Here's something we've learned after nearly two decades in intermodal:
The difference between a shipper who loves intermodal and one who swears it off forever usually isn't the mode itself. It's the IMC.
Two shippers can move freight on the exact same railroad, over the exact same lane, during the exact same week and have completely different experiences. One gets reliable service, proactive communication, and controlled costs. The other gets missed deliveries, finger-pointing, and accessorial surprises.
Same rail. Same lane. Different IMC. Different outcome.
That's because intermodal is a three-part service: origin dray, rail linehaul, and destination dray. The railroad handles the middle portion. But the IMC orchestrates everything else ... and everything else is where most failures happen.
According to our data, drayage is responsible for approximately 95% of intermodal service failures. Not the railroad. The first and last mile. Which means the IMC you choose and how they manage those touchpoints determines whether intermodal works for you or doesn't.
This article is a comprehensive guide to evaluating intermodal providers. We'll cover what great IMCs do differently, the questions you should ask, the red flags to watch for, and a practical checklist you can use when making your decision.
Before diving into specifics, let's look at what shippers actually say matters.
The Journal of Commerce (JOC) publishes an Intermodal Service Scorecard that surveys shippers and IMCs on provider performance. The findings are instructive.
Key insights from recent JOC surveys:
The message is clear: service quality and customer experience matter more than size or asset ownership.
A well-run mid-market IMC often outperforms a larger provider on the metrics shippers care about most. That doesn't mean large providers are bad. J.B. Hunt is the 800-pound gorilla in the space that consistently receives strong marks. We have a tremndous amount of respect for them.
But it does mean shippers shouldn't default to the biggest name without evaluating what actually drives their experience they require for their customers. And what we find is many of our customers use both J.B. Hunt and InTek Logistics, as their customers may require different communication, pricing or looking to diversify their intermodal needs across different railroads.
Before leaving this section, we also can't resist tooting our own horn - or letting a customer who responded to the latest survey do it for us:
“Extremely proactive and always available to hop on a call. It’s pretty rare when you can pick up the phone and be able to speak with the president of any company, but this is commonplace with InTek. We value long-term relationships with our vendors, and with InTek, it goes beyond a partnership; we feel like they are an extension of our transportation department.”
Great IMCs operate with an ownership mentality. They treat your shipment as if it were their own reputation on the line because it is. With the mid-market IMCs, all we have is service so they need to perform above the largest intermodal providers in the space to continue to excel in their space.
This shows up in how they handle problems. When something goes wrong (and in freight, something always goes wrong eventually), a great IMC doesn't point fingers. They don't blame the railroad, the dray carrier, the chassis pool, or the terminal. They own the problem and work to solve it.
From your perspective, you shouldn't care whether the delay was caused by a dray carrier missing a cut-time or a train running late. You care that your freight didn't arrive when expected and you want someone accountable for fixing it. In other words, you care about outcomes only.
Signs of ownership mentality:
Average IMCs behave more like brokers of disconnected touchpoints. They coordinate the pieces but don't truly own the outcome.
When problems occur, the explanation sounds like: "The railroad was late" or "The dray carrier missed the appointment" or "The terminal was congested." The subtext: not our fault.
This creates a frustrating experience where the shipper becomes the project manager, chasing updates across multiple parties and trying to figure out who's responsible for what.
Red flags:
Remember that statistic: drayage causes approximately 95% of intermodal service failures.
The railroad portion of an intermodal move is actually quite reliable. Trains run on schedules. Terminals operate predictably. The rail linehaul is the most consistent part of the service.
The complexity and the risk lie in the first and last mile:
A great IMC excels at drayage management. An average one treats it as an afterthought.
Deep dray carrier relationships: Great IMCs cultivate strong, long-term relationships with drayage carriers in every market they serve. These aren't transactional arrangements. They're partnerships built on mutual reliability and consistent volume.
When capacity tightens or a problem arises, a great IMC's dray carriers answer the phone. They prioritize loads from IMCs who treat them well. That relationship advantage shows up as better service for you.
Proactive container management: Great IMCs monitor container positions constantly. They know when a container arrives at the destination ramp. They track free time windows. They coordinate pickup appointments before charges accrue.
They don't wait for you to ask "Where's my container?" They tell you before you need to know.
Backup capacity: Great IMCs maintain relationships with multiple dray carriers in each market. When the primary carrier has a problem. whether a driver illness, equipment breakdown, scheduling conflict, they have alternatives ready.
Cut-time discipline: Great IMCs build buffer into their planning. They don't schedule origin drays to arrive at the ramp 30 minutes before cut-off. They plan for contingencies so a minor delay doesn't cascade into a missed train.
Transactional dray relationships: Average IMCs post loads to spot markets and take whoever's cheapest. The dray carrier has no loyalty, no relationship, and no incentive to prioritize service when things get complicated.
Reactive container tracking: Average IMCs don't know where your container is until you ask. Then they make some calls and get back to you. By then, the problem has already occurred.
Single point of failure: Average IMCs have one dray option per market. When that carrier fails, your shipment fails.
Tight scheduling: Average IMCs cut it close. Everything works when everything goes perfectly. But freight doesn't always go perfectly.
Shippers today expect real-time, map-based visibility. They've experienced it with parcel networks and premium truckload carriers. That's the benchmark.
