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Last week, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s (PANYNJ) board of commissioners approved an incentive program aimed at encouraging shippers to transport cargo via new rail routes — the authority’s second intermodal incentive program of the year.

PANYNJ will provide $25 per container to any company booking cargo on a railroad to or from a new ExpressRail origin or destination that was launched after Jan. 1. For example, Norfolk Southern Railway recently began offering service from the Port of New York and New Jersey to Harrisburg, Pa., a move traditionally handled by trucks, the authority said.

In January, PANYNJ began offering shippers a $25-per-container incentive for each container transported by rail above the total volume they registered the previous year.

“With ports up and down the East Coast competing for a greater share of the international cargo business, we believe incentives such as this one will help level the playing field,” said PANYNJ Executive Director Chris Ward in a prepared statement.

The authority currently is upgrading its ExpressRail facilities in Newark and Elizabeth, N.J., and Staten Island, N.Y. This summer, PANYNJ plans to open a second lead track into ExpressRail Elizabeth and complete a rail support facility along Corbin Street in Newark.