Morgan Stanley Shares Highlights From Freight Conference

Intermodal Volume Unexpectedly Weak in July

FTR's Intermodal Competitive Index fell more than three points from June to a reading of 0.6 in July, a large drop that nearly brought the ICI into negative territory.

Any reading below zero indicates a less-than-ideal environment for intermodal, while readings above zero are relatively favorable.

Intermodal volume was unexpectedly weak across the board in July with ISO container movements trailing behind import trends. Domestic intermodal was also anemic, according to FTR. Lower diesel prices were a factor in the decline in intermodal volume.

“Intermodal definitely is traversing a rough patch at the moment, with issues on both the international and domestic sides of the house,” said Larry Gross, partner at FTR and author of Intermodal Update. “Nevertheless, there is reason to believe that July's numbers may have somewhat overstated the problem, since July 2016 had two fewer working days than July 2015 – a 9% difference.”

FTR expects to see a modest rebound into positive territory for the rest of the year, with a significant improvement waiting until 2017 as capacity tightens as a result of the ELD Mandate.

The ICI was designed to build on FTR's Trucking Conditions Index and Shippers Condition Index, which take the temperature of other important aspects of the trucking industry. The ICI combines different factors, including relative rates versus truck, industry capacity versus demand, fuel prices and intermodal service levels.

Figures above 0 indicate favorable conditions for intermodal to compete with trucking. Figures above 10 show extremely favorable conditions that result in substantial truck and intermodal conversion. Negative numbers indicate less aggressive modal share gains for intermodal and potentially reduced share.

Related: For-Hire Freight Movements Hit New Record High Level

Follow @HDTrucking on Twitter

FTR: Future Transportation Will Require a Whole New Playbook

FTR's Noël Perry and Larry Gross talk about the future of trucking and other freight transportation modes on the final day of the FTR Transportation Conference in Indiana. Photo: Evan Lockridge

INDIANAPOLIS -- If you intend to be in business 10 to 15 years from now, there are some big issues you'll face, as trucking and the rest of the surface transportation industry will see big changes – and that will mean companies will have to rewrite their playbooks.

And the danger of ignoring what's to come, according to Noël Perry, truck and transportation expert and economist for FTR, could be catastrophic. For example, speaking at the final session of the FTR Transportation Conference in Indianapolis on Thursday, he noted that trucking deregulation more than 35 years ago eliminated most of the carriers that were operating at the time.

In other words, they were not prepared for the sweeping changes that took place.

“This change are even larger,” he said. “This change is as big as the invention of the Interstate Highway System.”

So what are these possible changes that Perry, along with Larry Gross, FTR's intermodal truck and bus expert, detailed as they peered into the future?

One is the possibility that there may be a bubble out there that is unsustainable. Think the dot-com bubble of the 1990s or the housing bubble of the early 2000s. The next one Perry fears is the federal government's debt.

Perry presented one slide in which he forecasts federal interest payments as a percentage of the federal budget ballooning from an average of around 12% now to between 43% to 75% of the federal government's revenue by the year 2030.

“It's clear that over the next 30 years, the borrowing habits of us as a nation are unsustainable, and at some point we are going to have to fix this ...Read the rest of this story

BCTA video profiles Driver of the Year

Navistar’s Clarke peers into the future

Troy Clarke, president and CEO of Navistar, provided his view of trucking's future – and that of his company, following its alliance with the truck and bus division of Germany's Volkswagen – during a presentation at annual three-day transport

read more

Total Canada signs Original Parts Warehouse

DAT: Spot market freight volume rises 11% in August

Truckload freight availability climbed last month as the number of loads on the spot market surpassed same-month levels from the previous year for the first time since December 2014, according to the DAT North American Freight Index.

read more