U.S. TRUCKING AND CONTAINER DRAYAGE MARKET UPDATE – MARCH 12, 2018

Mar 12, 2018Market Advisory

U.S. TRUCKING AND CONTAINER DRAYAGE MARKET UPDATE – MARCH 12, 2018

The US Trucking capacity and pricing struggle continues; affected modes beyond traditional trucking are intermodal, and container drayage.

The previous updates from February 5, 2018 and February 23, 2018 (below) are still valid and offer a realistic progression of the situation leading up to today’s update.

The latest tactic taken by vessel operators, whether they are handling “door” moves or not, is to boost their revenues by reevaluating accessorial charge application.

As of this writing, 2 vessel carriers have announced a reduction of free time at origin loading, or destination unloading from 2 hours down to 1 hour; and an increase from $75.00/hr up to $125.00/hr.  TOC must adjust our application of free/wait time for all moves controlled by vessel operators to the same.

This is added to our announcement from February 23rd, advising that all vessel operators are now charging demurrage without exception.

This article from the Journal of Commerce, while lengthy, is the best commentary on the spread of the US Trucking industry situation and the modes being affected, so far.  The scariest statement in this article is the estimate that 50% of the container dray drivers in the US are looking to convert to long-haul, over-the-road, jobs; further exacerbating the already traumatic situation at the container ports.

Please remember that in today’s market, long validity rate contracts DO NOT guarantee capacity.  Spot quoting to obtain capacity is at its highest level ever, in our opinion.  The inland and ocean port dray situation is not better, and pundits claim will not level out until sometime in 2019.

We urge you, our customer, to stay in close contact with your Account Manager and/or Operations Specialist, to all be on the same page about your hot shipments/releases and the associated additional costs to meet your delivery or production expectations.  TOC’s procurement efforts are non-stop and we will provide the best cost and capacity availability possible, to meet your service demands.

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