Around 63 percent of LTL shippers surveyed said that if YRC left the market, pricing would be flat or down within a month. Around 24 percent said that pricing would be flat or down a year later. Approximately 3 percent said that shipping rates would climb more than 10 percent within a month of the company’s closing and 9 percent said that rates would jump more than 10 percent with a year if YRC Worldwide goes out of business. The survey’s results present a wide range of expectations from officials in the shipping industry.

“We were somewhat surprised that shippers do not expect, on average, a larger rise in LTL rates immediately following a potential YRC Worldwide shutdown,” the report summary said. “However, respondents indicated that longer term, a YRC Worldwide shutdown ultimately would be favorable for the surviving LTL providers and allow for more substantial rate increases from current levels as demand eventually firms and the LTL providers regain pricing confidence.”

Overland Park, Kansas-based YRC, a heavyweight in the LTL carrier industry, has struggled lately from a combination of debt, falling freight tonnages and customers defecting to other carriers. In the second quarter of 2009, the company reported a $309 million loss and to maintain liquidity, it has cut wages, sold property, integrated subsidiaries, closed facilities, laid off workers, and made agreements with lenders.

 Even if the freight company’s union employees approve a second concessions package this year which could save the company an estimated $825 million through 2010, some industry analysts are pessimistic that YRC can avoid declaring bankruptcy past the and of 2009.

Early in September, BMO Capital Markets raised its rating of rail freight carriers Norfolk Southern Corp. (NSC) and CSX Corp. (CSX) to outperform competitors, expecting coal, manufacturing and chemicals to boost the finances of both companies.

“My instinct says we have a recovery,” lead analyst Randy Cousins told Dow Jones Newswires. He called the second quarter of 2009 a bottom, while noting that the year-over-year numbers “are still ugly.” Cousins also said that international shipments are still hard-hit, as well as intermodal.

 Shares of major rail freight carriers were up in early September with CSX leading with a 6.4% jump to $44.38, while Norfolk Southern rose 5.2% to $46.79, and shares in Union Pacific Corp. (UNP) rose 2.3% to $60.03. However, the investment firm was not optimistic on the performance of all rail stocks. It warned clients from investing in rail carrier Burlington Northern (BNI) saying, “The U.S. consumer will be in financial rehab for a couple of years.”

 Venerable Wall Street firm Morgan Stanley was also advising investors to buy freight rail stocks, telling clients that investing in some rail stocks was “best way to play an industrial recovery.” Morgan Stanley analysts cited increased demand for commodities important to auto production such as metals, metallic ores and chemicals as part of their recommendations. They claimed that commodity shipments in August 2009 improved at five major railroads and that intermodal freight traffic had improved four out of the previous five weeks. They boosted investor confidence in rail stocks by saying that railroads were a very good hedge against any devaluation of the dollar.

Truck driving schools across the country have all the students they can handle as thousands of unemployed people are attracted to the trucking industry and the possibility of earning a livable wage.

“Making $38,000 to $40,000 a year is not bad for an entry-level person,” said John Frey, who oversees recruiting for Werner Enterprises, a Nebraska-based trucking and freight company.

The web site for the American Trucking Association claims that the freight industry will need 111,000 truck drivers by 2014 to overcome a forecasted shortage. “The shortage is not due to lack of interest, just basic economics,” says the Web site. “The demand for professional truck drivers is growing faster than the number of new drivers entering the field.” 

At this point, it is unknown whether the current influx of new drivers into the field will help companies providing freight services overcome expected delays in deliveries and higher delivery costs. In addition to the opportunity to start over and enjoy relatively stable employment, many people who drive trucks for larger freight companies enjoy excellent benefits and are more inclined to indulge the wishes of driver who don’t want to be on the road for weeks at a time.

Officials in the trucking industry say there has been a huge influx of people with college degrees becoming truck drivers. “A lot of pilots have come through this year, as well as people with MBAs,” one said.

 Blanks, whose lives in Fruitvale, Texas, claims he’s not getting into the trucking business to get rich. His wife’s a registered nurse and their three kids are grown. His primary reason was to get off the unemployment rolls and prove that he could make a living driving a truck. Another motivation was that the freight company who hired him promised that he would be home 46 weekends every year.

