Intermodal

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

     U.S. Customs and Border Protection on Wednesday published a notice of proposed rulemaking that would make substantial changes to the way imported merchandise is transported inland under a bond, enabling the cargo owner to defer payment of duties until it reaches the destination port or is exported.     The primary fixes involve making the in-bond process electronic and tightening up procedures to better track merchandise and prevent diversion. In the past, CBP has...

Friday, February 17, 2012

     A study by Pike Research, a market research and consulting firm, found that intelligent transportation systems (ITS) will continue to see increased investment worldwide despite tightening purse strings.    Pike estimates global investments in smart transport technology will reach $13.1 billion from 2011 through 2017.    ITS, also called smart transportation systems, includes electric vehicles, vehicles with advanced telematics systems, new and ...

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

     President Obama is proposing a fiscal year 2013 budget for the Department of Transportation of $74 billion, 2 percent, or $1.4 billion, above the 2012 enacted amount.    It's one piece of a $3.8 trillion plan that raises spending to support the middle class through incentives for domestic manufacturing, lower payroll taxes, infrastructure investment and other steps while raising revenue through taxes on the wealthiest Americans and reductions in subsidies for the ...

Monday, February 13, 2012

   Overland Park, Kan.-based RedStone Logistics, which specializes in logistics management services, has acquired privately held Headhaul.com .    Headhaul provides shipment management services via multi-modal, dry van/truckload, refrigerated, flatbed, less-than-truckload (LTL) and over-dimensional shipment operations.    During the next 30 days, Headhaul employees will integrate with the RedStone staff.    As part of the acquisition, RedStone will levera...

Friday, February 10, 2012

     APL said it will begin phasing out its U.S. fleet of container chassis during the first half of 2012.     The Singapore-based shipping line expects to stop providing chassis at inland locations by the end of the year, divest itself of chassis at East Coast ports in 2013, and complete the phase out in early 2014.    “This is the direction the container shipping industry is moving,” said APL Americas President Gene Seroka, who is based at the company’...

Friday, February 10, 2012

     According to new research from analyst firm Berg Insight, the number of active remote container tracking units used on intermodal shipping containers reached 77,000 in the last quarter of 2011.    Berg Insight predicts a compound annual growth rate of 66.9 percent, projecting that 1 million trackers will be in use by 2016. This growth would see the penetration rate of tracking systems in the total container population rise from 0.4 percent in 2011 to 3.6 percent in 2016. &n...

Wednesday, February 08, 2012

     Canadian National Railway has opened a new intermodal terminal at Chippewa Falls, Wis.    Located 100 miles east of Minneapolis/St. Paul, CN said it offers Wisconsin and Minnesota customers new options to ship and receive goods in containers.    "This terminal gives companies in the Upper Midwest direct and efficient single-rail-line access to new North American and global markets via our continental network as well as the ports we serve on the Pacific, ...

Thursday, February 02, 2012

     The U.S. Department of Transportation on Tuesday said it will make $500 million available this year in the fourth round of TIGER funding for surface transportation investment.     Infrastructure projects will be evaluated on how they advance the Obama administration's goals of safety, improving the nation's economic competitiveness, livable communities, environmental sustainability, keeping assets in a state of good repair and short-term job creation.    The ...

Wednesday, February 01, 2012

     A new transportation bill was introduced in the U.S. House by Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John L. Mica, R-Fla., and other members of his committee on Tuesday.    They said the American Energy & Infrastructure Jobs Act (H.R. 7) would authorize approximately $260 billion over five years to fund federal highway, transit and safety programs, “consistent with current funding levels.”    Mica called it the “largest transportation reform...

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

   The Urban Institute has established a multi-dimensional Infrastructure Initiative designed to inform the public and government officials about the important tradeoffs in developing, operating, maintaining and financing the nation's core systems that support society.    The research effort will examine the fiscal, social and environmental costs and benefits of policy choices at all levels of government related to transportation, electrical, water, sewer, wireless and broadband ...

