Intermodal Insights – COVID-19 One Year Later – How Strongly Has the Intermodal Industry Rebounded?

Recommendation: Align sourcing, plans, and audits across rail and other modes to reduce disruptions, show a faster recovery, and keep the flow stable as demand returns; ensure this framework is supported by real-time data and cross‑functional governance.

Data from 2024 audits indicate intermodal volumes recovered to about 92–95% of 2019 levels, with rail corridors returning near pre-pandemic throughput. In North America, containerized cargo in intermodal lanes rose to roughly 94% of the 2019 baseline by Q4 2024, while capacity constraints eased and dwell times reduced across hubs. These gains rested on bold sourcing moves, stronger equipment flows, and improved operational coordination between carriers and shippers, while improving safety for people at busy hubs.

To sustain momentum, establish a triad of capabilities: plans and contracts that reflect current demand, audits of performance, and operational dashboards that connect ERP, TMS, and yard systems. Build a cross‑functional team that works together with carriers and 3PLs to monitor flow and items moving through rail corridors and inland networks. Support the effort with coursera training to boost data literacy, root-cause analysis, and continuous improvement, and track reducing delays and reduced dwell times.

Looking yonder at the mid-term horizon, the industry will strengthen resilience by formalizing contracts that reflect real-time demand, building operational plans, and maintaining conditions for steady shipments. With a focus on sourcing strategies and a steady audit cadence, intermodal players can deliver a flow of goods that supports retailers and consumers alike, reducing risk while expanding capacity to handle peak volumes. The path forward is together with suppliers, carriers, and customers.

Intermodal Insights: COVID-19 One Year Later – Rebound Strength and Performance Measurement with SCOR Dashboards and Balanced Scorecards

Recommendation: Implement a data-driven dashboard framework that integrates SCOR Dashboards with Balanced Scorecards to quantify rebound strength across lanes, modes, and regions. Assign emma to coordinate cross-border data feeds and ensure traceability from supplier to customer.

Volatility persists; however, the right metrics sustain service and enable a tighter control loop. Align a mix of leading indicators (order intake velocity, inventory turns) and lagging indicators (on-time delivery, cost-to-serve) to capture lead-time, material exposure, and service levels for cars and other high-volume parts of the chain. This approach sustains a higher level of service and keeps operations resilient.

Adopt a fourth-quarter aware, fourth quadrant view to guide strategic decisions: domestic vs cross-border flows, core services vs handling, visibility vs control, and carbon vs cost. This framing helps reduce exposure and support alternative routing while maintaining competitive service.

Operational steps: map the chain from suppliers to end users, implement traceability data feeds, and tie performance to a balanced scorecard that motivates teams. Focus on lead-time reduction, health and safety in handling, and shifts toward nearshoring to shorten distance, cut carbon, and reduce spend. Use data-driven governance to improve planning and execution across the network. When demand shifts, the framework helps guiding governance to keep priorities aligned.

In practice, align SCOR dashboards with the Balanced Scorecard to track performance by part, mode, and region. Use quarterly reviews to guide investments in automation controls, training, and collaborative planning with suppliers and service providers. If you want to optimize, focus on strategic collaboration with organizations that share demand signals and invest in traceability and cross-border compliance, thereby reducing risk and keeping the chain resilient.

One Year Post-Pandemic: How Strongly Has the Intermodal Industry Rebounded and How to Measure It with SCOR Dashboards and Balanced Scorecards

Recommendation: Build a unified measurement layer within 30 days that quantifies rebound across north and southern trade lanes, key hubs, and items, using SCOR dashboards tied to a Balanced Scorecard. This framework delivers actionable information and drives clear resolution.

Start by establishing a pre-pandemic baseline and a current-state view, then quantify changes in volumes, items moved, landed value, delays, and stockouts. Focus on the most impactful lanes and hubs to reveal where trade flows recovered and where bottlenecks persist. Use these insights to shorten times and improve service to consumers, translating resulting gains into finance and operations metrics.

SCOR dashboards map performance to Plan, Source, Make, Deliver and Return, while the Balanced Scorecard provides four perspectives: Financial, Customer, Internal Process, and Learning & Growth. Build lane- and hub-level visuals that show reliability, responsiveness, and costs by modal (rail, truck, maritime). Tie information to points of escalation and to the state of stockouts, empty miles, and landed costs to highlight where disciplined action is required.