 The new interest in driving freight trucks has been a boon for trucking companies who have been desperate for new drivers. With a larger pool of new drivers to choose from, they can be selective of who they hire for the first time in recent memory. However, their optimism is tempered by the realities of the business. “I don’t know how long these career changes will stick,” one trucking official said. “If you’re a laid-off plumber who gets into trucking, I’m betting you get back into the industry when it picks up.”

The 3,500 New York members of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association as well as the organization have been providing spirited comments opposing the proposed truck ban. They have contacted the NYSDOT and the Governor’s Office of Regulatory Reform by the hundreds telling officials how the ban would adversely affect their freight transportation companies. 

The seven routes that could be affected by the proposed ban include:

• Route 41 in Cortland and Onondaga counties;
• Route 41A in Cortland, Cayuga and Onondaga counties;
• Route 90 in Cortland and Cayuga counties;
• Route 38 in Cayuga County;
• Route 79 in Broome, Tioga, and Tompkins counties;
• Route 89 in Tompkins and Seneca counties; and
• Route 96 in Tompkins and Seneca counties.

 A coalition of the local freight trucking community as well as businesses that rely on freight trucking to transport their products has been organized to fight the proposed trucking ban. Truck drivers in particular have been encouraged to tell officials how the proposed truck ban would increase their costs of doing business through higher fuel consumption and tolls if they are forced to take a roundabout route on the New York State Thruway. While officials have said that the proposal to ban truck traffic was initially supposed to restrict the volume of garbage trucks through the region, if enacted, the ban would apply to any trucks that use these roads to haul freight and other cargo.

 As more and more of the world’s economies and companies rely on international shipping, the use of standard shipping containers has become a common part of doing business for many companies. Moreover, it makes sense as these freight containers can be easily transported via trucks, railroads, and ships. These intermodal containers improve the efficiency and flexibility of the national and international freight transportation network and the rail network in the U.S. CSX has set its sights on improving the rail infrastructure in the eastern U.S. first as the rail networks there are the nation’s oldest and most restrictive in terms of cargo weight and height. The railroad tunnels and bridges in and around Baltimore and Washington D.C. are not high enough to accommodate double-stack shipping containers from east coast ports to Midwestern markets.

 In 2006, CSX’s main competitor Norfolk Southern (NS) began its own double-stack rail freight initiative called the “Heartland Corridor.” NS is currently improving this route to accommodate taller shipments and plans to use this route to link ports in the Hampton Roads area in Virginia to the Midwest. When Norfolk Southern’s project is complete, they estimate that it will remove 200 miles and a half-day of travel off the current route for the company’s double-stack freight trains. The Heartland Corridor, similarly to the National Gateway, will involve replacing some current railroad bridges and raising or blasting the roofs of current railroad tunnels. Another part of these ambitious plans is the construction of new freight transfer facilities to move shipping containers between ships and trains and trains and trucks.

 The cost of the Heartland Corridor project was $311 million but NS had had financial assistance through Virginia’s $9.75 million, Ohio’s $800 thousand and the U.S. Department of Transportation’s $95 million. Not to be outdone, CSX is lobbying for $194 million in public funding from the federal government and E$193 million from the states that stand to benefit from the National Gateway project. CSX claims that the benefits from the project will include new, well-paying jobs, reduced congestion and accidents on highways and interstates, reduced highway maintenance costs, and lower greenhouse gas emissions.

 The twice-a-year Inrix report claims that “2008 had both much higher fuel prices most of the year AND rising unemployment. Rather than checks and balances, the two factors snowballed, significantly dampening highway traffic and congestion. Traffic congestion decreased over the past 18 months and hit bottom in the second quarter of 2009,” said Bryan Mistele, president and CEO of Inrix. “Now our nation’s roadways are starting to jam up again. Traffic is a great indicator of the pulse of the economy and as the economy improves, we expect gridlock to head towards 2007’s record levels as people return to work, freight transportation increases and consumers switch back to vacations from staycations.”

 The stimulus-funded highway projects planned across the country, especially in large urban areas, are expected to create more gridlock for commuters, freight services and anyone else on the road. Stimulus funds amounting to $48.1 billion have been allocated to the U.S. Department of Transportation for the construction or repair of roads, bridges, mass transit, airport construction and other transportation-related projects. Of that amount, $26.5 billion has been set aside for more than 7988 approved projects in 55 states and U.S. territories. While these projects will surely help to reduce road congestion in the long term, closed lanes and reduced speeds in construction zones will surely cost shipping companies more to conduct business in the short term. Freight companies will see increased costs of doing business through time lost and fuel burned while sitting in traffic, higher labor costs, lower productivity and other factors.

