“The COVID-19 pandemic makes forecasting the intermodal market difficult to predict,” the report stated. “Total quarterly intermodal losses are not expected to exceed Q2’s steep decline of 11.9%. It is likely that international intermodal will fall between 10% and 15% during the rest of 2020. Falling U.S. imports due to COVID-19 shutdowns and high tariffs will continue to drag down international volume throughout the rest of 2020. Domestic containers are also expected to fall between 10% and 15%. Domestic containers decline over 2020 can be linked to an upsurge in trucking competition and a drop in transloading due to falling imports. Trailers were struggling before the onset of COVID-19 in North America, but are now expected to fall even further due to an increase in conversions to containers. Overall, total intermodal loadings are forecast to fall about 10% for all of 2020.”
Looking at ISO data, IANA said that the category saw declines in all U.S. regions tracked by IANA, with East Coast imports off 11.8% and West Coast imports down 7.6%.