Ocean Freight

Schneider is now on board with Trucking Tools’ Book-It-Now offering, a cloud-based software platform that fully automates the process of booking truckload shipments with carriers.

POLA reported that total volume for the month, at 770,189 TEU (twenty-foot equivalents), was off 19.1% annually, facing a difficult annual comparison to October 2018, and POLB reported that total volume, at 688,425 TEU, were off 2.4% annually.

A final tariff push set to take effect in December is pegged to result in another month of increased import activity for United States-based retail container ports, according to the most recent edition of the Port Tracker Report, which was issued late last week by the National Retail Federation (NRF) and maritime consultancy Hackett Associates.

Almost six full months to the day after it was introduced, H.R. 2440, the Full Utilization of the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund Act, was passed by the United States House of Representatives by a 296-109 margin.

September shipments­, at 1,037,316, were off 1.7% annually, and on a year-to-date basis, shipments through September, at 9,252,633, are up 1.2% compared to the first nine months of 2018.

FedEx Freight describes FedEx Freight Direct as an e-commerce service that handles the delivery of bulky items like furniture, televisions, and exercise equipment, among other items.

September shipments, at 1.199, were up 0.8% compared to August and down 3.4% annually, and expenditures were off 4.5% annually and up 0.5% compared to August.

DHL Global Forwarding, an air and ocean subsidiary of Deutsche Post DHL Group, said it has expanded its El Paso, Texas-based facility, with the addition of air freight, ocean freight, Foreign Trade Zone (FTZ), and cross-border services.

In advance of another round of tariffs set to take effect in December, the most recent edition of the Port Tracker report, which was issued today by the National Retail Federation (NRF) and maritime consultancy Hackett Associates, expects import volumes at major United States-based retail container ports to hit its highest mark for 2019.

This year was fairly apparent. The labor shortage across all logistics job titles along with the fact that very few shippers are even remotely aware of the IMO-2020 fuel regulation changes taking effect this January were the common denominators.

Forecasted disrupters such as Brexit and the U.S.-China trade war are putting more pressure than ever on ocean cargo carriers. Add in the complexity of IMO 2020 and an early start to the Lunar New Year and the complexity multiplies.

The 12th Annual Maritime Transportation Forwarding Logistics & Global Supply Chain Workshop will be staged by ABS Consulting in Miramar, Florida October 16 & 17. A major focus of the event will be trade compliance. In this exclusive interview, ABS president Albert Saphir shares his insights.

Chicago-based FourKites, a provider of real-time tracking and visibility solutions across transportation modes and digital platforms, said this week it has formed a strategic partnership with Hamburg-based ocean freight intelligence provider Ocean Insights that they said will provider shippers and carriers with enhanced tracking capabilities, from global seaports to final destinations.

It’s probably a pyrrhic victory, but transport interests recently gained a small victory in President Donald Trump’s growing trade war with China. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative recently ruled that 53-foot domestic containers from China have been exempt from the punishing tariff war between the world’s two largest economies.

As global logistics managers ready themselves for the ocean cargo industry’s “Peak Season,” several industry experts have been sharing their insights and forecasts.