Monday, January 30, 2012

   DB Schenker Logistics has appointed 38-year rail industry veteran Patrick Zilles to head its intermodal activities.    Zilles, who is based in Essen, Germany, will be responsible for linking different transport modes, in particular DB SCHENKERhangartner. This offering provides shippers a combination of trucking and rail from a single source. Trucks handle pre- and onward-carriage, while trains provide long-distance transport.

Monday, January 30, 2012

     Cleveland-based ContainerPort Group said this spring it plans to open a “mega” multipurpose terminal at Columbus, Ohio.    The new facility will allow CPG to consolidate its trucking, container yard, maintenance (chassis and containers), and cargo transfer services into a single location. The site will have access to both CSX and Norfolk Southern railroads. CPG said it secured land to expand its existing facility to about 70 acres.    CPG ...

Friday, January 27, 2012

     Hub Group said it had a profit of $17 million in the fourth quarter of 2011, 36 percent more than the $12.5 million earned in the same 2010 period.    Revenue for the quarter was $763 million, compared to $480 million in the fourth quarter of 2010.    Hub, which provides intermodal, truck brokerage and logistic services, had a profit of $58 million for the full-year 2011, compared to $43 million in 2010, while revenue in 2011 was $2.75 billion, compared ...

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

     The ability to move larger ships through the Panama Canal will reduce the cost of all-water service between the Far East and the eastern part of the United States, but speakers at a conference held last week in Tampa, Fla. were divided on how significant theimpact of the canal will be on cargo routing.    "We are not the fat hog waiting to be cut," said Dean Wise, vice president of network strategy for the BNSF Railway. "We are not going to sit back and see t...

Monday, January 23, 2012

     Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich played to the local audience in Thursday’s televised primary debate leading up to the South Carolina primary by talking about infrastructure upgrades at the Port of Charleston as an example of how the government could help create jobs.    Gingrich won on the South Carolina primary on Saturday.    The former speaker of the House said he would push for increased off-shore drilling for natural gas and use the royalties to...

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Bentley     Helen Delich Bentley, a former Maryland congresswoman and past chairman of the Federal Maritime Commission, has proposed changing the Harbor Maintenance Tax so that it's collected not only on ocean-borne cargo, but on all freight from foreign sources entering the United States.     The tax is not paid by freight entering the United States from Canada or Mexico.    A press release said she made her proposal Tuesday evening in Tacoma, Wash.,&nb...

Monday, January 16, 2012

     The U.S. Commerce Department on Friday reported that U.S. exports of goods and services in November 2011 fell 0.9 percent from the previous month to $177.8 billion.     However, the department noted that November’s exports of consumer goods ($15.7 billion) were the highest on record.    U.S. imports of goods and services increased 1.3 percent to reach $225.6 billion, causing the U.S. trade deficit to increase 10.4 percent to reach $47.8 billion in November. P...

Monday, January 09, 2012

Manuel    Coral Gables, Fla.-based real estate firm Flagler has appointed Manuel A. Fernandez to executive vice president of logistics operations.    In this position, Fernandez will head development of Flagler’s South Florida Logistics Center - a 400-acre intermodal logistics complex adjacent to the Miami International Airport - as well as a newly launched logistics practice.    Fernandez brings to Flagler more than three decades of experience in supply chain and global lo...

Friday, December 30, 2011

   A new terminal that APM Terminals (APMT) is planning to build in Lazaro Cardenas, Mexico will have an initial capacity to handle 1.2 million TEUs per year and be able to process as many as 4.2 million TEUs annually when fully completed.    APMT announced Thursday that it had been awarded a 32-year concession to design, build, and operate a new terminal in the Pacific Coast port at a cost of about $900 million.    Last year the port handled about 796,023 TEUs and through N...

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

     Chicago-based Echo Global Logistics, a transportation management company, has acquired all of the outstanding stock of Trailer Transportation Systems (TTS).    The company will now do business as Echo Global.    TTS is an intermodal marketing company based in Rochester, N.Y., and has been in operation since 1981.    For Echo Global, the main benefit of TTS acquisition is an expansion of its rail capabilities and intermodal operations ...

