Intermodal volumes see a slight decline in February, reports IANA

February intermodal volumes saw a slight annual decline, according to data provided to LM by the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA).

Total February volume, at 1,423,500 units, was off 0.5% annually. Trailers continued a longstanding decline, falling 19.8%, to 37,063, and domestic containers, at 667,434 increased 1.0% annually. All domestic equipment, which is comprised of trailers and domestic containers, at 704,497, was off 0.3% annually. ISO, or international containers, at 719,003 fell 0.8% annually.

Through the first two months of 2025, IANA reported that total volume, at 2,984,524 units, is up 5.8% annually. Trailers were down 16.8%, to 79,585, and domestic containers, at 1,388,370, increased 6.1% annually. All domestic equipment posted a 4.5% annual gain, to 1,467,955. ISO containers, at 1,516,569, posted a 7.0% annual increase.

In a recent interview, IANA President & CEO Anne Reinke observed that while intermodal volumes ended 2024 up annually, volumes were viewed as pretty flat generally.

“The reason we ended the year so well was there was a lot of pre-positioning of goods coming to the West Coast to avoid any kind of East and Gulf Coast port strike [which was a possibility heading into the year],” she said. “That said, I think there's still cautious optimism, because retail sales are still good, the American consumer is still spending, and some inflationary pressures appear to be diminishing, with optimism regarding that. And unemployment remains low. Overall, I think the economy seems good. But as we know, the freight economy has been pretty fair-to- middling for a long time now, since 2023, so, two years really. Will that go up? One hopes. But I don't think we have any kind of indicators that says it says it will—other than our cautious optimism.”

When asked about the impact of the White House’s tariff actions on intermodal, Reinke said that from a very high level, IANA’s membership is trying to figure out exactly what this means for them.

“What my concern would be and what I think what our members’ concerns would be is, does this undermine things like cautious optimism, increasing volumes, and tightening capacity,” she said. “The concern is that, do we have less container traffic moving? Anything that affects container traffic, that makes it go down, that would be the concern that we have. We need to figure out exactly what that means for our trading partners and for our membership. And the other piece, of course, with China, is that most of those containers are built in China. So, what does that do with the underlying cost of containers? Now, we don't represent the container manufacturer, but obviously there's a downstream cost to us.”

Larry Gross, President of Gross Transportation Consulting in Durango, CO, an independent consulting practice specializing in freight transportation matters, noted that from an intermodal standpoint, a significant theme has been the disconnect between what has been going on in regards to international intermodal and what is happening on the domestic side. That disconnect, he explained, was related to an extremely strong period of imports over a lengthy stretch in 2024, at about a 15% annual growth rate, whereas annual domestic growth was much less.

“One question is why did that disconnect occur and for how long could it last?” he said. “An undefined amount of that volume has been upstreamed in time that moved earlier than normal, which was in response to a few different factors, like the prospects of an East and Gulf Coast ports strike, at the time, which saw companies making commitments in terms of where they would route their freight and when it would move, as well as the tariff question, which continues to evolve. There is no doubt a lot of volume moved through in advance of the then-potential, and now realized, threat of tariffs.”

And he added that those factors, coupled with a still-strong retail environment paced international intermodal gains, with that caveat that there are signs that [as evidenced in the February IANA data] the volume gains have reached the end of the road as it relates to shippers’ willingness to move cargo forward, or upstream.