Okay, great. Morning, everyone. I'm Scott Group, the transport analyst here at Wolfe. Thanks for being here for the 16th Annual Global Transport Industrials Conference. I think one of the unique things about our conference every year is our panel format. I appreciate J.B. Hunt and Schneider doing a panel with me together. I think it's a lot more interesting. There's no slides, we're just gonna get right into content. On my far right from J.B. Hunt, we have Darren Field, President of Intermodal. To my, directly here, from Schneider National, Jim Filter, EVP, Group President of Transportation and Logistics. Thank you, guys, for being here. We'll start on near-term demand environment, I wanna talk about the longer-term intermodal growth opportunities.
Maybe just for each of you, and maybe we'll start with you, Darren, just give us a macro update, what you're seeing from a demand standpoint and volume trends so far, as we're progressing through the second quarter. Any signs of improvement yet? Are we keeping pace with seasonality? Just, you know, we'll start on demand.
Sure. Well, I just wanna start saying thank you, Scott, for hosting and putting on this great event. We're always happy to be here to talk to the investment community and share yesterday's volumes. Probably not gonna do that. You know, I think we recently spoke at some other conferences. When we came into the year, we were certainly optimistic about an improving environment in the second half of the year. As the year's gone on, it's probably been a little bit of concern around what will happen ultimately over the rest of the year. I don't have any green shoots for you this morning. Volumes are steady. But certainly, our customers continue to talk about the need for intermodal capacity over the long term.
As it relates to 2023, I think everybody has a significant dose of, "I have no idea." That just means inventories are beginning to bleed off, but that hasn't really translated to anything at this point for us. We do remain significantly confident in the long-term value that our intermodal capacity presents to our customers, the massive amount of highway volume that stands to convert to intermodal, and we believe in the investments that we've made, and we're making those investments for the long term.
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks, Scott. We appreciate being here. Last time, the three of us were together here in New York on a panel, we were still a private company, it's been a while. It's great to be here back in person, with everybody and with both of you. For us, we, you know, likewise believe that long term, there's a lot of opportunities in intermodal. That's why it's one of our three growth drivers of our company, the other two being dedicated and logistics primarily and the power-only. Really, we've chosen those three because of the long-term opportunities that we see in all three of those. Dedicated customers are looking for stability, as are drivers and more secure supply chains, and logistics, especially in our power-only business.
We're able to use our large trailer fleet and utilize the really small carrier base, similar to, you know, what J.B. Hunt is doing as well, and then intermodal because we see long-term opportunities. It has trended the other direction over the last few years. I know we're gonna spend some time digging into that.
Okay. Similar sort of comments, not seeing green shoots yet.
Yeah. You know, it's been just a few weeks since our public earnings call, and we haven't seen... Not a lot has changed. You look at the AAR data, it's been relatively stable since that time.
Let's talk about inventory levels. I think, Darren, it was this time a year ago, we first started to hear about too much inventory. I think it was you who made the comment at our conference a year ago, "We just spoke with Walmart. They're just saying it's the wrong inventory," right? What are we hearing from customers now as it relates to inventory? You look at Walmart and I think Target and Home Depot last week. We're starting, it feels like we're really starting to see some progress. What are we hearing? Are we getting close to the end of this destocking cycle? Is that just enough whenever we get through that, you know, it's gonna start getting better?
Certainly you have to believe that a lot of what is imported are goods that are going into a warehouse close to a point of sale or consumption, and intermodal is a significant driver of that transportation. While inventories were high, I think orders cut back, and so some of that business just disappeared temporarily. Temporarily is the key term there. As the customers have highlighted inventories coming down, I think that we're encouraged by the thought that a more normalized transportation cycle is in front of us. Again, we wanna kinda wait and see. I think that some of the big retailers have certainly highlighted that they have accomplished what they wanted to accomplish so far this year with burning off inventory.
Good news to me is that they're not talking about it taking longer. I don't think it went faster, but it didn't take longer. In some ways, with some of those larger retailers, you're probably seeing their plan for the year kinda materialize like they expected. I have no idea about the revenues and that sort of thing. In terms of inventory, I think they're progressing in the way they expected to and...
