The Long and the Short of Truckload Today
Intermodal is playing a larger role in changes in long-haul trucking. Ports on the East Coast, like the Port of Savannah, may see more traffic coming through the newly expanded Panama Canal, which could result in less freight being trucked across the country from West Coast ports. Photo: Port of Savannah
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Intermodal is playing a larger role in changes in long-haul trucking. Ports on the East Coast, like the Port of Savannah, may see more traffic coming through the newly expanded Panama Canal, which could result in less freight being trucked across the country from West Coast ports. Photo: Port of Savannah
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The truckload landscape is slowly but surely being reshaped by market forces that are redefining for many fleets what it means to be a long-haul carrier. While these changes may not be as rapid or disruptive as what’s happening in the last-mile space, they are just as transformative for trucking in the 21st century.
The deregulation of trucking in the early 1980s threw open the door to truckload carriers, many of which launched with a single truck and grew into industry giants. Those operations have been synonymous with long-haul freight movement, as carriers in the less-than-truckload segment have primarily picked up and delivered freight with regional and shorter hauls, including local “peddle” routes.
To be sure, long-haul freight is not going away. But how it gets moved by truckload carriers is starting to evolve, driven by changes in customer and market demands as well as the impact of the continuing driver shortage.
Shippers are becoming more demanding of their carrier partners, which is remaking many familiar freight distribution patterns. Underlying changes in consumer habits have been driven by advances in what supply chains can do at dizzying speed to engage individual shoppers plinking out orders for socks or dog food or what-have-you on keyboards out there in Anywhere, U.S.A.
Because technology is changing how sellers of all things interact with both their business and consumer buyers, shippers are being compelled to redesign supply chains to ensure product gets to market faster and more intelligently than ever. They are doing what it takes to …Read the rest of this story
