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DCVQ4
28 DC VELOCITY OCTOBER 2019 www.dcvelocity.com
Intermodal Association of North
America (IANA), commenting on
the second quarter. More recently, IANA reported that while total
intermodal moves for July declined
by 2.1%, the month’s results were
the best since April—all of which
faced tough comparisons against
2018’s record performance over the
same period. Casey sees volumes for
the remainder of the year dependent on economic factors, highway
capacity, and trade-policy decisions.
None of this, however, has deterred
Atlanta-headquartered UPS, the
nation’s largest intermodal shipper,
from continuing to leverage intermodal
across North America as “an important
piece of our highly integrated network,”
says Ken Buenker, the UPS transportation
manager responsible for rail movements.
Buenker doesn’t see any significant areas
of intermodal capacity he’s concerned
about at this point. “One of the obligations of being a good customer is to communicate with providers, so they understand trends relevant to our business,” he
says. “Historically, we have worked with
rail providers to ensure we are aligned …
We don’t expect the railroads to anticipate
our needs; we utilize our modeling and
planning tools to provide insight to near
and midterm volume plans.”
What are the biggest challenges for
intermodal rail operators? Says Buenker:
“Consistent network performance, effective mitigation of service interruptions,
and managing [market variability] to minimize [negative] influence on our service.”
INVESTING IN OPERATIONS
Overall, the surface transportation market
remains highly competitive, notes Tom
Williams, group vice president, consumer
products for Fort Worth, Texas-based
Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway
(BNSF), one of 10 North American Class
I railroads. “A lot of capacity came into
the truck market last year, and demand
has moderated,” Williams says. “That has
had an obvious impact on over-the-road
price competitiveness.”
That hasn’t stopped market players
from investing in physical infrastructure
improvements, streamlining operations
through “precision scheduled railroad-
ing” (PSR) techniques (essentially, run-
ning trains on rigid pre-set schedules
instead of holding them until all their
cars are full), and upgrading management
systems with technologies such as GPS-
tracking–enabled containers, automat-
ed gate systems, autonomous container
movement equipment, and new mobile
apps for truck drivers that shine a bright
light on the drayage “black hole.”
“For example, this year we opened a new
intermodal ramp in Barstow to augment
[intermodal] capacity … in Southern
California,” Williams notes, adding that
the railroad has invested more than $65