Maybe, Jim, what does this mean for the second half of the year? Do we subscribe to the second half of the year volume's going to be better? Do we have any visibility yet to what peak's going to look like? Maybe the answer is no, we just don't know.
Yeah. Well, just to add on to that, hearing from a number of retailers telling us that their inventory levels- they've made some progress, but still, very murky on overall customer demand in the second half. Some of the targets that they're setting is to reduce inventories based on lower projected forecasts for demand in the second half of the year. The question is are they accurate or not? It could put them in a position that they suddenly have more demand coming in in the second half of the year.
Right. I'm guessing for both of you, your customers probably haven't been too helpful at helping you forecast your own volumes. Probably this year, but probably the last couple of years. Is that...
Usually a little bit nearer term. We're not, you know, start looking at fall peak until you get into July. August is a time period that you start having more of those discussions.
Well, I think we highlighted on our earnings call in April that customer bid compliance was kind of at an all-time low, really, significantly below what they had asked for. If you're in the high 50% of volume tenders versus what they told you they were going to tender, that just tells me they had no idea how to forecast what their demand would be.
That was after them actually having lower awards than what they had in previous cycles because of lower expectation of volume.
Mm-hmm.
What's a typical... If high fifties is where we are now, what's a typical bad period for bid compliance?
If you go back to 2018, 2019, bid compliance would be in the upper 80s. Throughout the pandemic, you had a wide variety. Some customers would be below 50, some customers would be above 100. It, it's sort of all over the map. You know, I would think in the 80 percentile. I'm not sure we'll ever achieve 100. I think certainly something better than where we're at today is realistic.
Okay. Just last thing, I just want to talk about near-term trends. Just talk about trends, Eastern volumes versus Transcon volumes. Then maybe with that, if and when we get a West Coast port deal, do you think that's a big deal? Do we need that to, you know, as a catalyst for intermodal to start picking up? I don't know, Jim, if you want to go first for me.
Yeah, sure. Yeah. I'd say Transcon volumes are down more than Eastern or Mexico volumes, and partly that's driven by the West Coast labor, that there are some customers that are holding off coming into East Coast or coming into West Coast points. There's some of those customers have made some long-term shifts, and I wouldn't expect it all to come back. There's some that has moved to either to the East or to the Gulf. You would expect after a deal gets done, it doesn't switch overnight. It takes a longer period of time before they start to convert back.
I would say, we reported -9% on the Transcon in our first quarter results, +1 in the East. I think that Transcon volume network is very reliant on imported goods. Again, we've talked about bid compliance there, and just, you know, customers don't have as much volume as they expect to. I do anticipate an improvement at some point. It's just a matter of when, not if. Now, do I think the West Coast port agreements are very important? I think that there is an opportunity, call it a six- to eight-week lag behind a more formal announcement of an agreement to where there will be some volumes that shift back to the West Coast. I agree with Jim.
I'm not sure all of it that was moving through the West Coast will return. We certainly anticipate, an improvement in the throughput of the West Coast ports, as an announcement gets made.
Just a ballpark. What percent of Transcon would you say somehow is tied to import activity?
Well, I mean, certainly your westbound is not necessarily tied, you've got a significant portion of what we would define as Transcon moving West. That's food shippers, beverage shippers, people that are supplying the population base out west with goods they need. Your eastbound volumes, I mean, there's wine, there's some vegetables, and then there's imports. I mean, that's the reality of the West Coast business cycle. It's, it's pretty high. I don't know.
I guess, what I'm trying to get is, you're not agnostic to imports to West Coast versus East Coast. You'd rather them go West Coast. I'm guessing your local East is not so much import-driven.
Well, it depends on, you know, if you're gonna be a supplier. If you're only gonna choose one, at some point, if you come into the East Coast, you have to ship goods to the West Coast to source those items. Ultimately, over the long term, it may not necessarily matter, but all in all, we think the fastest route from point of manufacturer to where the customer needs it ultimately would be through the West Coast.
