargo into the US for the next few months,” said Sanjay Tejwani, chief executive officer at the consulting firm 365 Logistics. <div class="wrapper-narrow"><dynamic-object type="jocchartid" resource-id="a2606c91-b30c-4219-b617-9491b44b6af1"></dynamic-object></div>Even some carriers agree that the extensive frontloading that has already taken place in the eastbound trans-Pacific means cargo volumes may drop off dramatically in the fourth quarter. “I think it’s going to be a bad Q4,” a carrier executive told the Journal of Commerce. For importers, planning their supply chains while attempting to balance the cost of ocean transportation with the delivery of their product to store shelves on schedule requires the use of several forms of shipping. John Pace, senior manager of global logistics at Revelyst, a manufacturer of outdoor performance gear, said that for merchandise that was ordered months ago and is scheduled to be delivered this summer and fall, he can use the preferred mode of regular ocean shipping. As delivery deadlines approach for products with tighter deadlines, he will shift some shipments to expedited ocean service with guaranteed next-day container availability landside. Pace said he will use air freight as a last resort. Contact Bill Mongelluzzo at <a href="mailto:bill.mongelluzzo@spglobal.com">bill.mongelluzzo@spglobal.com</a>. Contact Laura Robb at <a href="mailto:laura.robb@spglobal.com">laura.robb@spglobal.com</a>. </div>

The whiplash reality of the Trump administration’s tariff policy is no longer driving sharp swings in import volumes from Asia, but expectations of more blank sailings to curb the capacity overhang in the trans-Pacific could still jostle the weakening inbound trade. US retailers are giving less thought to the tariffs in terms of their ordering for the rest of the year, having gained at least some degree of clarity through the several trade deals that have been announced to date. Importantly, a growing number of retail logistics managers and importers, exhausted by the US’ ever-shifting trade policy, have given up on trying to beat moving tariff deadlines. “It doesn’t seem that tariffs and trade deals are quite the driving factor that they had been as recently as six to eight weeks ago,” Stephen Nothdurft, vice president of sales for North America at the forwarder MOL Consolidation Services, told the Journal of Commerce. “The import community has kind of decided, ‘It is what it is, and we can’t control it, but what we can control is just making sure our freight is on the shelf when we need it.’” Indeed, the prospects of a final rush of cargo tied to US trade policy announcements are fading, even if some forwarders and carriers hold out for a final pop in volumes in August. “Strategic planning and long-term decision-making based on tariff deadlines makes no sense because you just don’t know what those deadlines will be from week to week,” the logistics manager of a national furniture retailer told the Journal of Commerce. Ocean carriers plan to deploy less tonnage from Asia to the United States in August than in July, according to ocean visibility provider eeSea. So far, ocean carriers are planning to blank less capacity next month than in July, although carriers warn that may change as container spot rates keep falling. Spot rates, a measure of how capacity matches up with demand, have been falling since late May and early June, according to various indexes. At a little more than $2,000 per FEU, spot rates from China to the US West Coast are down 70% from a year ago, according to the Shanghai Containerized Freight Index. Some cargo owner customers are still uncertain whether the Aug. 1 deadline — in which the 10% blanket tariff on all US imports will revert to higher levels for countries that haven’t hashed out an agreement with the Trump administration — will hold, a carrier executive said. He added that while some tariff-related price increases have taken place, they haven’t blunted consumer demand enough to have a noticeable impact on import volumes. One automotive industry importer said that at the current 10% reciprocal tariff rate, his company can move product as the sector has absorbed that level. “However, we will not take product into the US at rates above 15% to 20% as some countries have negotiated,” he said. “We have completely pulled out of China due to tariffs.” GRIs unlikely to stick While carriers may attempt to impose general rate increases (GRIs) on the first and 15th of each month, forwarders and importers on the trans-Pacific do not expect any further rate hikes this peak season to stick. “There’s no impetus to keep prices high,” Nothdurft said. “I don’t know what the carriers are banking on in August, but it doesn’t appear that those ships are full, either.” A steady stream of frontloading of fall and holiday merchandise has taken the wind out of carrier attempts to sustain price increases. “A lot of cargo for the rest of the year is already here in the US so there is no need for anyone to rush any huge amounts of cargo into the US for the next few months,” said Sanjay Tejwani, chief executive officer at the consulting firm 365 Logistics. Even some carriers agree that the extensive frontloading that has already taken place in the eastbound trans-Pacific means cargo volumes may drop off dramatically in the fourth quarter. “I think it’s going to be a bad Q4,” a carrier executive told the Journal of Commerce. For importers, planning their supply chains while attempting to balance the cost of ocean transportation with the delivery of their product to store shelves on schedule requires the use of several forms of shipping. John Pace, senior manager of global logistics at Revelyst, a manufacturer of outdoor performance gear, said that for merchandise that was ordered months ago and is scheduled to be delivered this summer and fall, he can use the preferred mode of regular ocean shipping. As delivery deadlines approach for products with tighter deadlines, he will shift some shipments to expedited ocean service with guaranteed next-day container availability landside. Pace said he will use air freight as a last resort. Contact Bill Mongelluzzo at bill.mongelluzzo@spglobal.com . Contact Laura Robb at laura.robb@spglobal.com .

