Air
Airports on U.S. East Coast Look to Asia

Although the U.S.-Europe trade lane has been the bread and butter for many U.S. East Coast airports’ air cargo programs for years, their interest in Asia is starting to gain altitude. At New York’s JFK airport, Asian destinations accounted for 51 percent of the international freight volume during the fist half of 2006.

Not only has the trans-Atlantic trade been lackluster in recent years, domestic trade is also waning. Fortunately, an improving European economy may change those trends bit, but Asia still offers more potential, even to Miami International Airport, which has historically focused on Latin America trade.

Rail
Tougher Rules for Hazmat Shipments

Rail carriers are facing tougher regulations for hazardous materials shipments. Under new rules proposed by the Department of Transportation (DOT), railroads would be required to compile annual data on shipments of certain hazardous materials shipments; analyze safety and security risks along rail transportation routes used to ship those materials; assess alternative routing options; and make routing decisions based on those assessments.

In addition, the DOT wants to clarify current security plan requirements relating to storage of hazmat shipments en route, delays in transit, delivery notification, and additional security inspection requirements for those shipments.

The trade community will have until February to comment on the proposed rules.

Trucking
Truck Shipments Down Sharply

The American Trucking Associations reports that domestic truck shipments fell by nearly 9 percent in November, which marks the largest year-over-year decrease in almost six years, according to the industry’s biggest trade group.

The truck tonnage index now stands at its lowest level since late 2003, following an 8.8 percent decline versus the same month a year ago. The index fell 3.6 percent from the prior month.

Considering that over two-thirds of all manufactured and retail goods in the U.S. are carried by truck, the industry is an important economic bellwether.

“Both the month-to-month and year-over-year decreases indicate that the economic slowdown is in full gear,” Bob Costello, the association’s chief economist, said in a statement. “One month certainly doesn’t make a trend, but if we continue to see year-over-year reductions of similar magnitudes in the next couple of months, it could indicate a greater economic slowdown than economists are projecting at this point.”

Ocean
More Freight for 2007

According to the National Retail Federation’s forecasts, freight volumes at the nation’s container ports will grow modestly this year, and congestion will not be an issue.

Asian imports are expected to expand by approximately 7 percent, compared to last year’s 10 percent.

The port complex of Los Angeles-Long Beach had the most volume in 2006, and while it will maintain its market share this year, ports in the Pacific Northwest and in Northern California are anticipating greater growth.

Orders for Containerships Sink

The last three years saw ocean carriers spending billions on new vessels, but over the summer orders started to slow dramatically. In fact, London shipbroker Clarkson reports that no contracts for new box ships were placed during the last six weeks of 2006.

Although demand for capacity has been strong in recent years, many in the industry believe that the tide will turn over the next two years.

At the beginning of December, there were 1,296 fully cellular container ships on order, comprising 4.7 million TEUs in capacity. This amount is more than half of the 9.3 million TEUs of capacity that currently exist in the market, according to Clarkson.

3PLs
New C-TPAT Requirements for Brokers

Third-party logistics providers who offer customs brokerage services will be required to implement minimum security standards before joining the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) program under new rules put forth by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

Items such as documentation processing, physical security, IT security, and container and trailer seals are among those addressed by the new standards.

“Brokers normally do not play a significant role in the physical aspects of stuffing, loading, transporting and distributing merchandise,” noted the CBP, yet “the broker does play a decisive role in the transmission of key trade data and as a liason between U.S. Customs and Border Protection and other key entities in the supply chain.”

Software & Technology
Intermodal Yard Software

The Port of Tacoma along with the Institute of Shipping Economics, based in Bremerhaven, Germany, have developed a robust software package for intermodal yards that makes planning faster and more accurate.

“There is no other simulation software out there that allows you to predict intermodal yard capacity this simply and on a PC,” said one of the IT analysts close to the project. “There’s no programming involved, and that’s very important.”

The ‘plug-and-play’ modeling package, called the Intermodal Yard Capacity Planning System (IYCAPS), also offers substantial time savings, according to Mike Zachary, the Port of Tacoma’s director of planning and logistics. While other products take as long as three to six months of data input before they can be used, “Our software allows us to do it in two to four weeks,” he said.