Jim, do you think anything changes with that with a CP, KCS? Does Mexico become a more attractive point of entry for intermodal in your mind?
Right. Yeah. Absolutely, we just made this change. It's a little bit over a week ago that we transitioned over to CPKC, giving us actually transits that are faster than truck lanes, to go door to door from northern half of Mexico into the Midwest and into the Southeast. There's opportunities for customers to diversify because we are hearing customers that want to diversify away from China. There's opportunities that also might be part of the reason why you see more going into the East Coast as you move to Thailand, Vietnam, India. Becomes a little bit more balanced between East Coast, West Coast ports. But if, you know, we see more near-shoring as well, coming into Mexico.
Okay. Let's talk bid season for a little bit. If trucking is down, my number's double digits, teens, maybe mid-teens, something, I don't know. How is intermodal trending relative to that from a just, like same store pricing or overall pricing? How is intermodal trending as we progress through bid season?
I'd say it's not as deep on intermodal as it is over the road. At the same time, I would say some of those rates that we're seeing for truckload really aren't durable. I don't expect that they're gonna survive an entire bid season as they go through. That's, that's a risk that some shippers are taking right now.
Totally agree. The impact of the highway spot market on contract pricing plays a significant role there. I think intermodal just can't go as far down as trucks have gone. You know, the cost structures that are involved in serving an intermodal customer just can't sustain that. I do think that we highlight it often that there is material cost to take out that the customers can certainly utilize, but that does come with volume.
Speaking of spot rates, you know, the truckload spot rates are at a level that a lot of small carriers can't survive at this level, and they went down much faster and deeper than what they did previous cycles. I believe a lot of that just has to do with rate visibility that we all have digital connections between us and our shippers. The way transactions work are so much faster today, the elasticity curve has completely changed, but it cuts both directions. As we're talking to shippers, if you're getting a rate based off of that spot rate, you know how dangerous that is, that this can go the other way just as fast as it went down.
Are you actually seeing that capacity, small carrier capacity exit the market? I know we're all talking about it. We think it should happen. Are we actually seeing it happen?
Slowly.
Slowly.
I don't have a ton of exposure to that. I don't think that our belief is it's a mass exit, but there's a ton of pressure on the small carrier base. To sustain these rates feels like we're nearing a point that they just can't continue at that revenue stream.
If we look at... Trucking spot rates are very low, right? There's still a pretty big spread between contract rates and spot rates, right? I guess I'm trying to understand, is there a risk that if trucking contract rates see some continued pressure, what does that mean for intermodal pricing? Is there more potential pressure on intermodal price?
Well, I would say, you know, the intermodal value proposition has a significant savings versus particularly truck contract rates. Transcon, I mean, it's a, it's a middle 20% discount when you consider the fuel surcharge component. Do I think it applies some pressure? Certainly. I also think customers are looking for intermodal capacity to be sustained for the long term. It's very consistent capacity, and it's a better ESG answer. It's better for the environment. Customers care about that as long as it's not costing them a lot of money. Intermodal is the opposite of that. It really gives them a good opportunity to take greenhouse gases out of the air and get some value from intermodal, and that's important for the long term.
Yeah. As a whole, I would say the intermodal customers are more strategic than those that are going and trying to get the lowest rate for today. They know that they're gonna have to survive. If they're dependent on West Coast imports, they know how quickly this can change and that access to large mode capacities, if you push it all the way down to the bottom, you're not gonna have the capacity, and you're gonna be at a risk in the fall.
Just real quick, what percent of bids will be implemented by Q2? Ballpark.
Two-thirds.
Two-third, t hat's a good answer.
Okay. If we take... Right? We're gonna see some pressure on base price, right? Q1 to Q2, right? There's still some normalization of the, you know, accessorial revenue, right? Some, right? Do we feel like Q2 should be the trough for revenue per load? Or let's put fuel aside for a second. Do we think Q2 should be the trough for revenue per load, or would you think that there's sort of one more sort of step down into the back half of the year, just given sort of the implementation of bids and all that?
