DAT analyzes freight market conditions with Paul Brashier

DAT Freight Analytics
February 13, 2024
Ken Adamo

Welcome to the DAT iQ weekly market update. Today we have Paul Brashier, VP of Drayage and Intermodal at ITS Logistics and Alex Perry, Director of Analytics at DAT iQ.

"I am the vice president of drayage and intermodal services at ITS Logistics. For the past year, we have been working on stabilization coming out of that post COVID congestion operationally. Also in the drayage and intermodal space, particularly on the ocean products, we have seen a lot of right sizing of supply chains and more normalizing of booking. We are post COVID. We have tons of freight entering ports primarily, we are seeing a lot more IPI activity. This means over the past year and a half, we have had to push operations into the interior parts of the United States and get those operations up and running. We have to make sure equipment is there to service the freight. Now as we are going into some disruption on the topic we are speaking of today. We are looking at brining some of that focus back, especially to LA/LB area. Unmothballing some facilities and putting some operational support in place that we had during COVID and post COVID congestion during 2021-2022." says Paul Brashier.

"That is awesome, we should have a pretty meaty topical thing today with CDL1000 buying NEXT. That will be a good discussion to dive back into later. Let's get into our key points of the week so we can bring Paul back and have a great discussion about some of this disruption."

Key Points of This Week:

• Dry van and reefer spot rates revert to 2019 levels
• Dry van replacement contract rates down 8.5%, reefer down 5.1% in the last 2 weeks.
• January LMI comes in at55.5 "for the first time since Sept '19, every mertic in the Logistics Managers' Index is reading in expansion territory" - Prof. Zac Rodger
• Imports surge: +10% m/m is the largest sequential increase growth for Jan in 7 years.
• Happy Valentine's Day!

"ContainerAI's imports appear to be rebalancing in favor of West Coast ports, how will this impact the drayage market?"

"This is going to be a huge impact. We are already in a peak. The 4 weeks leading up to Lunar New Year are a natural lift in Asia. There are so many shippers, over seas are closed during that time period. This is natural restock and it is coming on on the heels of low inventories. Where a lot of freight was not brought in the United States' shippers and ate their inventory through 2023. You have two things that are already pushing volumes up across the US but primarily in the West Coast being that Lunar New Year lift. Also more volume coming back. I think that is why you are seeing that 10% lift. Particular to LA/LB there is two large gorillas in the room that are going to impact that area..." says Brashier.

Listen to the full interview.