IANA cites international and trailer volumes as drivers for Q3 volume decline

In August, the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) reported its first quarterly volume decline for the first time after 25 straight quarters of growth. Earlier this week, marked its second straight quarterly volume decline, officially extending more of an unwelcome streak, according to its third quarter Intermodal Market Trends & Statistics Report, which was released earlier this week.

Total third quarter intermodal volume movements—at 4,348,634—were off 4.6 percent annually, following a 6.1 percent second quarter decline at 4,271,162. The first quarter of 2016 saw volumes rise 2.0 percent annually.  

Like recent quarters, domestic containers were the lone metric to see an increase, up 3.3 percent at 1,868,227.  Trailers again saw a steep drop off, falling 26.9 percent to 295,933, while international, or ISO, containers, fell 6.7 percent to 2,184,474.

The report noted that the trailer decline is not unexpected, due to the late 2015 restructuring of Norfolk Southern’s Triple Crown operations in which its highway trailers that were specifically fitted for intermodal usage, known as RoadRailers, were discontinued in all lanes outside of its Detroit-Kansas City lane, as well as total trailers being off more than 20 percent in 2016 because of low fuel prices and loose trucking capacity.

As for ISO volumes, IANA said that the decline is “harder to explain,” as international intermodal volume tends to move in tandem with container import growth, with a large gap having opened up between the growth of container imports and international traffic over the last two quarters.

IANA explained that the weakness in international stems from the Southwest region, with international loadings there down 16 percent in the third quarter, which likely also caused a decline in shipments headed for the Southwest, possibly because fewer boxes needed to be returned. What’s more, IANA noted that nearly 50 percent of all international volume comes to or from the Southwest region, with IANA saying the region will always have an “outsized” effect on total intermodal volumes.

IANA President and CEO Joni Casey told LM that the third quarter’s international numbers point more toward the volatility of this segment versus definitive negative or positive trends.

As for the modes gains in domestic containers, she said that there were different factors at play.

“A continuation of excess OTR (over the road) capacity will certainly impact the amount of growth that the domestic intermodal market will see,” she explained. “However, there are already signs of tightening in this sector, so the level of domestic intermodal growth is posed to increase during the first quarter of 2017.”

Intermodal Marketing Companies (IMC) highway loads were up 14.6 percent at 435,916, with revenue up 6.8 percent at $604,680,457, while average per highway load was down 6.8 percent at $1,387. And IMC intermodal loads fell 11.6 percent to 427,545, with revenue down 0.3 percent at $1,117015,723, and average per intermodal load up 12.8 percent to $2,613.

Casey said that the strong annual quarterly gains for highway loads and revenues were not surprising, noting it is rather a continuation and confirmation of what IANA has been seeing throughout 2016, in part related to the excess OTR capacity.

Assessing the market, IANA said in the report that there are increasing concerns over long-term North American intermodal market weakness, but it added that excess truck capacity and shifting import volumes, which it cited as the key drivers of recent weakness, as unlikely to pull intermodal down long-term.  

But IANA is optimistic in its 2017 outlook, due to continued increases in consumer spending, coupled with expectations that the international side of the equation will stabilize.

“Increased consumer spending and ISO stabilization would shore up the projections but continued gains in domestic container volumes, as evidenced over the last three years, will drive the numbers,” said Casey.