Alan Minton, chief revenue officer with Banyan Technology, discusses shipment volume and price, environmental concerns, artificial intelligence and visibility.

Shipping volumes are slowing, and prices for freight transportation are falling, Minton notes. Reports show a 20% drop from the prior year in loaded containers at the Port of New York and New Jersey. But the decline “is not drastic,” he says, and is to be expected coming out of the unusual consumer demand that surged during the pandemic.

Carriers and shippers are nervous, however, about the current peak season, with negative trends including a restart of student loan payments and the end of certain government-support childcare problems. “It’s going to be an interesting fourth quarter,” Minton says.

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues continue to raise concerns for the shipping industry. Manufacturers are under increasing pressure to report on Scope 3 supply chain emissions — those generated by partners over which they have no direct control. The carbon metrics of every shipment are under intense scrutiny, driving the need for better access to, and exchange of, environmental data.

Artificial intelligence promises to have a huge impact on transportation, especially trucking. Minton says AI can help carriers to strike the right balance in pricing between what they need to make a profit and what the market will bear. AI’s ability to analyze crowd-sourced data, including traffic and weather reports, “tell you how to bill it out for a reasonable rate, so that the load gets picked up.”

Visibility is key to every aspect of global supply chain management. During the pandemic, shippers mostly wanted to know where their orders were. Now, says Minton, they’re also demanding to know what shape the goods are in. In addition, they want deep cost analysis and reports on carrier performance, all of which can be delivered with the help of AI.