China's President Xi Jinping said he hoped his nation's annual trade with the countries involved in Beijing's plan to create a modern Silk Road would surpass $2.5tr in a decade.

There was a time when ocean carriers fashioned themselves as providers of premium, door-to-door transportation. Not anymore.

If we're to believe the big container lines, ever-larger ships are the remedy for their financial woes. Why, then, are so many of them still losing money?

Analyst Insight: The shale gas revolution has fueled a resurgence of domestic manufacturing, driving rail shipments up over 6 percent and a two-year backlog for new cars. Maximizing fleet utilization is now a key management issue for most shippers. While current rail management tools are effective at tracking rail cars, an important gap exists with accurately predicting the usage and location of the cars over the entire planning horizon. – Alfred Sherk, CEO, SherTrack LLC

Tracking rail carts with GPS and cellular could bring value to the rail sector; however, penetration rates on rail carts are currently very low (globally less than 50,000 in 2014), and growth is not forecasted to be very strong over the next 5 years, or even the next 10, according to ABI Research. Therefore, for the time being at least, it looks like RFID will dominate this sector.