Why the Intermodal Rate Gap Won’t Stay This Wide
A diesel shock, a tightening truckload market, and six straight months of manufacturing expansion are lining up at the same time — and SONAR’s own Intermodal Dashboard shows the savings gap between rail and truckload widening faster than at any point in the index’s recent history.
In our latest SONAR Sitrep, “The Intermodal Advantage,” we break down why this is a decision worth making now rather than at the next contract cycle:
- Why SONAR’s Intermodal Contract Savings Index (IMCSI.USA) just hit 31.84% — up roughly 11 points since late April, the steepest sustained climb in the index’s recent history
- How a Russian diesel export ban sent U.S. diesel futures up 11.6% in a single day, and why rail’s fuel efficiency turns that kind of shock into a widening rate advantage rather than a shared cost spike
- What J.B. Hunt’s record intermodal quarter (+10% YoY volume, 578,000+ loads) says about available rail capacity right now — this isn’t a case of accepting worse service to save money
- Where the savings are concentrated across 65 actively tracked lanes — including specific lanes converting at up to 46.75% — and the 8 lanes where intermodal currently shows no advantage at all
- A practical, six-step playbook for auditing freight and converting OTR lanes to rail before the gap closes
Read the full Sitrep now:
FreightWaves Market Monitor & Research — available at getfreightdata.com
SONAR platform subscribers — find it in the Research section at GoSONAR.com
SONAR Sitreps are freight market intelligence briefings produced by the FreightWaves SONAR team, combining SONAR’s proprietary index library with the latest market data.
