APL Land Transport Services (APL) has renewed a transportation contract with Norfolk Southern Corporation (NS) due to its consistent on-time service.
Under the terms of its new 31/2-year contract, NS will continue to provide the underlying rail carriage throughout the US southeast for APL's cross-country moves of domestic and international containerised freight.
''The advent of reliable intermodal freight transportation is being driven by the need of many large-scale shipping customers to slash inventories and streamline their production and distribution strategies,'' said Mr Tim Rhein, president of APL Land Transport Services.
''While, traditionally it was believed that a rail-based intermodal system could not compete with trucks, those days are over.
''Intermodal cross-country transit times are now measured not just in days but in hours and minutes,'' he said.
Mr Rhein said his firm's contracted standards with the railroads, which call for a 90-per cent on-time stacktrain delivery, were believed to be the highest in the industry.