Annual Review & Outlook 2025
Surface Transportation
Executive Commentary invested in radial tires in recent years has also delivered significant environmental benefits , taking the equivalent of 18,000 cars per day off of the nation ’ s roadways .
Finally , we are about to embark on our largest technology investment ever by outfitting our entire DCL53 fleet with GPS to help our customers optimize domestic chassis operations and bring greater visibility to our portion of the supply chain .
DCLI is ideally positioned to support customers with the largest , safest , and most road-ready chassis fleet in the market as they work to accelerate domestic intermodal growth in 2025 and beyond .
IMC Companies
Donna Lemm
Chief Commercial Officer www . imcc . com
As an industry , our greatest challenges include growing inland transit times , lack of visibility and unfair access to intermodal shipments due to chassis restrictions at many inland rail hubs in the United States .
Two decades ago , an inland point intermodal service offering boasted a five-day transit time from the West Coast to major intermodal hubs such as Memphis , Dallas and Chicago . Today , that same transit time exceeds 10 days . How are transit times increasing in an age of speed , justin-time inventories and new technology innovations ? The driver in these increased transit times is cargo bunching and longer trains fueled by even larger ships . The landside infrastructure cannot be upgraded effectively enough to handle 20,000-TEUplus vessels discharging 10,000 TEUs of imports at a time .
Wheeled and partially wheeled rail facilities are still dependent on ocean carriers to provide chassis at terminals with their selected chassis providers . This is where intermodal shipments often get stuck when they arrive at the destination rail hubs .
“ With trucking capacity still relatively abundant and truck rates at very competitive levels , shippers seem to be content with the status quo . Intermodal must make a very compelling case to bring them back into the fold .”
Joni Casey
“ In the US , antiquated wheeled operations would surely benefit from an interoperable pool where chassis move freely within a system .”
Donna Lemm
Intermodal Association of North America ( IANA )
Joni Casey
President and CEO www . intermodal . org
The North American intermodal market is divided into two segments : international , or the movement of import volumes from port to inland and back ( aka Inland Point Intermodal ); and domestic , or 53-foot domestic containers and trailers moving within the continent . While international has seen strong double-digit growth in 2024 , domestic gains have been much lower .
With truckload growth also sluggish , moderate gains in domestic intermodal is not out of line . But for this segment to grow faster than long-haul trucking , the recipe is simple to state , although harder to achieve — grow intermodal market share .
Domestic intermodal ’ s share of US long-haul dry-van and reefer truckload movements ( 500 miles or more ) stood at 6.1 % in the third quarter of 2024 . This was up 0.1 % from the second quarter but has stayed at this level for the last two years , well below the peak of 7.2 % seen back in 2018 . So what happened ?
Some of the decline was deliberate . As railroads adopted the precision scheduled railroading operating model , networks were simplified and lanes with insufficient volume and too much complexity were eliminated . Intermodal trailer services were converted to container , resulting in some trailer users opting to return to the highway . In addition , there were some service issues during the post-pandemic surge .
With trucking capacity still relatively abundant and truck rates at very competitive levels , shippers seem to be content with the status quo . Intermodal must make a very compelling case to bring them back into the fold . A prerequisite is that customers need to regain confidence in the reliability of the intermodal service offering , and progress is being made on this front . But that is not sufficient by itself . Intermodal needs to devise the means to offer a wider array of over-the-road-comparable services with attractive door-to-door savings , new terminals and new lanes all contributing to the equation .
There is evidence of a turnaround as of the third quarter of 2024 . Time will tell if this trend will continue and if domestic intermodal can fully regain its stride .
This is due to an insufficient supply , quality and accountability for chassis provisioning .
Our friends in Canada , Europe and Asia do not separate the chassis from the driver . This practice is embraced by grounded operations allowing drivers to ensure safe , quality chassis of their choice when moving containers in and out of the terminal . In the US , antiquated wheeled operations would surely benefit from an interoperable pool
where chassis move freely within a system . Perhaps the immediate solution would support offering multiple chassis provider choices to CY / merchant haulage shippers and motor carriers when the train arrives and move away from this exclusive usage concept where the box coming in is married to a specific chassis provider . Here lies our opportunity to create real change for our industry . Solve the chassis problem , and US inland freight will move . www . joc . com January 6 , 2025 | Journal of Commerce 77