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

   A new transportation management Website has popped up, promising to help shippers, distribution centers, manufacturers, and other companies get better rates from a list of more than 28,000 available carriers.    The RateMyShipment.com site comes from TranZcenter, a logistics and supply chain management services provider, and its head of operations Milton Collier. The network of multimodal carriers covers North America and includes modes like less-than-truckload (LTL), truckloa...

Thursday, December 22, 2011

     Test transmissions and processing of electronic sea and rail manifests for the new Automated Commercial Environment are going well, putting U.S. Customs and Border Protection on track to soon transition transportation providers to the new system, the agency announced Friday.    A sea/rail manifest pilot program involving one rail carrier and one ocean began in November. On Monday, OOCL identified itself as the first liner carrier to migrate to the new system. The ...

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

     CSX will commence on-dock rail service at the Port of Virginia's APM Terminal on Jan. 3, the company said Tuesday.    The Jacksonville, Fla.-based railroad previously offered limited service from the terminal to a small rail yard that required containers to be shuttled back and forth by truck.    In January, the carrier will use the Commonwealth Rail, a short line that shuttles containers between the APMT facility and a marshaling yard in nearby Suf...

Monday, December 19, 2011

By Eric Kulisch    If you don’t watch Fareed Zakharia’s “GPS” program Sunday mornings on CNN , you should. The journalist and foreign affairs analyst gets past the surface noise to provide provocative analysis about what’s really going on at the intersection of global economics and politics.   GPS stands for Global Public Square. It’s a forum for exchanging ideas about the critical issues of the day.    The show offers important lessons for freight executives at the domestic and ...

Friday, December 16, 2011

   Containerized cargo exports from the U.S. will continue to grow more quickly in the next four years than imports, bringing the nation's trade more into balance, said Mathijs Slangen, maritime advisor for the investment banking firm Seabury Group.    Slangen, who made his remarks Thursday during an American Shipper webinar , said by 2015, his firm expects exports will account for about 43 percent of U.S. containerized TEU volumes, "quite a massive increase" from the 30 percent they...

Thursday, December 15, 2011

     U.S. and Canadian officials last week outlined priorities for coordinating customs and cargo security processes, enhancing border infrastructure and harmonizing regulations to increase the efficiency of trade across the border and boost their respective economies.    A Beyond-the-Border action plan as well as new focus areas for a Regulatory Cooperation Council were the primary outcomes of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's visit to the White House. Th...

Monday, December 12, 2011

     The International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) and National Industrial Transportation League are both expressing concern to the Federal Maritime Commission about plans by around 20 liner companies to alter their chassis pool agreement on file with the commission, questioning whether it will improperly extend antitrust immunity to companies not regulated by the Shipping Act of1984. Some of their concerns echo those raised by the Institute of International Container Lessors in...

Monday, November 21, 2011

    The Georgia Ports Authority Board approved a $6.5 million, 6,000-foot extension of the Mason Intermodal Container Transfer Facility (ICTF) at the Garden City container terminal in Savannah.     The approval follows growing intermodal container volumes. In the four months ending Oct. 30, the facility had 109,036 container moves, 14 percent more than in the same 2010 period.     “We expect rail to account for an increasing percentage of cargo transport at t...

Thursday, November 17, 2011

   IAS said it has unveiled extensions to its IAS DispatchManager product that automates the container haulage work order process from creation to proof of delivery.    The three new IAS modules are designed to help ocean carriers,cargo owners, third-party logistics providers, and motor carriers connect and collaborate more effectively. They are: DispatchOptimizer which helps users identify street turn intermodal transport hauls, reducing costs associated with inefficientdual deadhead...

Friday, November 11, 2011

   DB Schenker made European rail freight history Friday with the first arrival of a regular new weekly container train from Poland to the United Kingdom.    The train is the first regular rail freight service to use the High Speed 1 rail route, the only European sized railway in the United Kingdom. As a result, the train can be loaded with European-sized curtain sided swap bodies, opening up a new freight and logistics market.    The train operates once a week leaving Wroc...