Man, it sounds like a guidance question, Scott.
It's a directional guidance question.
Look, we just said 2/3 implemented, so there's still another 1/3 to implement. How that balances out and what accessorial charges, I don't know how to answer your question, but, we'll see.
Okay. If you didn't like that question, you're really not gonna like this one. We typically see margins improve from Q1 to Q2, right? It sounds like it's a tough environment for that to happen. Are we missing something in that equation?
The only thing I would say on that is our... Nothing about the current environment from Q1 to Q2 is behaving normally.
Yep.
I'll just leave it at that.
Yeah. Our guidance, you know, when we did our earnings call just a few weeks ago, we, you know, guided forward that it wouldn't be a normal seasonal uptick in the second quarter.
Who cares about Q2? Let's think about the year, right? You, Jim, have a 10%-14% long-term intermodal margin target. Darren, then you have 10%-12%, right? Are we, given everything we're seeing in the demand environment, pricing environment, are we confident we're staying in those ranges this year?
Yeah. That's for us, that's a full year guidance.
Yeah.
There's, you know, you will have some quarters that will be different. You know, the way that we look at that, if we're looking across 10 years, probably eight of those years will be within that guidance. There might be a year that we're above that, a year that we're below that, but in general, we're going to be within that guidance range.
Well, we've announced 10%-12% as our long-term margin targets. We don't have a change to that, certainly. In terms of what will happen this year, I mean, my difficult answer is I have no idea. We'll have to wait and see what's happening with volumes as we move forward.
By the way, if there are questions, we've got a nice full room. It's good to see. If there's questions, raise your hand, we'll get you a mic, we'll get you involved. I'll keep going. I want to start talking more about some of the longer term growth opportunities in intermodal. I think there's a lot of positives. Maybe I'll start with two potential risks, right?
Fuel prices are coming down a little bit now, rates are up, which means inventory carrying costs are higher. How big of a deal are higher rates and higher inventory carrying costs as it relates to the intermodal value proposition? I don't know. Darren, you're nodding your head. Maybe you want to take a first shot at that one.
I mean, customers, certainly the entire cost of the supply chain is a factor for our customers. Inventory carrying costs is a part of the calculus that they use to make a decision about how they're going to transport their goods. At the end of the day, the intermodal capacity that's available is a, is a value proposition for our customers as long as our service levels remain very near truck like. I think the rail providers are very invested in providing that kind of service. You know, the only time truckload can overtake intermodal is if that discount isn't visible and if the service quality deteriorates to where maybe more than truck plus a day, plus a day and a half.
I think that part of the supply chain, customers can really digest that and the interest rate model isn't influential. As you start extending transits versus truck, then yeah, it certainly is a risk.
Where do you see that spread now between intermodal rate? I, obviously, it's going to depend on lanes and length of haul, but, you know, in the places where it really is competitive back and forth, what would you say that discount is right now for intermodal?
In the east, it's, call it 15%.
Still 15%.
Yeah.
Yeah.
A little bit larger as we go west.
Sure. Okay. Jim, are you hearing anything different from customers as it relates to inventory carrying costs as a new...
Yeah. It is a consideration for customers, but fuel rates are still relatively high. We haven't gotten to a, you know, so low that it created an inflection point.
We think, we talk a lot about the intermodal is going to gain share, and people say, "Well, it's never gain share," but it has. You go back from 2005 through 2013, domestic intermodal was growing at a high single-digit CAGR. If you look from 2014 through 2022, it's like a low single-digit CAGR. What has to happen for us to get back to these-
Yeah.
... sort of real growth rates? I'm not talking about a year, but, like, really sustaining some real intermodal growth. What do you believe it's going to happen, and what has to happen to get there? I don't know, Jim, if you want to go first.
Yeah.
Yeah.
