Intermodal Service Scorecard : Spring 2024 September | 14
CHART 6A
VI . Norfolk Southern Railway ( NS )
The bottom line : NS received an average score of 3.8 out of 5 points , up from 3.4 points in the fall 2023 survey .
CHART 6B
Decent service in 2024 : NS received at least 3.5 out of 5 on all six KPIs , indicating that partners believe the railroad is performing above average ( Chart 6A ), although not necessarily excellent . The railroad received between 3.7 and 3.9 in five KPIs and received a 4.1 out of 5 on ingating containers . NS consistently outscored CSX in this metric in each survey to date . CSX requires appointments to drop domestic containers while NS does not , but that will go away on Sept . 1 when NS also institutes mandatory appointments . The benefit of appointment systems is that containers don ’ t dwell at origin for long ; boxes come into the terminal , get loaded on a train and depart quickly . Terminal acreage can be devoted to inbound cargo . The drawback is that IMCs may have to wait one day or more for an available appointment , leaving the domestic container sitting in the shipper ’ s distribution center longer .
Chassis , service chief concerns : Most customers , 53.4 %, said NS intermodal service was better than six months ago , while only 16.6 % said it was worse . There were no categories cited as a major concern by more than half of the IMCs . Approximately half , 47.4 %, said that obtaining an NS or DCLI chassis was a major concern in the first half of the year , and the same percentage said reliable service was a major concern ( Chart 6B ). In the fall 2023 survey , value for the dollar was a concern for 52.2 % of NS customers , but fell to 26.3 %. It ’ s unclear whether that is a function of actual business , or the chatter among IMCs that NS priced some lanes too high compared with CSX and lost the business altogether .
CHART 6C
CSAT and NPS scores : NS ’ s customer satisfaction score saw a major improvement , with 73.3 % of partners being satisfied with performance and only 10 % dissatisfied ( Chart 6C ). Last fall , only 48 % of respondents were satisfied with NS . The gap between the two eastern railroads has narrowed , although CSX still outperforms NS on KPIs . NS received a net promoter score of 17 , up from -21 in the fall 2023 survey . The average performer score was 7.7 out of 10 , up from 7.0 in the prior survey . www . spglobal . com | www . joc . com © 2024 S & P Global