There is often a general consensus along the lines of “when retail sales are good, the economy is good.” It makes sense to a large degree and, really, why wouldn’t it after all? Consumer spending accounts for roughly 70% of total United States economic output, making it the largest piece of the domestic economic pie.
Author Archives: Jeffrey Goh
July shipments, at 1,096,835, topped June’s 1,025,643 and were up 6% annually for a new monthly record, according to Panjiva, topping August 2017’s 1,069,292. All months in 2018 have seen growth, with the exception of a 0.2% decline in March, which was the first one going back to a 7.7% annual drop-off in February 2017. On a year-to-date basis through July, shipments are up 6% annually at 6,975,786.
Drewry says freight rates for cargo moving in refrigerated containers have risen since the beginning of 2017. The London consultant says in contrast to its global freight index for “dry”containers, which has fallen 14 percent between the first quarter of 2017 and the second quarter of this year, its global reefer container freight rate index has climbed 3 percent in the same period.
Cargo demand grew 2.7 percent for the month compared with the same 2017 period, down from the 5.2 percent year-over-year growth rate seen in April and 4.2 percent uptick in May, but still up a full point from March’s 1.7 percent pace, according to the latest data from the International Air Transport Association. The March increase was also the slowest in 22 months.
The recent announcement of the imminent cancellation of interline service on almost 200 joint Union Pacific Railroad-CSX Transportation lanes transiting Chicago promises to scramble peak season plans for many intermodal shippers. But setting the near-term disruption aside, what does it say about the ability for intermodal to growth longer term? It will likely result in further concentration of intermodal share in a relatively smaller sliver of the total market.
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The International rail freight post-Brexit document said the time was right to “ask what must be done to ensure that rail freight remains a viable and attractive alternative to road-based freight”, something that has been predicted to cause mass disruption when more stringent border checks come into force. The RDG, the body representing companies that run Britain’s rail network, said rail freight contributes £1.7 billion in economic benefits to the British economy.
The Association of American Railroads (AAR) today reported U.S. rail traffic for the week ending August 11, 2018. For this week, total U.S. weekly rail traffic was 556,887 carloads and intermodal units, up 2.8 percent compared with the same week last year. Total carloads for the week ending August 11 were 271,718 carloads, up 1.8 percent compared with the same week in 2017, while U.S. weekly intermodal volume was 285,169 containers and trailers, up 3.8 percent compared to 2017.
(LTL) shippers heading into annual contract talks with carriers this quarter should brace for another round of rate increases. The largest public LTL operators claimed mid- to high-single-digit contract rate increases in the second quarter, and they’re not finished.
(This article requires registration at The Journal of Commerce. To access, please click on the above link)
Data recently published by Portland, Oregon-based freight marketplace platform and information provider DAT, a subsidiary of Roper Technologies showed something atypical in the 2018 spot market, with a decline in spot market freight availability from June to July on the heels of an all-time high in June.
With the news last week that Uber was abandoning its autonomous commercial vehicle research business (for now, anyway) a logical take-away would be that the San Francisco-based tech company has soured on trucking. In fact, it appears Uber is doubling down on trucking.According to news reports, Uber Technologies is creating a standalone business out of its long-haul trucking business, Uber Freight, with plans to double its investment in the unit to drive growth ahead of a much-anticipated initial public offering.