Intermodal Volumes Decline in Second Quarter, IANA Says

Overall intermodal volumes for the second quarter of 2007 fell to 3.35 million units from last year’s level of 3.58 million units, the Intermodal Association of North America said.

The decline was the first quarterly drop in volumes since the first quarter 2002 and ended a string of 20 consecutive quarters of year-over-year gains, IANA said in its intermodal market trends and statistics report.

International traffic fell 1.9% to 2.2 million units, while domestic volumes slipped to 1.42 mil-lion from 1.41 million.

"Given the weaker U.S. economy, the traffic decline isn’t unexpected, especially in comparison to the second quarter of 2006, which was the second-best quarter ever for intermodal," said Tom Malloy, IANA’s vice president of member services and business development.