Schneider Says Intermodal Deal with CPKC Eases U.S.-Mexico Freight Surge

Recommendation: completion of the cross-border railroad association within days will create capacity to meet mexico demands, reduce late deliveries, and support customers across the corridor.

Reported benefits emerge when teams align on a scheduled cadence across railways, terminals, and providers; this intermodal approach can double capacity by expanding access for trucks and intermodal flows. These results represent tangible progress toward smoother operations through a coordinated border strategy.

When completion milestones are met, operators track performance across the association and railways; if a terminal experiences delays, adjustments occur within the same week to protect customers and reduce late shipments.

To implement, create cross-functional teams spanning railways, providers, and terminal operators; use real-time data to forecast mexico demands; provide daily terminal updates; ensure completion milestones are visible to customers; monitor fuel efficiency and days of dwell to guide adjustments.

Risk controls include a contingency expansion plan, optional teams ready to scale, and a weekly review by the association to maintain scheduled throughput and avoid backlogs in late shipments.

Publish transparent metrics on the reported completion, and provide mexico-based customers a clear timeline to observe improvements across the corridor, including shifts in fleet utilization and a measurable reduction in days to delivery.

Logistics Strategy Update

Recommendation: expand seven trucking services paired with rail access to deliver cargo faster, free up capacity, and reduce congestion along key corridors; implement a single planning layer to drive optimization and materially improve delivered reliability.

Political risk exposure and nearshoring dynamics demand a proactive stance. The most actionable move is to align procurement, planning, and operations across the network; Kelly-led teams guide seven lane layouts and continuity plans.

Key levers

• Nearshoring momentum requires access to capacity; they rely on a mix of rail providers and trucking services to move goods efficiently; expand seven trucking services to capture reliable capacity; trucks for final-mile delivery help reduce congestion and improve access.
• Asset mix and operations: Most assets operated across trains and trucks to balance speed and cost; trains deliver bulk flows, trucks handle final mile; optimize this mix to improve efficiency and delivered times.
• Security and risk: Implement securities and cross-border risk mitigations; most disruptions come from policy shifts and weather, so deploy solutions and backup providers to maintain continuity; map political and regulatory risks and implement mitigations.
• Cost and efficiency: Use optimization tools to reduce empty miles; target materially lower landed costs; monitor performance metrics across the network.
• Nearshoring momentum: The trend reinforces need for agile scheduling; ensure access to capacity along the Mexico corridor while maintaining service quality for inland nodes.
• Network dynamics: Track congestion patterns in hubs; use scheduling discipline and capacity coordination to minimize dwell times and improve transit times.
• People and teams: Kelly-led teams supervise seven routing streams; ensure cross-functional alignment between carriers and internal teams; maintain clear ownership and accountability.
• News and market awareness: Track news on cross-border policies; adjust plans to align with the political climate; ensure security and resilience across the network.

Execution plan

1. Q2 actions
   • Formalize engagements among seven trucking services and rail providers; establish capacity guarantees and performance SLAs; align schedules with Kelly-led governance.
   • Implement dashboards for efficiency, access, and delivered metrics; share findings across teams to drive continuous improvement.
2. Performance and risk management
   • Track most critical metrics to minimize congestion-related delays; update risk registers; diversify providers to reduce single points of failure.
3. Near-term milestones
   • Consolidate lanes for predictable transit windows; complete optimization of seven core routes; finalize security framework for cross-border operations.

Notes: This plan prioritizes political awareness, free flow of cargo, and rapid access to network assets; it focuses on the most material opportunities to improve efficiency and delivered performance across the supply chain. It relies on strong teams led by Kelly and trusted providers to deliver services that meet high standards and securities.

Define the deal scope: lanes, capacity guarantees, and service level commitments

Recommendation: Define a three-layer scope: lanes, capacity guarantees, and service level commitments. cp-kcs planning teams should drive a forward-looking framework, featuring clear ownership. august milestones set a calendar for market mapping, including southern corridors and international routes, to anchor lane design and performance expectations. calgary is a flagship planning hub; align cross-border corridors via regulators and the association to ensure transparency and reliability.

Capacity guarantees translate into lane baselines, including TEU-per-week targets per lane and escalation during peak periods. Implement a three-tier ladder–standard, expedited, and premium–to absorb variability while preserving reliability. Include buffer slots for maintenance windows and contingency movements, ensuring long-term capacity health for cp-kcs operations across markets. To enhance modal balance, add a truck-competitive option that preserves rail reliability while offering fast door-to-door throughput when required.

Service commitments address on-time performance, dwell time targets, and reliability of handoffs between modes. Set a clear on-time target, e.g., 95% of arrivals within a defined window, plus dwell-time caps at origin and destination yards. Establish rapid-response protocols for delays, expedited re-routing, and maintenance contingency actions, supported by cp-kcs teams and related operations units.

Governance follows a cadence: kickoff in august, quarterly reviews, and a yearly planning item for long-term growth. Establish a KPI dashboard tracking lane utilization, efficiency, and fuel consumption for cp-kcs operations. Ensure maintenance schedules align to avoid clashes during peak windows; embed rigorous planning processes across teams, preserving flexibility to adapt to regulatory changes and market shifts.