Tuesday, November 08, 2011

   Hub Group said that its Comtrak Logistics subsidiary had acquired assets of Challenge Transportation, an intermodal drayage carrier headquartered in Newark, NJ.    "This acquisition continues to build on our strategic initiative of growing Hub Group's North American drayage network," stated Chris Kravas, chief intermodal officer for Hub Group. "This is Comtrak's third significant acquisition in the past 12 months and will mark the addition of the 26th full service terminal in the ...

Tuesday, November 08, 2011

   U.S. domestic container volume grew 9 percent in the third quarter, its best year-on-year growth of 2011, according to the Intermodal Association of North America’s Intermodal Market Trends & Statistics report released Monday.    The report showed that total intermodal volume, including domestic trailers and international containers, grew 1.4 percent in the quarter, the seventh straight quarter in which volume has risen.    “While domestic containers continued to gain...

Friday, October 28, 2011

   Pacer had a profit of $6.6 million in the third quarter ending Sept. 30, a six-fold increase over the $1.1 million in the third quarter of 2010.    Revenues were $375.8 million for the third quarter, 3 percent higher than the $364.8 million recorded in the same 2010 period.    John J. Hafferty, the chief financial officer, said that in addition to increased earnings "we continue to generate positive cash flow, are now debt-free for the first time in our history as a publ...

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

   The U.S. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration recently fined American Welding & Tank LLC $3.9 million for manufacturing unsafe tanks used to transport and store anhydrous ammonia, a nitrogen-based fertilizer in gas form that is stored under high pressure and is dangerous to breath or touch.    The agency said it followed up on reports of defective tanks and discovered problems with the company’s welding practices and safety procedures.    “When cargo tank manuf...

Monday, October 17, 2011

   Non-asset based logistics provider Transplace on Thursday announced it has acquired Chicago-based intermodal marketing company Celtic International to increase its capabilities in the growing intermodal market.    Privately held Transplace said the combined revenue of the two companies exceeds $1 billion, but officials have previously stated that gross revenue at the Dallas firm as less than $900 million last year. That would put Celtic’s revenue in the $150 million range. Related...

Monday, October 17, 2011

   Cleveland-based ContainerPort Group said last week that Daniel Corcoran has joined the company as regional vice president for the West, where he will be responsible for the Chicago, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Kansas City operations.    Corcoran was most recently president of TTS Terminals, and previously held vice president positions with Pacer Cartage and Triton Transport Services.    CPG operates terminals and facilities in the Midwest, Ohio Valley, and Northeast regi...

Monday, October 17, 2011

   Zonar, a Seattle-based firm specializing in compliance and fleet efficiency information technology applications for the trucking industry, has appointed Chris Hines to executive vice president.    Prior to this appointment, he was president and chief operating officer of the Celadon Group. Hines was also formerly president and chief executive officer of Tripmaster Corp. (now Mix Telematics), and president and CEO of Atipical Holdings, a business he founded.    In addition...

Monday, October 17, 2011

   U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, in an unguarded moment with reporters after a speech at the National Press Club on Thursday, said he will only serve one term regardless of how President Obama does in next year’s election.    LaHood said he had not yet informed President Obama about his decision. LaHood   “He’s never asked me. This has been a great run. I’ve enjoyed it,” he was quoted as saying.    He made his comments to reporters from Transport Topics , a...

Friday, October 14, 2011

   Freight forwarder Consolidators International (CII) has opened a new facility in the Chicago suburb of Wood Dale.    The facility is located near O’Hare airport, and is convenient to Chicago’s trucking network and rail depots. It will act as a key distribution and processing center for shippers throughout the upper Midwest for their air and ocean freight, CII said.   "Our just opened office offers an entire range of CII's logistic capabilities into and out of Chicago,” said Je...

Friday, October 14, 2011

   Customs and Border Protection has tentatively selected four companies to operate centralized exam stations (CES) in the Port of New York and New Jersey.    The agency has asked the shipping industry for comments this month on those selected. The firms and the sites are:    ●  East Coast Warehouse in Port Elizabeth, N.J., and New York Container Terminal on Staten Island, N.Y., as sites for comprehensive stations.    ●  H&M International Transportat...

