Resilience of U.S. Rail Intermodal Freight during the Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The rapid onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 marked a challenging time for the US and its freight industry. Manufacturing slowed, consumer purchasing patterns changed, and for many, shopping moved online. The freight industry suffered a sharp decline in shipments, followed by a surprisingly quick rebound. The industry had to adapt quickly to meet fast-changing demand and supply patterns upended by global supply chain disruptions. This paper uses U.S. intermodal activity data, supported by in-depth interviews with leaders of railroads, intermodal carriers, equipment manufacturers, car leasing companies, shippers, and e-commerce players to characterize and assess how the rail industry met the challenge of this demand whiplash and other performance impediments. What emerges is a rich picture of the multi-actor intermodal supply chain, the impacts of COVID-19 on it, the performance of the logistics system in general, and railroads in particular during the pandemic. Industry interviews revealed that a handful of choke points, many of which were outside the rail industry, complicated supply chain responses to COVID-19. The paper shows how the rail industry was an essential component of pandemic resilience, demonstrating a high level of adaptability to meet consumer and business demands. Through the use of depth interviews it reveals the complexity of the intermodal supply chain, and it accurately foretells the subsequent disruptions that continued to plague that supply chain long after the initial impacts of the pandemic.

Comparative evidence on the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak and vaccine discovery on the global transportation industry

“…Stock returns were positive for both events based on [-5, +5] trading days. This indicates that railroad business rebounded quickly, which is consistent with Schofer et al (2022) , who observed that demand for rail freight transportation rapidly rebounded.…”

“…Similarly, government restrictions to stop the spread of COVID-19 leads to panic buying and stimulates more home consumption, which affects transport volume and freight capacity, such as in food retail logistics in Germany ( Loske, 2020 ). This is consistent with Schofer et al (2022) , who suggested that increased online shopping during the pandemic has strengthened demand for urban goods and merchandise.…”

“…A rising of modal shift was strong in China and Europe, despite border closures due to COVID-19 (UIC, 2020). Schofer et al (2022) further noted that rail intermodal freight is a component of pandemic resilience in the US freight markets. As the core freight system, railroads complement trucking capacity constraints and serves to facilitate growing e-commerce during the pandemic.…”

Review of freight high speed railway (HSR)

“…With the same length of freight trains, the difference in weight between intermodal and mass trains is completely different. Additionally, drastic decrease in the described indicator in 2020 (-10.8% compared to 2018) was caused also by the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus pandemic, which affected not only the Polish, but also the global rail transport market [28,46]. Transport work performance in 2011 amounted to 54 billion tkm (tonne-kilometers).…”

How Well Did U.S. Rail and Intermodal Freight Respond to the COVID-19 Pandemic versus the Great Recession?

“…In February, 2022, the U.S. Department of Transportation published a report on supply chain performance under COVID-19, highlighting the dearth of research on supply chain disruptions ( 1 ). This paper is one of a series examining COVID-affected supply chain performance focusing on resilience of rail IM freight industry, including discussion of the impacts of e-commerce ( 2 ). It provides a high-level analysis of major rail markets during two recent major economic disruptions, comparing the dynamics of onset and rebound of both shipping demand and rail freight supply.…”