P art of what happened during that time, the rails were adding so many new services from 2005 to 2013, and some of those lanes really weren't profitable for the railroads, especially in the eastern rails. As PSR started getting implemented, they started to analyze those lanes and remove some of those lanes where they just couldn't make money. That really happened in 2017, 2018. Now that they're, and that's why, you know, especially the CSX is running so much more efficiently than what they were before. Now they're at the spot that they have stability, they can start to add additional lanes. That'd be the first part that I'd say took away some of the volume. You know, it has to be price competitive.
Talk about service and, you know, just the East Coast to West Coast transition here, the imports would have the other impact.
I would just reiterate the importance of resiliency in the rail networks out there. PSR was difficult on our industry in that customer experience from a service perspective wasn't positive during a lot of that implementation, and that we have to earn back confidence as an industry from the shippers as we move forward. Absolutely do I believe we can grow double digits. I mean, we have announced a major investment in our capacity over the next four years, and we have done that because of our belief in that ability to grow intermodal at a significant CAGR moving forward.
We need some life at the ports. We need better rail service. Maybe we need some new service offerings. If you were to think about like which regions you think have the best chances for growth or could have the best growth, is it local East? Is it Transcon? Is it local West? Is it cross-border? Like maybe, Jim, where do you think you're going to see over the next five years the best growth in intermodal?
In terms of growth rate, I would say Mexico, because we say it's underrepresented. The share between over the road and intermodal has the least penetration at this point. We'd say that's where we could see the largest percentage improvement is in Mexico.
Off the coast.
Yeah. Still, local East still has a massive opportunity relative to truck.
Yeah, I think the local East has always been sort of that focal point on highway conversion. There's a massive amount of highway truckloads where intermodal can be the right answer. Agree completely that Mexico has an enormous opportunity as we move forward. I think we, too, believe that the international intermodal moves leave a handful of question marks about the way those utilize the rail resources, the rail terminals, and the opportunity for domestic intermodal to create new volumes from more transloads off the port complexes is a really important part about the long-term future.
Darren, we heard Schneider with their CPKC announcement night made one. What's your Mexico strategy?
We've been a customer of KCS for decades. We're still a customer of CPKC. We connect with BNSF south of Houston. We'll continue to do that. We have, we didn't make any sort of big announcement because we're not making a change with how we've executed that business, but Mexico is a core strategy for us, and nothing has changed in that light. We're very confident in the way that our network supports our volumes and our ability to provide capacity into Mexico, and utilizing the BNSF system in conjunction with CPKC is an important part for us.
We have a question up front for if we can just get the mic for Chris, but I'll keep going for a second till we get the mic. Just, Jim, quick, how has the shift to UP gone so far this year?
Yeah. The shift to UP is, it was really seamless. It really ended up not being a huge challenge for us. Opened up some new markets for us, new opportunities, made us much more competitive in the West.
We've had some moves from BN to UP out west. We've got some new lanes and new moves going on with cross-border U.S./Mexico. It's been very quiet on the East. Do you think are there potential rail shifts that could be happening, should be happening in the East?
Yeah, I mean, I'll never say never.
Right.
Previously out west, you know, we were a customer of the BNSF for multiple decades, this doesn't happen very often. It just happened that both of these happened right around the same amount of time, there's not very many acquisitions that take place in this industry, that's what drove the CPKC opportunity for us. It could happen, it's a fairly rare event in our industry.
Dan, we all know your West Coast strategy. Maybe just a little color on the East Coast strategy. Any changes?
You know, I mean, our Eastern business, we are a customer of both Norfolk Southern and CSX. We are larger on Norfolk Southern. We have decades-long relationships with both and feel very confident in their services. You know, they don't always compete. In certain lanes, NS is really the only option, and in other certain lanes, CSX is the only option. I would think that really all the providers ultimately end up having availability to serve those markets through the eastern rail network.
Chris, you had a question.
Sort of along the lines of the growth drivers for intermodal. I guess maybe it's, I don't know, two years now we've been talking about ESG and emissions as a driver, and I think if you asked the question a couple of years ago, you would have said, "Yes, we're talking to customers about it. They're kind of interested in it, but it hasn't risen to the level of anyone really pulling the trigger to make a decision based on that. It's still really about rate and service." Has that changed? Has it risen to the level of actually causing them to make a move to intermodal, or is it still in kind of the investigation stage?