Implementation steps are straightforward: 1) align stakeholders across the north and south and agree on common rules and thresholds; 2) collect volumes, items, delays, and on-time performance from systems and sensing feeds; 3) configure dashboards with clear targets and color-coded signals; 4) run a two-hub pilot, then scale across all working networks; 5) review results every two weeks and adjust lanes or hubs as needed.

In teams, include a quick malesh acknowledgment to mark bumps and reinforce a culture of rapid recovery. This simple pause helps maintain morale while you scale the data-driven improvements.

Key metrics to monitor include: on-time delivery rate by lane, volumes, stockouts, stockouts rate, average delay minutes, landed cost per item, and empty miles. Use these to quantify the positive swing in intermodal performance and to identify where to leverage capacity and reduce cost as volumes rise. The resulting insights support faster decision cycles and better alignment with traders and shippers.

To sustain momentum, embed disciplined governance: standardize data feeds, ensure data quality, and train teams in sensing and information sharing. The scores should reflect not only current performance but the trajectory of improvement across the most important points in the network. This approach helps you leverage insight to place corrective actions where they matter most and to avoid needless disruptions in the trade flow.

Regional Demand Recovery: Rail, Ocean, and Truck–Rail Intermodal by Corridor

Prioritize corridor-specific procurement plans that combine rail, ocean, and truck–rail capacity to deliver reliable service through the next windows. Such a strategy relies on tight collaboration across the intermodal industry; customers said these steps are enabled by online sourcing tools that apply real-time visibility to match demand with capacity.

Southern Corridor: In the summer, rail intermodal volumes rose 11% year over year, with cars shipments up 14% in the autos segment and containers leading the consumer-goods surge. Dwell times improved by about 2 days as terminals expanded yard capacity, while constraints on chassis and slot availability eased in the peak window. These gains support a broader sourcing plan that weights inland speeds against port throughput to deliver on commitments to retailers and OEMs alike.

Atlantic Corridor: Ocean volumes to East Coast ports grew roughly 9% in the summer window, and inland rail movements rose 7% as shippers diversified routing through Savannah and Charleston into the Midwest. The mix between ocean and rail options lets customers weigh cost against lead time, while tighter scheduling reduced dwell in key corridors. Procurement teams applying cross-border and domestic sourcing strategies can sustain service levels despite seasonal demand swings.

Pacific Corridor: West Coast ports regained throughput, and ocean container traffic remained the dominant flow, with intermodal rail loads up about 8%. Truck–rail combinations helped bypass bottlenecks at inland gateways, though constraints on chassis and driver availability persisted. The result is a leaner, more predictable delivery window that customers rely on when planning seasonal promotions and auto-production ramp-ups.

Across corridors, adopt a lance-like, targeted approach to bottlenecks: identify one constraint per week, implement a rapid fix, and monitor impact across cars, containers, and general freight. Such discipline sustains capacity through financial cycles and improves service for them and their customers. Online tendering, multi-sourcing, and continuous forecasting sharpen demand visibility, enabling the industry to match demand with available capacity while keeping procurement costs in check.

Service Reliability, Capacity Utilization, and Throughput Post-COVID

Launch a real-time reliability dashboard and a single performance scorecard across shippers, carriers, and inland networks to quantify on-time delivery, dwell time, and missed pickup rates. We want a single source of truth across the chain and procurement to align manufacturing around a common target for service levels. This acknowledged framework helps reduce volatility and delivers clear, actionable data for the last mile and the blue-water chain.

Adopt a data-driven capacity plan with a clear target utilization by mode and facility. Track intensity of use versus slack capacity and quantify weekly performance. Implement a concise set of rules to prevent overloading one node versus another, and coordinate source inputs with procurement to avoid hold-ups. We require disciplined governance to maintain these targets.

To boost throughput, streamline container flows by digitizing bookings, consolidating shipments, and accelerating gate-in and gate-out. Improve terminal processes, reduce dwell, and raise class-based service levels to match shipper needs. This can deliver dramatic gains and measure throughput in TEU per day and per week to reveal bottlenecks and enable targeted action.

Address carbon impact by balancing mode mix: move small volumes toward rail where feasible and keep high-priority shipping on fast lanes, while maintaining service for shippers. This approach requires close collaboration with carriers and factories to deliver predictable service without excessive handling. We also acknowledge that procurement rules help synchronize the chain while respecting carrier capacity and safety rules.

