IN THE NEWS: The Rail/Ramp Market Review and Expectations for 2026 with ITS Logistics

FreightWaves TV
December 11, 2025
Mary O'Connell

FROM THE INTERVIEW:

Host Mary O'Connell: Welcome to the Freight Market Summit. Today, we are joined by Paul Brashier, VP of Global Supply Chain at ITS Logistics. Welcome to the summit, Paul.

Paul Brashier: I very greatly appreciate you having me today. Thank you.

Mary: ITS has the ITS US Port/Rail Freight Index, a report that you put out every month, which shows what's going well. It's like a nice snapshot of what's happening at the ports, what's going on with the ramps, and what's happening with the rail and remodal space.

Paul: I think we're pushing into year four of this next year with this Index. You know, if you think about four years ago, it was fairly chaotic in our world. When the market shifted due to post-COVID congestion, we began to recognize the need to update not only our clients but also the broader ecosystem of what we were observing, given our extensive footprint across North America. And it's stuck around since. I'd like to say that it's something that I feel the industry kind of looks to as a compass of what is going on, which, you know, to be honest with you, hasn't been too exciting the back half of this year.

Mary: So the first half of 2025 was better than where we are now, but still not what I would say a strong market. So, what are some of the factors that have contributed to the lack of demand and the softness in the market?

Paul: Well, to begin, and you alluded to it earlier, the first half of this year was strong, right? Year over year, talking record numbers at a lot of the ports. That was driven primarily by the Lunar New Year at the beginning of the year, which is a natural lift for this market for ocean containers. But then the tariff conversation started, and a lot of shippers felt it best to ship heavy ahead of these proposed tariffs. And that created an extensive lift in volumes.

However, there was a ton of capacity coming out post-COVID that absorbed those volumes fairly well. And to be honest with you, we learned a lot post-COVID. When I say we, not just us here at ITS, but the ecosystem did— as far as visibility, investment, technology, to kind of map this stuff out and plan for it.

Watch the full video here.