Less and less freight is produced domestically, so surface transportation providers in the U.S. are reliant on the maritime shipping industry moving freight from overseas to this country. In fact, about 70% of truckload volume is generated by imports. So the trucking industry including freight rates and available capacity, is dependent on what happens overseas and how much volume is being produced and then moved to the U.S.

No matter what port freight arrives at, it has to be transported – whether to a relatively nearby distribution center or across the country. Drayage carriers take freight from those ports and deliver to nearby warehouses or distribution centers. 

Imports that arrive at U.S. ports such as the Port of Los Angeles, correlate very closely with domestic truckload volume, and this is shown daily in FreightWaves SONAR. Much of the freight from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach is shipped to the nearby city of Ontario, California, which has millions of square feet of warehouse and distribution center space. From there, the freight shows up as outbound tender volumes originating from Ontario and moving all over the country.

For trucking and intermodal companies, knowing what freight is coming into which port and when helps them plan and seek opportunities to move that freight. That information is available from SONAR’s Ocean Shipments Report – and from no other source.

Like many other sectors of the global logistics/supply chain/freight world, the maritime industry is investing in technology in order to modernize and automate processes to create more visibility. SONAR uses the data from those technology sources to help subscribers better understand freight movement and how they can take advantage of that information.

While numerous SONAR indices deal with maritime freight, that ocean freight data has applicability for all modes of transportation like truckload, intermodal, railroads, etc. 

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