Container Shipping News

Container lines

Forwarding

Trans-Pacific

US tariff volatility no longer driving trans-Pacific trade plans

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">J.B. Hunt Transport and Knight-Swift Transportation — the largest US truckload providers — are shifting assets within their networks as shippers react to supply chain challenges created by higher US tariffs on imports. </div>

J.B. Hunt Transport and Knight-Swift Transportation — the largest US truckload providers — are shifting assets within their networks as shippers react to supply chain challenges created by higher US tariffs on imports.

<div class="phx-topic">Trucking companies convinced that the soft US freight market will extend into 2026 are doubling down on cost-cutting initiatives, with large truckload carriers looking to shed even more underutilized assets while seeking other budget areas to trim. They’re also shifting assets within their networks as shippers react to supply chain challenges created by higher US tariffs on imports. Excess capacity, however, remains a drag on truckload revenue and pricing. Despite low single-digit gains in contract rates, shippers still dominate the truckload market. Freight flows at Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings “shifted meaningfully from normal patterns” in the second quarter, CEO Adam Miller said during an earnings call last week. “While the import cliff that many anticipated did not prove to be as stark, there was a general softness in freight demand for most of the quarter, especially on the West Coast,” Miller said. That pushed Knight-Swift’s truckload subsidiaries to seek freight in other lanes as imports dropped and freight moving inland from California ebbed. “We are staying close with our customers as the situation unfolds,” Miller said, with the company shifting capacity across the map as shippers react quickly to changing import flows to manage inventory levels. Imports at US ports dropped 11.8% from April to May and were down 6.4% year over year in May, <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/us-retailers-upgrade-import-forecast-after-tariff-deadline-extended-to-aug-1-6040890">according to the Global Port Tracker (GPT) released by Hackett Associates and the National Retail Federation in early July</a>. The GPT forecast called for a 14.6% increase in containerized US imports this month from June, as shippers pushed to get freight to the US before higher tariffs on many trading partners take effect Aug. 1. <h3>Added complexity </h3>Changes in trade policy affected the timing and direction of freight flows at J.B. Hunt Transport Services in the second quarter, according to Spencer Frazier, the company’s executive vice president of sales and marketing. “Some customers have pulled freight forward, some continue to execute demand-driven strategies and others are making changes to their country of origin and manufacturing plans,” Frazier said during a recent second-quarter earnings call. “This added complexity, lack of accurate forecasts and potential for volatility is why our <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/jb-hunt-says-surcharges-necessary-to-maintain-peak-season-service-6044880">peak season surcharge programs</a> [for intermodal rail] are starting earlier this year,” he added. But neither J.B. Hunt nor Knight-Swift — the largest and second-largest US truckload providers, respectively — reported enough tightening in truck capacity to turn the market away from shippers. “We think it’s going to be a slow process for capacity to exit the market,” Miller told analysts. “The question would be what’s going to happen with demand.” <h3>Reshuffling capacity </h3>Since 2022, large truckload carriers have cut capacity, sometimes steeply, as freight demand and truckload spot and contract rates declined. Significant cuts in actual truck counts brought the Journal of Commerce Truckload Capacity Index down from 93.2 in the second quarter of 2022 to 74.9 in the first quarter of this year. The second-quarter 2025 reading for the index, which tracks actual truck counts at large publicly owned truckload companies, will be released in August. <div class="wrapper-narrow"><dynamic-object type="jocchartid" resource-id="b78888c4-1c6e-40c4-a3f6-ec06b7a7b511"></dynamic-object></div>Knight-Swift cut its average truckload tractor count by 6.6% year over year in the second quarter and by 6.3% in the first half of 2025. But the holding company is adding less-than-truckload (LTL) capacity. “We’ve gotten pretty smart in a way we haven’t been in the past about how to move assets between our divisions,” CFO Andrew Hess said during the earnings call. “We can take dedicated trucks out of our truckload businesses and use them in LTL day cabs,” Hess said. “We’re moving trailers out of our Swift business to U.S. Xpress and replacing more expensive lease trailers. So we are figuring out how to take advantage of all of our brands to drive efficiencies and get smarter about that.” J.B. Hunt plans $100 million in cost cuts this year, but it expanded its over-the-road truckload fleet in the second quarter in response to higher load volumes. The carrier increased its over-the-road division’s truck count 7.6% year over year to 2,041 in the last quarter as loads hauled rose nearly 13% to more than 104,000. “We are working to methodically grow [truckload] while remaining disciplined on network balance,” said Nicholas Hobbs, J.B. Hunt’s COO and president of highway and final-mile. Contact William B. Cassidy at <a href="mailto:bill.cassidy@spglobal.com">bill.cassidy@spglobal.com</a>. </div>