I bet our answer is the same, but I'll let you go.
This is the first year that I've seen customers actually make a decision because of ESG. It's a small number, and these are the shippers that are really being pulled. They're being pulled by their customers or investors to make that decision. I'd say it's still a small number. I think the bigger opportunity is, as you get closer to 2030, you get to the Paris Agreement targets to reduce emissions by 50%. The best way to do that in transportation is intermodal. We have lots of other options we're sharing with customers, but this is the most efficient way to get to that target.
I think that we're in an environment where service is improving and costs are coming down. If ESG is a part of the topic, then I think it's there. I just don't know that we have a significant amount of transportation buyers that are making a decision for intermodal solely on ESG. I think it has created an environment where they come in and talk to us about how can we customize or design a service product that intermodal works for us. We're excited about that opportunity. I think it's opened up dialogue, but I don't think that we have massive buying decisions being made solely on that.
There's a lot of customers, they all have Chief Sustainability Officers now. Who's making the decisions? Usually logistics and procurement. You're seeing a growing influence of the Chiefs of Sustainability Officer and working through that in these organizations.
Thanks.
Does what's coming in California, is that possible, and how does that change the intermodal? California is important for you guys.
It is important. I think, you know, we continue to wait for a better visibility into the charging infrastructure required in order to meet some of the demands in California. It's, you know, policymaking is one step. The infrastructure investment has to occur at the same time, and it feels like there could be a little misalignment there because we're ready to comply with the policies. However, we can't buy enough electric trucks, and we don't have a power grid that can actually charge the demand. It's a little bit of a wait and see, but I think we're struggling to see the pathway to actually implement that.
Yeah. The biggest challenge is the charging infrastructure. We'll have 100 trucks in Southern California, and for the last three years, we've been building this charging infrastructure. For our 100 trucks, we're drawing the power of a city of 20,000 people inside of a very small part of Los Angeles.
Yeah.
That requires a lot of work to build that infrastructure, and that's why we're three years in to be able to build this in and create the type of charging infrastructure that we need.
Just quickly, a scale of one to 10, rail service right now, where are we? 10's good. 10 being the best. Great.
I'm gonna say seven and a half, eight.
Difference East, West?
About the same. CSX is performing really well.
I can't imagine CSX being any better than how they're performing right now. I'd have them at a 10, and it's been sustained over a long period of time and say both of the Western providers have been improving at a level. The interesting thing is you look at rail service and actual rail intermodal shipments, and there's a negative correlation. As much as customers talk about it, and I'm not gonna say we should have worse service to grow our volume, but the reality is that there isn't a and it's correlation versus causation, but, haven't been able to see a driver there.
What gives you any degree of confidence that whenever the volumes start picking up, we can sustain the service? Do you think Is there any chance that it could be different?
I'd say as we went through with CSX, we went through some very strong demand times, and they maintained that really great performance. That's why I feel their service, I put them at a 10. I look at the infrastructure growth that we're seeing in the West. They're building up, and they're following this really the similar methodology that what we experienced in the East.
When you guys think about long-term planning for how many containers you're gonna wanna have, what do you assume for box turns? You gotta have an assumption, right?
Mm-hmm.
Can we ever... I'm guessing it's not two in your planning assumption anymore. What do we assume? Maybe it is, I don't know.
Not two anymore.
Right.
I think I've said that before. You know, better from where we're at, certainly. Significantly better, but not two. That's probably the best I can.
Back in 2018, we were 1.9, so I think that's realistic. The big thing that has changed is just doing more drop and hook. When we were doing two or better than two, there was a lot more live loads, and that wasn't the best thing for the supply chain either.
Dan, you guys have talked about getting to 150,000 containers. I know you said three to five years. Given the environment, is five more likely than three, or are you just? What are we doing this year?
Well, we don't have an announcement this year-
Okay.
... beyond the 150,000 over three to five years. What I would say to that is today we're the coiled spring. We have more containers than we're using. We have the dray power, the drivers, the employees kinda ready to go, so it's logical that we might slow that down.
