Surface Transportation

the third quarter and $ 734 per container on the contract market. In the third quarter of 2024, the average spot intermodal load saved $ 633 per container, with the contract load saving $ 704 per container.

Spot intermodal rates rose 3 cents between July and September to $ 1.56 per mile, while spot truckload rates rose 6 cents to $ 1.95 during the same period, according to the ISI. Contract truckload rates fell 2 cents to $ 1.94 per mile in the third quarter, while contract intermodal rates rose 1 cent to $ 1.50 per mile, primarily due to peak season surcharges.

‘ Relatively muted’

It’ s unclear whether the momentum in the late third quarter will translate into rate increases in truckload or intermodal next year. A prolonged West Coast peak season in 2024 yielded only minimal rate increases in contracts negotiated earlier this year on lanes exiting Southern California, while annual pricing on other lanes was flat or down.

“ There is some good pricing movement in the head-hauls. There is some negative pricing in backhauls.”

J. B. Hunt Transport Services and Hub Group were reserved in their outlook for 2026 intermodal bids.

“ What is washed in the results is there is some good pricing movement in the head-hauls. There is some negative pricing in back-hauls,” Darren Field, president of J. B. Hunt’ s intermodal division, said on an Oct. 15 earnings call.“ And when you combine them, it looks relatively muted in terms of price per load.”

Field also described transcontinental volume on headhaul lanes out of Southern California as“ disappointing” in the third quarter.

Yeager was also non-committal about how Hub Group will approach bid season.

“[ We are ] executing with the mindset that we aren’ t going to get cyclical help [ from the economy ],” he said on the earnings call.“ We want to see that capacity tighten. We certainly want to get our foundational network established at the front end of bid season... we do see great opportunities in the head-haul right now.”

Intermodal executives at the Journal of Commerce Inland Distribution Conference Sept. 29-Oct. 1 predicted that contract rates will rise on outbound lanes in California in early 2026 but remain flat or down elsewhere.

The data behind the Contract ISI and Spot ISI is available to Journal of Commerce subscribers with a Gold-tier subscription.

email: ari. ashe @ spglobal. com

US LTL‘ land rush’ reaches end amid long-term freight decline

By William B. Cassidy

The less-than-truckload( LTL) land rush in the US is nearing its end as bankrupt Yellow runs out of terminals to sell and potential buyers run out of freight to fill them.

Despite the sale of hundreds of properties and the construction of many new terminals over the last two years, the LTL sector still has less capacity than it did before Yellow’ s collapse in 2023. That capacity shortfall has supported higher LTL pricing.

The US long-distance LTL producer price index, a measure of all-inclusive pricing, rose 10.5 % year over year in August, the last month of data published prior to the US government shutdown.

“ If you look at pre-Yellow and post-Yellow, the number of doors is down about 6 %,” Mario Harik, CEO of XPO, told the Journal of Commerce.“ The number of terminals is down by a similar amount.”

Compared with 2020, however, LTL capacity is down about 10 %, Harik said. Demand for LTL freight services is also dropping, with publicly owned LTL carriers reporting year-over-year declines in daily shipments.

“ We are not yet seeing a demand recovery,” Harik said.“ Customers expect the market to be steady [ through year end ]. Things aren’ t getting better, but they’ re not getting worse.”

The relatively bleak freight outlook has carriers putting network expansion plans on hold, or at least slowing them down.

“ We haven’ t opened any service centers this year,” Adam Satterfield, CFO of Old Dominion Freight Line( ODFL), told analysts during a third-quarter earnings call Oct. 29.

That’ s a unique statement coming from an LTL executive. ODFL— the second-largest US LTL provider by annual revenue— was one of the few large carriers to

40 Journal of Commerce | December 1, 2025 www. joc. com