Trucking companies convinced that the soft US freight market will extend into 2026 are doubling down on cost-cutting initiatives, with large truckload carriers looking to shed even more underutilized assets while seeking other budget areas to trim. They’re also shifting assets within their networks as shippers react to supply chain challenges created by higher US tariffs on imports. Excess capacity, however, remains a drag on truckload revenue and pricing. Despite low single-digit gains in contract rates, shippers still dominate the truckload market. Freight flows at Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings “shifted meaningfully from normal patterns” in the second quarter, CEO Adam Miller said during an earnings call last week. “While the import cliff that many anticipated did not prove to be as stark, there was a general softness in freight demand for most of the quarter, especially on the West Coast,” Miller said. That pushed Knight-Swift’s truckload subsidiaries to seek freight in other lanes as imports dropped and freight moving inland from California ebbed. “We are staying close with our customers as the situation unfolds,” Miller said, with the company shifting capacity across the map as shippers react quickly to changing import flows to manage inventory levels. Imports at US ports dropped 11.8% from April to May and were down 6.4% year over year in May, according to the Global Port Tracker (GPT) released by Hackett Associates and the National Retail Federation in early July . The GPT forecast called for a 14.6% increase in containerized US imports this month from June, as shippers pushed to get freight to the US before higher tariffs on many trading partners take effect Aug. 1. Added complexity Changes in trade policy affected the timing and direction of freight flows at J.B. Hunt Transport Services in the second quarter, according to Spencer Frazier, the company’s executive vice president of sales and marketing. “Some customers have pulled freight forward, some continue to execute demand-driven strategies and others are making changes to their country of origin and manufacturing plans,” Frazier said during a recent second-quarter earnings call. “This added complexity, lack of accurate forecasts and potential for volatility is why our peak season surcharge programs [for intermodal rail] are starting earlier this year,” he added. But neither J.B. Hunt nor Knight-Swift — the largest and second-largest US truckload providers, respectively — reported enough tightening in truck capacity to turn the market away from shippers. “We think it’s going to be a slow process for capacity to exit the market,” Miller told analysts. “The question would be what’s going to happen with demand.” Reshuffling capacity Since 2022, large truckload carriers have cut capacity, sometimes steeply, as freight demand and truckload spot and contract rates declined. Significant cuts in actual truck counts brought the Journal of Commerce Truckload Capacity Index down from 93.2 in the second quarter of 2022 to 74.9 in the first quarter of this year. The second-quarter 2025 reading for the index, which tracks actual truck counts at large publicly owned truckload companies, will be released in August. Knight-Swift cut its average truckload tractor count by 6.6% year over year in the second quarter and by 6.3% in the first half of 2025. But the holding company is adding less-than-truckload (LTL) capacity. “We’ve gotten pretty smart in a way we haven’t been in the past about how to move assets between our divisions,” CFO Andrew Hess said during the earnings call. “We can take dedicated trucks out of our truckload businesses and use them in LTL day cabs,” Hess said. “We’re moving trailers out of our Swift business to U.S. Xpress and replacing more expensive lease trailers. So we are figuring out how to take advantage of all of our brands to drive efficiencies and get smarter about that.” J.B. Hunt plans $100 million in cost cuts this year, but it expanded its over-the-road truckload fleet in the second quarter in response to higher load volumes. The carrier increased its over-the-road division’s truck count 7.6% year over year to 2,041 in the last quarter as loads hauled rose nearly 13% to more than 104,000. “We are working to methodically grow [truckload] while remaining disciplined on network balance,” said Nicholas Hobbs, J.B. Hunt’s COO and president of highway and final-mile. Contact William B. Cassidy at bill.cassidy@spglobal.com .

Surface

Truckload

Trucking News

Truckload carriers balance networks as tariff uncertainty shifts demand

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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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Filling the Supply Chain Education Gap with LTL Education Courses

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