NS offers incentives to help ease supply-chain bottleneck

Norfolk Southern Railway recently rolled out a pilot incentive program for intermodal shippers that aims to drive market efficiencies, grow capacity at its international intermodal terminals and advance sustainability goals.

The Dual Mission Reward Program is being tested at Landers Intermodal Facility in Chicago, the Class I’s largest terminal handling international freight, and at the railroad’s Kansas City Intermodal Facility. Under the pilot, truck carriers and steamship lines can earn a $200 incentive every time a drayage driver brings in and departs with a shipping container, completing a “dual mission,” NS officials said in a press release.

NS developed the initiative after receiving input from customers and truckers on ways to unclog pandemic-related bottlenecks across the transportation supply chain.

"Trucks leaving the terminal that were formerly empty now become loaded, productive miles for the truckers," said D'Andrae Larry, NS' group vice president of international marketing. "The amount of truck time saved by gaining an immediate load versus leaving the terminal to find a load, the emissions reduction, the employee productivity gains are all wins for sustainability in the marketplace."

At Landers alone, the initiative could potentially eliminate about 46,000 truck trips, reduce fuel use by 546,000 gallons and avoid more than 5,600 metric tons of carbon emissions annually if truckers complete a dual mission at least 50% of the time, NS officials said.