Intermodal Offers Solutions to Navigating Driver Shortage

We know that shippers have experienced ongoing disruptions to their supply chains and cost structures as a result of growing driver shortages – unfortunately, these challenges are expected to continue for the foreseeable future.

Despite these challenges, intermodal is a reliable alternative which maximizes driver efficiency and provides shippers with sustainable capacity, which is critical in the current environment. Since intermodal utilizes railroads for the long-haul portion of the movement, it only requires drivers for a short haul trucking move on either end. Because of this, an intermodal driver can move as many as five loads per day.

In a hot market like Southern California, a long-haul OTR driver is unavailable in that market for up to 11 days after exiting with one load. In that time, a single drayage driver could move as many as 50 loads out of the same market.

Since truckload rates can be more volatile than intermodal contract rates, there’s a great opportunity for costs savings. FreightWaves recently wrote that using intermodal can provide savings higher than a normal 10-15% range when trucking carriers are rejecting more tendered loads in a tight market. Plus, the intermodal fuel surcharge is roughly half of the truckload fuel surcharge. 

Intermodal allows our customers to have more consistent and reliable access to capacity in addition to benefits such as reduction of carbon emissions, less volatility of cost and pricing, and precision on cross-border freight to avoid common delays at border crossings and customs clearance.  

If you’re interested in learning more about XPO’s intermodal business, please feel free to reach out to me. In addition, our team has created resources to keep you informed on market updates and hot lanes. Make sure to bookmark this page: https://intermodal-solutions.xpo.com/markets_lanes/.