Truckload spot rates were sitting close to 29% above last year’s levels through most of July 2026. Intermodal has not moved anywhere near that fast. On the exact lanes where rail and truck compete head to head, the gap between them has widened enough that shippers who never looked twice at intermodal are pricing it out now.
That pricing pressure is driving a genuine mode shift — and with it, a wave of shippers evaluating intermodal providers for the first time. The risk is selecting a provider based on rate alone and discovering the capability gaps when freight is already moving.
The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in Montgomery v. Caribe on May 14, 2026 held that negligent hiring claims against brokers may proceed in state court. That ruling reinforces the importance of understanding how your transportation provider selects and manages its carrier network — not just what they quote you.
Here are the seven questions that separate a capable intermodal partner from one who looks good on paper.
Question 1: Do You Serve Ramps Near Both My Origin and Destination?
This is the foundational question — and the one that eliminates providers before anything else needs to be evaluated.
Intermodal freight moves between ramps. If the provider does not serve a ramp within practical drayage distance of your origin and your destination, the move does not work — regardless of how competitive the rate looks.
Lane and ramp coverage comes first. The carrier has to serve a ramp near both your origin and your destination, or the move simply does not happen.
Ask for the specific ramps served on your proposed lane. Confirm the drayage distance from your facility to the origin ramp and from the destination ramp to your consignee. Drayage costs on both ends are part of the true landed cost — and long drayage distances can eliminate the savings that made intermodal attractive in the first place.
Question 2: What Is Your On-Time Performance on This Lane?
Transit time is the most common concern shippers raise when evaluating intermodal. The right question is not “how long does it take?” but “how consistently does it take that long?”
Transit reliability and on-time ramp performance protect your delivery window. A provider who quotes five days but delivers on time 60% of the time is not a provider whose transit time is five days — it is a provider whose transit time is unpredictable.
Ask for on-time performance data specifically on your proposed lane — not system-wide averages that mask lane-level variability. And ask how they define “on-time” — because definitions vary, and a provider counting delivery within 24 hours of the estimated date as on-time may not meet your operational requirements.
Question 3: How Will I Track My Freight During Rail Transit?
A container on a train is not visible the same way a truck with a GPS-enabled ELD is. Without active tracking, your only information is ramp-to-ramp milestone events — which may leave gaps of 12 to 24 hours where your freight is on the rail network with no visible status update.
Tracking visibility lets you and your customer see where the container is during rail transit — not just when it departed the origin ramp and when it arrived at the destination ramp.
Ask what tracking platform the provider uses, how frequently status updates occur, whether you can share tracking links with your customers, and what their alert protocol is when freight is delayed.
Question 4: Who Owns the Drayage — and How Do You Qualify Those Carriers?
The drayage legs — truck pickup at origin and truck delivery at destination — are where most intermodal service failures occur. A provider who excels at rail coordination but uses unvetted spot drayage carriers on the first and last mile is a provider whose weak link will find you eventually.
Transportation management providers and brokers with robust carrier qualification programs, ongoing monitoring, safety requirements, and documented vetting processes will be better positioned to navigate the evolving risk environment created by the Montgomery v. Caribe ruling.
Ask whether the provider uses asset-based drayage, contracted drayage carriers, or open-market spot. Ask what their carrier qualification criteria are — safety ratings, insurance requirements, equipment condition standards. And ask what happens when a primary drayage carrier is unavailable on your lane.
Question 5: What Is Your Equipment and Chassis Availability on My Lane?
Equipment and chassis availability is the hidden friction point — a carrier with no container or no chassis in your market will delay you no matter how good the rate looks.
This question is particularly important in 2026, when chassis pool restructuring at LA/LB — following TRAC’s departure from the Pool of Pools — has created genuine availability uncertainty at the two largest ports in North America.
Ask whether the provider has dedicated equipment allocation on your lane or competes for spot equipment. Ask how they handle chassis availability during peak periods. And ask what their contingency protocol is when equipment is unavailable at the scheduled pickup time.
Question 6: How Do You Handle Claims When Freight Is Damaged or Delayed?
Claims handling tells you what happens when a container is delayed or damaged — and how the provider behaves when things go wrong is as important as how they perform when things go right.
Ask for their claims filing process, their average resolution timeline, and what their liability coverage is for intermodal freight. Intermodal claims can involve multiple parties — the drayage carrier, the railroad, and the intermodal provider — and understanding who is responsible for what before a claim occurs is significantly better than learning it after.
Question 7: Can You Show Me Data From a Shipper With a Similar Freight Profile?
Rate sheets are easy to present. Performance data from comparable shippers is harder to fake.
Ask for case studies or references from shippers with similar freight profiles — similar lane lengths, similar pallet counts, similar commodity types, similar service requirements. Ask specifically about outcomes in transit reliability, cost per load versus truckload alternatives, and what problems they encountered and how the provider resolved them.
Any provider worth considering should be able to provide this. Any provider who cannot should be reconsidered.
How Jansson LLC Helps U.S. Businesses Evaluate and Execute Intermodal
Vetting an intermodal provider is not a one-time exercise. It is an ongoing assessment of whether the provider’s capabilities continue to match your freight requirements as your lanes evolve and market conditions change.
Jansson LLC is a Landstar freight agent with access to a nationwide carrier network — including experienced intermodal operators across standard domestic lanes, port drayage, and transcontinental corridors across all 48 contiguous states.
Through the Landstar network, Jansson helps U.S. businesses evaluate which lanes are strongest candidates for intermodal, assess provider capabilities against the questions above, and build intermodal freight strategies that deliver the cost savings the mode promises — without the service surprises that come from selecting on rate alone.
Contact Jansson LLC today. Let’s evaluate your intermodal options with the questions that actually matter — before you commit to a provider who cannot answer them.
