Insights - March/April 2018 - 18

reach 85 percent of the U.S. population in 2 days using surface
transport, as well as the absence of highway congestion.
"Watching the Kansas City Logistics Park add 4 million
square feet is confirmation that there is something positive
going on," said Walter Kemmsies, managing director of Jones
Lang LaSalle's airports and global infrastructure group.
One area for potential improvement, particularly for
e-commerce and urgent shipments, is domestic intermodal
service that needs to be faster and more reliable to capture that
fast-growing freight.
"Importers are perfectly fine with slow but highly reliable
service," he said. "That works really well. What we'd like to do is
shift a lot of e-commerce from trucks to trains."

Volatility
"The problem is that demand on the retail side is cyclical -
how do you manage a network system where you are impacted
by volatility?" Kemmsies said. "Volatility is the enemy of good
performance. The reality is that you need a minimum volume
commitment, but no one has specified how much that volume
must be. It is not a matter of just reconfiguring trains. You have
to add capacity to support that."
There are other opportunities for addressing operations
in congested areas, he said, by focusing more broadly on
how goods move so that local officials realize how overall
traffic congestion can be reduced by improving highways

near intermodal terminals.
Another advancement would be better routing of intermodal
truckers' deliveries so they could be grouped by zip code.
"Drivers would be more than happy to go a little out of [their]
way to create overall efficiency," Kemmsies said. "Truckers need
turns to make a living. We don't want guys playing solitaire on
their phones for an hour while they wait somewhere."
Burton also noted how efforts to reduce congestion such
as grounding all shipments doesn't necessarily work, though it
may sound like a good approach. The problem is that chassis
providers aren't open on weekends and chassis supply can be
scarce.
Also, just moving to a greenfield site isn't enough to ensure
smooth operations, Burton added. To be most efficient and
effective, motor carriers must have locations close to those
facilities, perhaps as little as a mile away, to minimize empty
miles.
One issue, he said, is that it can be difficult to locate such
facilities.
"Some communities want warehouses and trucks, but not
truck terminals," Burton said. "Truck facilities create more traffic
and pay less taxes."
On the other hand, some are creating space for trucking
operations, he said, praising Kansas City's development for
allocating needed space. "They know they won't be successful if
they can't move freight in and out."

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