 The Inrix report analyzes freight traffic patterns. While compiling information, it was discovered that while the country’s busiest long-haul freight roadways cut across parts of 28 states, more than 95 percent of the mileage comes from only 10 states.

 ”Our findings highlight the national interconnectivity of the truck and highway portion of our national freight system and demonstrate that changes in freight movement trends and the effects of system improvements can have a significant impact on overall traffic congestion,” said Rick Schuman, vice president of public sector, Inrix. “The analysis highlights that long haul freight movement is spread equally between urban and rural roadways, underscoring that the development of a national freight strategy to optimize highway network efficiency and reliability—for both trucks and passenger vehicles—is in the interest of both rural and urban constituencies.”

 In addition to increased congestion on roads as the economy improves, freight moved by rail is also expected to experience significant delays through bottlenecks at major freight hubs.

 The city’s transportation circulatory system is clogged by railroads that are essential for its growth and economic health, but ironically, traffic congestion from rail freight is constricting the city’s potential for economic growth.

 “It’s costing us in our efficiency and in our environment,” said Jeff Moseley, president and CEO of the Greater Houston Partnership. “It is an important strategic infrastructure upgrade that we must have if we are to be competitive in a global economy.”

 Moving freight trains out of the city’s center is not an option as it would strangle the petrochemical industry so vital to the city’s economy. Freight trains carry dozens of different industrial chemicals and the plastic pellets used for a wide range of different products. Before the current recession reduced the amount of freight moving by rail, freight train traffic was growing by four or five percent a year and nearly 900 trains moved freight every day in Houston’s Ship Channel. 

 The recession has reduced Houston’s rail traffic problems a bit, but city leaders know that the respite will not last. The city’s population is expected to grow and the widening of the Panama Canal is expected to increase the amount of cargo entering Houston’s port beginning in 2014. Transportation officials expect rail freight to triple in the area by 2035, but know that alleviating the blockages in the current freight rail system will be difficult.

 Rail freight companies are privately owned businesses, but they are seeking public help for the more expensive solutions to the current congestion, such as bridges to separate city streets from railroad tracks. In exchange for using tax dollars, they might consider sharing their tracks and rights-of-way with commuter trains. Since moving freight by railroad seems poised for a comeback here and elsewhere around the country, a public and private solution might pay off in a wide range of dividends now and for the future.

• Choose the right box for the job. A heavy corrugated cardboard box with walls thick and strong enough to protect the items inside affords plenty of room for packing materials. You can reuse a box for shipping, but a used box is not nearly as strong as a new one.

• Wrap outsized items in corrugated cardboard. For shipping large or irregularly shaped freight, wrap the item uniformly in corrugated cardboard and secure it with reinforced shipping tape. It is definitely better to err on the side of too much wrapping than too little.

• Be generous with the packing material. Pack an item so that it will not shift in the container while being transported and leave enough room for a generous amount of packing material. If you’re shipping multiple items, make sure to allow plenty of room for packing material between boxes. Tape each seam of the box with heavy shipping tape and give the box a shake to check for interior movement.

• Double-check the address. Before contacting our shipping company to pick up your parcel, double check the shipping address to make sure it is correct. You can print the shipping label, write it in a neat hand or use the Bill of Lading as the address label.

• Need a crate? Freight companies are understandably careful about the type of crates they will accept for shipping freight. If you don’t have a factory crate for your shipment, most carriers will accept a crate made of heavy corrugated cardboard or wood. Whichever type of crate you choose, it is critically important to make sure that your freight is properly secured so it will not come loose while shipping.

• Palletizing your shipment. If you are shipping your merchandise on a pallet, it is critically important to ensure that the freight it secured to the pallet properly. Many carriers also prefer that the shipment be covered in shrink wrap or cardboard.

• Consider additional shipping insurance. We monitor and validate each of our carrier’s credentials, safety ratings and insurance coverage on a consistent basis and only do business with carriers that are fully licensed and insured. You can also purchase additional cargo insurance to ensure that their shipment is fully covered in the event of an accident.

If you have any questions about these shipping tips or shipping a challenging item, simply fill out a fast contact form and one of our specialists will get right back to you!