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

   The Indianapolis-based trucking company Celadon Group said Tuesday it had purchased a 6.3 percent stake in USA Truck, a Van Buren, Ark.-based competitor.    Celadon said it acquired the shares because it believes USA Truck's common stock "represented a potentially attractive investment at recent prices."    Celadon added its "board and management team believe the truckload industry offers consolidation and other strategic opportunities as successful companies seek, among ...

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

   Kerry Logistics said Wednesday it has won a deal from Hugo Boss to manage its greater China distribution.    The contract calls for Hong Kong-based Kerry to provide logistics services through two distribution centers - one in Hong Kong for the Taiwan, Macau and Hong Kong markets, and one in Shanghai for the mainland China market.    Kerry said Hugo Boss is poised for double-digit growth in China, which is seeing demand for luxury goods rise rapidly.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

   The Port of Milwaukee has become the grantee status of Foreign Trade Zone No. 41 for Milwaukee and Southeast Wisconsin.    Eric Reinelt, port director, said the U.S. Commerce Department's Foreign-Trade Zone Board has approved the transfer of the zone from a private individual, Vincent J. Boever.    The port now plans to promote the zone as a tool for economic development and creation and retention of jobs in the region.    Reinelt also said that the FTZ board al...

Friday, October 07, 2011

   Press reports say the Port of Los Angeles has decided not to challenge a court decision last month that voided its requirement for container dray truck drivers to be employees.    Reports in the Los Angeles Business Journa l and the Daily Breeze said the port had issued a statement after its board meeting Thursday where they discussed whether to appeal last month's decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.    The court ruled in favor of the American Tru...

Thursday, October 06, 2011

   Businesses can look forward to a couple of years of decent economic prosperity, but after that watch out for some painful structural adjustments that will lead to a bad recession, a leading freight transportation economist said Wednesday.    “I’m very optimistic about the next two years. I’m very pessimistic about the next 10 years,” Noël Perry, a principal at Transport Fundamentals Inc. and managing director at forecasting firm FTR Associates, said during a panel discussion at th...

Wednesday, October 05, 2011

   Ace Hardware next year will deconsolidate and ship import cargo to regional distribution centers from a new import distribution facility near the Port of Virginia.    The home repair retailer said last week that the 336,000-square foot distribution center in Suffolk, Va., scheduled to be completed by May 1, will be located closer to many stores on the East Coast to enhance inventory replenishment. Ace will be the first tenant to occupy space in the 900-acre CenterPoint Intermodal ...

Friday, September 30, 2011

   Member lines of the Westbound Transpacific Stabilization Agreement (WTSA) said they plan to implement rate increases from Nov. 1 based on specific commodity types “as freight rates for many major commodity categories have approached unsustainable levels in recent months in the U.S.-Asia trade lane.”     WTSA said it undertook an extensive review of rates and will schedule rate adjustments commodity by commodity, based on prevailing rate levels, competitive considerations...

Friday, September 30, 2011

   Swiss freight forwarder Panalpina on Thursday opened a new branch office in the city of Jaipur, India.    The city has a large number of exporters of construction materials, automotive products, handicrafts, jewelry and carpets, Panalpina said.    “Panalpina has a very ambitious growth strategy for India,” said Rene Wernli, managing director for Panalpina India, in a statement. “In our annual customer satisfaction survey 2011, Jaipur was nominated by a majority of our cus...

Friday, September 30, 2011

   A consortium led by PSA International has provisionally won a concession to build a fourth terminal at India’s busiest container port, according to local news reports.    Singapore-based terminal operator PSA is partnering with local port group ABG to build a terminal in the Nhava Sheva port complex that could eventually have capacity for 4.8 million TEUs, more than doubling existing capacity at the port.    Throughput at the three existing terminals in Nhava Sheva – ope...

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Widdows   Ron Widdows, the group president and chief executive officer of Neptune Orient Lines, will remain chairman of the World Shipping Council (WSC) through September 2012, even after he retires as head of NOL at the end of this year.   WSC, the chief trade association for the liner shipping industry, said at its membership meeting in Seoul last week, Wan Min, managing director of COSCO, and Ottmar Gast, chairman of the executive board of Hamburg Süd, were elected to two-year ter...

