Surface Transportation

Trucking | Rail | Intermodal | Air & Expedited | Distribution

Railroads seek better communication with shippers on cargo movement

By Ari Ashe

Equipment certainty is also important for Memphis , which handles about 250,000 laden imports per year , according to the Journal of Commerce analysis , and is another intersection point for US and Canadian railroads . BNSF Railway said it has a liaison to keep in touch with customers using Logistics Park Chicago ( LPC ).

“ We have a team working with the drayage community on which units will idle in LPC ,” Tom Williams , group vice president of consumer products for BNSF , said at TPM24 . “ We ’ ve seen it pay a lot of dividends in domestic intermodal with throughput , and we want to get there on the international side .”

Railroads would like shippers to communicate when their import loads idle excessively , and while shippers are willing to share that information , messages often don ’ t get to the right people because the necessary relationships don ’ t exist , market players say .

There is strong communication between domestic intermodal shippers and railroads through partnerships with companies such as Hub Group , J . B . Hunt Transport Services and Schneider National , but railroads say there is a breakdown sometimes in messaging on international intermodal business through ocean carriers .

“ We need to develop a relationship with ocean carriers and BCOs [ beneficial cargo owners ] to come up with a playground that lets us get and act on better information ; that ’ s the next evolution ,” Shawn Tureman , vice president of intermodal and automotive for Norfolk Southern Railway ,

“ We need to develop a relationship ... that lets us get and act on better information .”

Multiple roads

Beth Whited , president of Union Pacific Railroad , said railroads are leaning on their ocean carrier partners to share more information on inland movements .

“ We ’ ve asked all of our ocean carriers to make sure that they ’ re sharing the cargo information with us because when [ the congestion in terminals ] happened , we didn ’ t necessarily know what was in the box or who it was going to , so we

More than 800,000 pier containers traveled on trains from North American ports to Chicago in 2023 . Ari Ashe said at the Journal of Commerce ’ s TPM24 conference in Long Beach , Calif . “ We ’ ve had a strong collaboration with our domestic partners and information sharing through a priority system . We need to get there for international .”

Information sharing has become important after the gridlock during the COVID-19 pandemic , when chassis pools ran out of equipment but the cargo was still coming inland . Railroads say if they knew which cargo would be sitting for several days or weeks , then they would store the containers elsewhere and free up chassis .

That ’ s especially important in Chicago because it ’ s the largest inland hub where US and Canadian railroads intersect . More than 800,000 pier containers traveled on trains from North American ports to Chicago last year , according to a Journal of Commerce analysis of data from the Intermodal Association of North America and the US Surface Transportation Board .

Nearly half of the Chicago-bound cargo comes through US West Coast ports and one-third comes through ports on the US East Coast . basically created random stacks ,” she said at the conference . “ We still have some ocean carriers that are not sharing that information [ with us ], but we are close to having agreements with everybody , and I think that ’ ll be a game changer .”

Another avenue could be the US Department of Transportation ’ s Freight Logistics Optimization Works ( FLOW ) initiative , which will include more information on the inland movement of ocean cargo .

Railroads have not been active data-sharing participants in that initiative , however . Tureman and Williams said their respective railroads are not opposed to FLOW , but they want more information on what data is being shared and how confidential information would be protected .

“ We could get visibility to valuable downstream information , such as where the chassis are [ and ] what is the dwell time of units at destination warehouses beyond the railhead ,” Williams said . “[ This is ] information that we would have liked to have known when we saw the surge a few years ago .”

email : ari . ashe @ spglobal . com

40 Journal of Commerce | March 25 , 2024 www . joc . com