Probably a captive shipper fearful of retaliatory rates by the railroad. But that’s just my guess![;)]
[quote user=“oltmannd”]
Shippers don’t know ANYTHING about their truckloads going intermodal or not. That’s whats misleading about this article.
The shipper thinks RR intermodal = IMC (HUB, et. al.) and truck = truckload carrier (JB Hunt, Schneider, Swift, Werner, et. al.). He has absolutely no idea if the load he sends away from his dock in a Swift trailer with a Swift driver will move by highway or rail!
So, the reporter talks to shippers and they say RR intermodal is not as reliable as truckload, so they call JB Hunt more often and HUB less. And then he looks at the TOFC/COFC stats and some i
Thanks for the offer, and thanks for the courtesy of asking. It sounds fine by me…I would be interested in hearing the Authors comments. If they are too large to post without a lot of editing, you could forward them directly using the forum information…
[quote user=“futuremodal”]
[quote user=“oltmannd”]
Shippers don’t know ANYTHING about their truckloads going intermodal or not. That’s whats misleading about this article.
The shipper thinks RR intermodal = IMC (HUB, et. al.) and truck = truckload carrier (JB Hunt, Schneider, Swift, Werner, et. al.). He has absolutely no idea if the load he sends away from his dock in a Swift trailer with a Swift driver will move by highway or rail!
So, the reporter talks to shippers and they say RR intermodal is not as reliable as truckload, so they call JB Hunt more often and HUB less. And then he looks at the
Somebody asked for the totals rather than just percentages.
This article attributes the decline of TOFC to the ongoing shift to containers and suggest that the total decline 3rd Q year over year of 7,000 domestic intermodal units is due to a decline in domestic production. As the table shows, the 7,000 drop still left a total of 1.444 million for the domestic volume for all kinds of equipment.
Given previous comments that truck rates have softened while rail rates have held firm, it is reasonable to assume that some of those 7000 loads may have gone to straight truck.
Could you please clarify what you are saying? It appears that your main paragraph and your last paragraph contradict each other. In one, the claim is that the 7000 drop is due to a decline in production, which would mean that there were just 7000 units fewer shipped. In your last paragraph, you suggest that the 7000 units moved by truck transport rather than rail transport.
I have a different take on the numbers.
ISO containers went up by about 179,000 units or 8.6% of 2,076,000. I’m going to assume the US economy grew by 2.5% and the other 6.1% of the ISO container growth came from increased outsourcing of manufacturing from USA to Asia.
Then (6.1/8.6)(179,000) = 127,000 units of the growth in ISO container movements came from increased outsourcing. Let’s assume all the ISO units are 40s with 2500 cu ft of capacity. Further assume all the freight is cube freight. Further assume all the domestic containers and trailers are 53s with 3900 cu ft of capacity. Let’s suppose the outsourced growth displaced the exact same amount of domestic-box intermodal shipping in terms of total cube. Then (127,000)(2500)/(3900) = 81,000 movements of 53s were replaced by 127,000 moves of ISO 40s.
So we would expect a decline of 81,000 moves in domestic boxes (trailers and containers) due to outsourcing. We also would expect a partially offsetting 2.5% increase due to growth in the economy, i.e., (0.025)(1,450,000 - 81,000) = 34,000 units. On balance, I think we should expect a decline in moves of domestic boxes of about 81,000 - 34,000 = 47,000 units.
But domestic units only declined by 7,000 units. So there is a surprise gain of 47,000 - 7,000 = 40,000 units, i.e., a surprise gain by domestic boxes amounting to 40,000/1,450,000 = 2.8%.
What I submit is going on: A lot of imports are unloaded from the marine boxes at warehouses in the hinterlands of the ports of entry and later re-shipped in domestic boxes as “domestic” freight. The percentage of total imports doing this as opposed to moving inland directly in marine boxes went up slightly from 2005 to 2006. So for the import market, domestic boxes are increasing market share over marine boxes, even though their share of total volume went down (because of the increased off-shoring).
Best regards,
Rob L.
This is from the the article: “Total domestic volume fell 0.5%, hurt by a decline in manufacturing.”
I realize that I made it sound as if the article attributed all of the decline in traffic to a decline in manufacturing. I would say that the term “hurt” implies that it was a factor, but not the sole cause. It was from there that I made the juump to my view that some of the decline could have been the result of diversion to trucks.
But wait, there’s more. Since the congestion at LA/Long Beach has subsided, there is more direct to train and less truck it to inland intermodal terminal moves being made. I wonder how these are counted? And, if it’s strictly by box type, how are all those APLU PacerStacktrain boxes counted?
Further, to see a trend, you need more than a single YOY, same quarter comparison. You don’t know if you’re seeing signal or noise.
But wait, there’s more. Since the congestion at LA/Long Beach has subsided, there is more direct to train and less > truck it to inland intermodal terminal moves being made. I wonder how these are counted?
Whether or not the ISO marine box is loaded near-dock or loaded downtown onto a train, it still counts as one ISO international move in the IANA data.
And, if it’s strictly by box type,
Yes, the IANA counts are strictly by box type.
how are all those APLU PacerStacktrain boxes counted?
The Pacer 53s count as domestic moves, the APL and NOL 40s count as ISO international moves.
Further, to see a trend, you need more than a single YOY, same quarter comparison. You don’t know if you’re seeing signal or noise.
True. But these data are very consistent with the trends showing in the previous 3 quarters. So I submit we are indeed seeing a signal. Outsourcing is continuing to grow at a strong rate, so total domestic production is declining and total imports are growing much faster than the economic growth. The percentage of imports that are unloaded from marine boxes and eventually re-shipped in domestic boxes is rising slightly.
I was kind of ponering the same thing last night. How are goods restuffed from 40’s to domestic boxes counted? As domestic freight or import freight?
The 40s are driven from port to warehouse or trans-load center and they don’t count as intermodal moves. The rail intermodal move starts at that warehouse or trans-load center. As I stated before, the rail move is counted as a “domestic” freight move (because it is moving in a domestic box and the move “started” at a domestic point).
If as Rob surmises such are counted as domestic, wouldn’t that skew the data even more in favor of my contention that “true” domestic intermodal service is declining while import intermodal is g