Cost Dynamics and Margin Impacts: Fuel, Equipment, and Labor

Implement a fuel-cost hedging plan and an equipment-utilization model to protect margins in the next 12 months. Revaluate strategic plans quarterly, tighten inventories to avoid costly stockouts without bloating carrying costs, and align with the network’s operational cadence to reduce dwell and accelerate flow.

Fuel costs swing with markets and can dominate variable costs in intermodal operations, representing roughly 25–40% of total variable costs depending on mode mix and lane. When diesel spikes, forwarders and carriers adjust surcharges quickly; operators who monitor costs weekly and adjust pricing accordingly preserve margins. Use a forward-looking model that maps fuel price scenarios to service profitability and customer price signals, and keep a live dashboard showing index levels, freight rates, and route-level costs so teams can react throughout the quarter. This approach also helps to align finance teams with operational realities.

Equipment costs hinge on asset utilization and financing terms. Fully utilized fleets cut idle time, while dwell at terminals increases demurrage and contingency costs. A strategic approach blends owned and leased assets with flexible swaps to keep capacity aligned with load factors. Use a model that optimizes container and chassis allocation across corridors, minimizing empty miles in forwarding lanes, and track packing efficiency at hubs to prevent bottlenecks that inflate handling costs.

Labor costs reflect wage trends, safety requirements, and regional constraints. Implement a performance-linked compensation plan, cross-train people across roles, and deploy digital tools to automate repetitive tasks and reduce manual data entry. Provide training through coursera and internal programs to keep skill levels aligned with cost-control goals. Analysts project labor cost per moved unit will stabilize as peak-season staffing aligns with demand; theyd emphasize the need for people-centric planning to maintain service levels while guarding margins.

• Monitor markets and forwarding contracts to keep costs accurate and prevent margin erosion.
• Reevaluate plans quarterly and tie forecasts to inventories and dwell metrics to avoid overcommitment.
• Enhance packing efficiency and reduce dwell at ports and yards through tighter coordination across the network.
• Train people and finance teams to interpret cost data; use coursera and internal programs to keep skills fully up to date.
• Provide analysts with a single source of truth and a live dashboard to monitor costs, utilization, and service levels throughout the period.
• Shape strategic partnerships with carriers, trucking, and ports to stabilize rates and ensure predictable throughput.
• Develop an agile cost model that translates scenarios into actionable plans and contingency steps.

SCOR Dashboards: Data Sources, KPI Taxonomy, and Real-Time Visualization

Adopt a three-layer SCOR dashboard framework that pulls data from lane-level transport feeds, road-network sensors, and finance systems to surface on-time performance, cost, and returns in real time.

Data sources span lane-level telematics, vehicle GPS, yard and terminal WMS, TMS routing data, fuel cards, maintenance and refurbishment records, and supplier invoices. Implement strict quality checks and map data to service areas to trace shortages and late events to root causes for rapid action. This approach enhances transparency and actionable insight across last-mile and corridor operations.

The KPI taxonomy structures metrics into four groups: reliability (on-time rates, late-event frequency), cost (cost, fuel, cash flow indicators), capacity (areas, lane-level throughput, balancing across routes), and service quality (returns). Assign a structured level of ownership, including alisons, to ensure accountability and consistent interpretation across teams.

Real-time visualization uses lane-level maps, time-series dashboards by road segment, and heat maps to highlight hotspots. Dashboards display current rates, remaining lead times, and exceptions. They include controls to adjust routing, allocate buffers, and trigger alerts when on-time targets slip or shortages emerge. Aligns with governance and supports fully automated data feeds with manual overrides for refurbishment scenarios.

Data governance ensures data quality and traceability with lineage, versioning, and access controls. Define a common taxonomy so finance and operations share a language. Use structured metadata and a clear refresh cadence to keep information fresh and trustworthy.

Where will the dashboards deliver results? In cost control, late deliveries, and fluctuating fuel prices, the system helps rebalance lanes, reduce penalties, and improve service levels. You gain a clearer view of capacity constraints and can plan refurbishment needs alongside capital returns, enabling a faster, recovered network across road-based services and freight lanes. The result is higher efficiency, better alignment of cost and service, and a more resilient intermodal portfolio.