Intermodal Fleets Remain Concerned About Road Funds

This story appears in the Nov. 16 print edition of Transport Topics.

Curtis Whalen, executive director of American Trucking Associations’ Intermodal Motor Carriers Conference, said his members share many of the same concerns about reauthorization as other trade groups.

“As [members] have watched the reauthorization process get pushed further and further back, they are wondering, Will there be any money left when we get there?’ ” he said.

He told Transport Topics that intermodal conference members also are worried about the mounting debt the U.S. government has incurred as it tries to battle the recession.

“When it comes to the economic environment,” Whalen said, “the best that you can say is that maybe we have reached bottom.”

As other trade groups — such as the Transportation Intermediaries Association, the National Industrial Transportation League and the Intermodal Association of North America — also focus on reauthorization, members of the intermodal conference have other issues within the intermodal industry.

Whalen said the economic strains have caused some ocean carriers, terminal operators and railroads to change their procedures and reverse some of the improvement in cooperation between the transportation modes that had developed over the past several years.

“We are definitely seeing some pushback in some areas of cooperation,” he said, referring to actions such as adding chassis use charges. “We are seeing some of this because of cost controls. I’m willing to chalk this up to tough times and cost pressures. Hopefully, it will dissipate and reverse itself when economic conditions improve.”

He also cited improvements that have been made in the industry standard container interchange agreement to make the process more attractive to motor carriers, such as adding arbitration for dispute resolution.

“They [other modes] are starting to accept the fact that truckers have to contribute to the intermodal process,” Whalen said.

There also is an economic aspect to the current debate over environmental regulations at ports that began in California and now are being considered in New York, he said.

Steps such as banning some trucks and introducing regulations such as “cap-and-trade” laws will only make the current massive unemployment situation worse by raising costs for carriers, he added.