Thursday, September 29, 2011

   U.S. Customs and industry representatives on Monday outlined how a simplified process for filing import declarations would look and said a trial program will start soon to demonstrate how fewer documentation requirements could benefit the government and importers alike.    The goal is to give trusted traders a more streamlined process to get goods released by linking security and admissibility data requirements. A simplified customs entry would resemble the Importer Security Filin...

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

  A spokesman for the Port of Los Angeles said it has not yet decided whether there will be an appeal of Monday's court decision that struck down the port's plans for a ban on owner operators.   Port Director Geraldine Knatz said the port was "pleased” that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit upheld nearly all the port’s concession program.    “The measures upheld in this ruling allow for significant accountability from the trucking companies that call at the Port...

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

   The 9th Court of Appeals ruled Monday that the Port of Los Angeles can't bar truck owner-operators from the port.   The port's 2008 clean truck program required motor carriers moving containers to and from the port to enter into concession agreements which set forth 14 requirements, including one that said within five years port drayage drivers must be employees of licensed motor carriers.   The American Trucking Associations (ATA) had challenged five provisions of the c...

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

   Union Pacific Railroad said Tuesday it would invest nearly $300 million over the next few years on its central corridor between Fremont, Neb., and Missouri Valley, Iowa.    UP called the corridor “a primary shipping lane,” with the investment part of the $3.3 billion the railroad plans to spend in 2011 on its 32,000-mile network.    “When complete, this multiyear double-track project will help us operate more efficiently, increase train velocity and support our ability t...

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

   The Transportation Marketing and Sales Association, a networking and education group, has expanded its Connections Events this year to include three locations.    The events will be held on:    • Oct. 4 in Jacksonville, Fla.    • Oct. 20 in Fayetteville, Ark., and in Los Angeles.    During these events, attendees will be able to learn from the industry’s leading sales, marketing and communications professionals, the association said.    At th...

Friday, September 16, 2011

   OOCL and Freightliner said Thursday they have renewed a 10-year strategic partnership to provide OOCL customers with U.K. intermodal services.    Under the new contract, OOCL has committed to increase capacity by 50 percent, with daily wagons being linked between the Freightliner terminal at the Port of Southampton to their strategic terminal networks at Birmingham, Leeds and Trafford Park. The Trafford Park terminal is the busiest in the United Kingdom and a crucial city hub for ...

Friday, September 16, 2011

   The U.S. Senate on Thursday passed legislation to extend funding to the Federal Aviation Administration and the Federal Highway Administration for four and six months, respectively, after the House approved the measure earlier this week.    Without action, the FAA would have been forced to shut down non-essential programs and services at midnight on Friday, when its six-week emergency authorization is scheduled to expire. Operations were terminated, contracts suspended and thousan...

Thursday, September 15, 2011

   NYK Line North America said it will no longer routinely provide chassis in the Northeast, including in the New York-New Jersey market, effective Nov. 14.    NYK said the change would "build efficiencies while minimizing the environmental impact of having a large number of chassis that are used intermittently and have to be stored and moved."    Japan's largest shipping company said it believed the policy change "will not only lower total cost but will also build greater ...

Thursday, September 15, 2011

   Two former U.S. Customs commissioners, now out of government and free to speak their minds, unloaded on Congress for making their jobs more complicated by forcing the Department of Homeland Security to implement ineffective security measures. Bersin    But Alan Bersin, the current commissioner, said the way to prevent politicians from overreacting to perceived threats at the border is to address security gaps and other problems before they rise to a critical level.    Th...

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

   The U.S. House of Representatives Tuesday in two separate votes approved extensions to Federal Aviation Administration and surface transportation programs that were due to expire in the coming days.    The FAA bill will keep aviation programs running through the end of January while authorization for highway and transit programs is extended through March 31 at current funding levels.    “While this legislation signifies a bipartisan, bicameral agreement to move forward, ...