What percent of the fleet's parked right now?
Not gonna answer that.
Yeah. Well, I shared in our earnings call it was about 15% were stacked. There hasn't really been changes.
We've talked about Hunt's long-term container growth. I wanna ask you it this way, right? If I look 20 years ago, Hunt had 1,000 intermodal tractors. They had 5,000 over-the-road tractors. Today, they're the exact opposite, right? If I look at you guys, you're in a similar place as they were 20 years ago. You've got 1,500 intermodal tractors. You got 4,000 over-the-road tractors. Do you ever see the potential for a, you know, a pretty drastic long-term flip over your next 10, 20 years, like Hunt's done over the last 20 years?
Yeah. Well, we see intermodal is gonna grow faster than our van network business. We're not gonna stop growing that business. It's achieving the returns that we expected for that business. We're gonna continue to grow that. We're not going to pull back on that at all.
Okay. Maybe just talk with that, your plans for container growth.
Yeah. Well, our expectation is that we're gonna double our volume by 2030. That was based on where we were back in 2020. This year we're not adding necessarily containers, but we're adding chassis into our fleet. You know, with 15% stacked and a slow number of turns, we have a lot of opportunity to grow without adding additional
There's a question in the back. We've just got a few minutes left, but. Yeah, the mic's right there. Sure.
I just wanna follow up on the electrical EV trucking comment. If you look out 10 years or pick a long-term time horizon, do you see the dominant green low-carbon technology being electric, hydrogen or something else, or a combination?
I'd say a combination. We're using both today. Hydrogen enables us to go longer distances, and it's still, we're very early in the testing phase of that technology. Electric, especially for intermodal, to be able to do dray, I'd say that's most likely to be our dominant power unit.
I know it's an intermodal panel. But, you guys have, you know, much broader businesses. I'm sure you've been prepped a little bit, right?
Mm-hmm.
How's, you know, quick highlights on, you know, across the rest of the business.
I'll just start. I mean, our dedicated business has been extraordinarily strong for us, continues to be a great growth story. We have a strong pipeline and look forward to continued growth in our dedicated business. Certainly the highway space is and brokerage in general, you know, it's tough out there, and pricing is a factor there. I think that we're working hard every day and calling every customer we know three times a day and everybody's scrapping for volume at the moment. Certainly our final mile services continues to be a key strategy for us where we can find the right mix of customer demand, and that business will continue to grow and become healthy.
We love the businesses that we're in. All five of our businesses are core to where we're headed.
For us, also dedicated. About the last year and a half, we're up 1,800 units, about half of it through acquisitions, half of it organically. We've talked about we have several hundred units that we've already won and expect to implement over the next couple of quarters, as well as we continue to look for acquisitions in that space, growing in logistics, especially the power-only business, utilize our trailers and reach out to that really small micro carrier to be able to hit some of the price targets that are out there. As well as, you know, in Intermodal, the new CPKC. It's been a week, but they've been 100% on time, running several hours ahead of schedule, both north and south.
We're getting there faster than what we could with a truck, and so we're starting to see some early returns on that business as well.
You mentioned power-only. Is there such a thing as power-only for intermodal, meaning your container but someone else's?
That's how we operate today. We don't move all of...
No, I know it's not your...
Yeah. Actually, as we were building out power-only, there were a lot of lessons from our intermodal business because you don't move every single load with your own drivers. You move a high % of them with your own drivers and then use third parties to augment. I'd say it's very similar to power-only.
Yeah, completely agree.
Okay. All right. We've got to wrap up. Just, it sounds to me like what I heard is we're not seeing improvement yet, but we're sticking. It's a when, not an if. When it turns, we feel like we've got the capacity in place, the rail service in place to, you know, see a lot of it, see a lot of growth when, whenever the market's ready to give it to us.
I love the coil spring analogy, that there's a lot of opportunity in intermodal to go out there and grow.
Okay. Thank you, Darren. Thank you, Jim. This was great. Appreciate it.
Thank you.