Impact on cross-border transit times: bottlenecks, dwell times, and peak-season planning

Recommendation: establish a joint scheduling hub spanning railroads and terminal operators, leveraging cpkcs data feeds and real-time visibility to shrink border dwell times and expand capacity during peak weeks.

Bottlenecks concentrate at border crossings, inland terminals, and port gates where volumes arising during seasonal peaks stress the network. Crossing times for trucks can lengthen to multi-day averages at peak, while yard congestion drives dwell times for railcars and containers. Such dynamics inject volatility into schedules for carriers, customers, and seven operators, elevating risks and threatening delivery date commitments. netstock visibility across the chain supports proactive response by operations teams and carrier partners.

Peak-season planning actions include extended terminal operating hours, pre-clearance for priority lanes, cross-dock windows synchronized to vessel calls, and calendar alignment among cpkcs schedules and partner teams to reduce waits. In truck-competitive corridors, implement faster border processing for high-volume commodities, deploy dedicated lanes, and expand terminal slots; invest in infrastructure upgrades at ports and terminals to accelerate flows.

Operational metrics include average transit times, terminal dwell, and ports-to-origin date performance; monitor volatility indicators and third-party reliability. A general partnership across carriers, railroads, and logistics teams delivers consistency amid rising volumes and political signals. stroh notes that accountability across partners, including nyse-listed carriers, reinforces response plans and rapid team actions.

JB Hunt actions: routing optimization, tender strategies, and yard efficiency

Recommendation: launch a centralized routing optimization program that ingests real-time congestion, weather, fuel prices, and information from providers; calibrate models against cpkcs benchmarks in the west to minimize risk and maximize reliability.

That approach could cut days in transit during peak weeks by 1-2, reduce congestion exposure, and materially improve carrying capability and completion metrics. invest in a decision engine that updates allocations every 30-60 minutes; this could deliver a 10-15% uplift in on-time reliability. Create scenario drills to quantify impact across demands, supply signals, and different weather and climate events.

Tender strategies: deploy dynamic, multi-bid tenders across providers, segmented by class and service window; create SLAs aligned to expected demand and relief scenarios. Choose contracts that incentivize on-time deliveries and low empty miles; evaluate offers using reliability, capacity, cost, and fuel efficiency. Keep an evergreen list of premier carriers; David leads pricing reviews, Lazaro coordinates cross-functional operations, and third-party analysts help refine risk buffers.

Yard efficiency: implement advanced slotting, gate-in/out automation, and predictive yard moves; create near-term and longer-term yard productivity plans. Use free visibility tools to monitor yard congestion and choose to invest in phased upgrades that reduce dwelling times. Target reductions in yard dwell by 20-30% over weeks; track completion weekly and adjust routes to deliver on supply commitments. Link yard performance to westbound and third-region service levels; measure days and reliability improvements; report progress to senior leadership, including premier accounts.

Schneider National actions: contract terms, terminal access, and equipment deployment

Recommendation: pursue a premier cross-border services package, anchored by a hedging program, to cover a scheduled period of 12–18 months; establish a public contact route via chief mario cardenas for rapid alignment, count on a resilient partnership.

Contract terms to demand: price protection through tariff-indexed mechanisms, clear service levels linked to carload movements on key corridors, defined milestones, and consequences for adverse delays.

Terminal access: secure reserved slots at premier facilities in west and gulf lanes; guarantee door-to-gate times; allocate a dedicated us-mexico flow lane; require flexible scheduling to absorb peak periods.

Equipment deployment: allocate a fleet mix of containers, chassis, and yard tractors; schedule deployments around planned peaks; maintain dynamic netstock to count available units; align with imports and first mile movements.

Risk management and monitoring: track debt exposure, cost of capital, and general markets reading for price trends; use hedging during the period; some opinion from taube and david helps shape the plan, invest selectively in capacity, and rely on dead stock metrics to optimize netstock. They emphasize public contact channels for quick escalation.

Cost visibility and risk controls: surcharges, FX exposure, and regulatory compliance

Implement a centralized cost visibility framework capturing surcharges, FX exposure, and regulatory compliance costs; assign ownership to a cross-functional team to ensure timely updates, governance, and escalation when variance remains. Costs were elevated during peak season, highlighting the need for hedging and disciplined change control.

Develop a single источник for rate cards, FX timing, and regulatory notices; feed weekly reports used by the board, Sarah, and national operations to assess risks amid market volatility and trend lines.

To address transit and traffic dynamics, quantify average landed costs in transit and across routes; identify where the most significant risk lies; forecast inventory needs and adjust procurement plans accordingly.

Railroad cadence and train schedules shape transit times; align procurement cycles and inventory planning to avoid bottlenecks and minimize stockouts across national routes. Those practices help stabilize service levels amid demand shifts and expand the capacity stack for most critical lanes.

Expedited service options are analyzed to prioritize the most urgent shipments; the first step is to assess customers’ needs and whether hedging or route choice reduces risk; those choices affect average transit times and service reliability.