Intermodal visibility has historically lagged because of too many handoffs, too many parties, fragmented data. But technology has caught up. Great IMCs have invested in visibility platforms that aggregate data across dray, rail, and terminal events into a single view.
If your IMC can't show you where your container is right now, in one dashboard, they're behind.
Unified visibility platform: Great IMCs provide a single interface that shows your shipment's status across all legs - origin dray, rail, destination dray. No logging into multiple systems. No calling different people for different updates.
Predictive ETAs: Beyond "where is it now," great IMCs provide intelligent ETA predictions that account for rail schedules, terminal conditions, and dray capacity. They tell you when it will arrive, not just where it is.
Exception-driven alerts: Great IMCs don't wait for you to check status. They push alerts when something deviates from plan ... a train delay, a missed dray appointment, a terminal closure. You find out about problems when there's still time to react.
Proactive communication: Great IMCs communicate before you have to ask. They reach out when a shipment is at risk. They provide status updates at key milestones. They treat communication as part of the service, not an inconvenience.
Fragmented visibility: Average IMCs give you tracking numbers for different legs. Want to know where it is on rail? Check this system. Want to know about dray? Call this person. The burden of stitching together status falls on you.
Lagging updates: Average IMCs provide status that's hours or days old. "Last we heard, it was at the ramp yesterday." That's not visibility; that's archaeology.
Reactive communication: Average IMCs communicate when you complain. Until then, silence. You find out about problems when you're calling to ask why your freight didn't show up.
Intermodal accessorials are the number one reason shippers abandon the mode.
It's not that intermodal service failed them. It's that the invoice came back $200 higher than the quote because of detention, demurrage, storage, chassis fees, or per diem charges they weren't expecting.
One bad experience with accessorial surprises can blacklist intermodal for years ... even when the issue was entirely preventable with proper management.
Demurrage: Charges for cargo left at the terminal beyond free time. The clock starts when the container arrives. If you don't pick it up within the allotted days, charges accrue ... often $75-200 per day, escalating over time.
Detention: Charges for holding equipment beyond free time during loading or unloading. Typically 2 hours free, then $50-100 per hour after that.
Storage: Charges for keeping containers at terminal facilities beyond the free period.
Per diem: Daily charges for extended use of containers or chassis beyond the contracted period.
Chassis fees: Charges for using chassis pools when not included in the base rate.
Lift fees: Charges for lifting containers onto or off railcars, although the great IMCs include that in their total linehaul cost.
Proactive prevention: Great IMCs track free time windows religiously. They schedule pickups and deliveries to avoid charges before they start. They alert you when your container is approaching the end of free time so you can adjust.
Bundled pricing options: Great IMCs offer all-in pricing structures that include or cap accessorials within defined parameters. This gives you cost predictability instead of surprise invoices.
Dispute and mitigation: When accessorial charges occur due to railroad or terminal issues (not shipper delays), great IMCs fight to dispute and reduce those charges. They don't just pass them through automatically.
Root cause analysis: Great IMCs track accessorial trends and work with you to address root causes. If your facility consistently causes detention, they'll help you optimize scheduling. They treat accessorials as a problem to solve, not a revenue stream.
Pass-through billing: Average IMCs treat accessorials as cost-plus. Whatever charges accrue, they pass through to you with minimal scrutiny.
No prevention effort: Average IMCs don't actively track free time or coordinate to avoid charges. They let issues happen and bill you afterward.
No dispute support: Average IMCs accept terminal and railroad charges at face value. They don't fight on your behalf.
Accessorial revenue: Some average IMCs actually benefit from accessorials — marking them up or viewing them as incremental revenue. Their incentives aren't aligned with yours.
For more on accessorial management we recommend reading: Demurrage, Detention, Per Diem & Storage - Definitions & How to Avoid.
Every IMC uses the same railroads. There are only six U.S. Class 1 freight railroads (potentially soon to be five), plus two Canadian carriers with U.S. trackage. Whether you use a large asset IMC or a mid-market non-asset provider, your container rides the same trains.
But not every IMC has the same access or relationships.
Direct contractual relationships: Great IMCs have direct contracts with the Class I railroads — UP, NS, CSX, BNSF, CN, CPKC. They purchase capacity directly from the railroads, not through intermediaries. This gives them access to railroad-owned equipment, contracted rates, and year-round capacity commitments.
Multi-railroad access: Great IMCs work with all major railroads, not just one or two. This matters because no single railroad covers all of North America. Different lanes require different railroads. Having relationships across all carriers means they can serve any lane in your network and shift to alternatives when one railroad has service issues.
Equipment access: Great IMCs have access to multiple equipment pools, meaning railroad-owned containers, privately-owned containers, and in some cases their own equipment. This flexibility ensures capacity availability even when one source is tight.
Limited railroad relationships: Average IMCs may only have relationships with certain railroads, limiting the lanes they can competitively serve.
Broker model: Some providers that call themselves IMCs are actually brokers working through other IMCs. They don't have direct railroad contracts. This adds a layer between you and the railroad, often without the intermodal expertise that dedicated IMCs provide.
Single equipment source: Average IMCs may be limited to one equipment pool, reducing their flexibility when capacity tightens.
When shippers say they want intermodal to work "like truckload," they mean:
This is entirely achievable with the right IMC. It's also entirely unachievable with the wrong one.
Single point of contact: Great IMCs assign you a dedicated team or representative who handles your freight end-to-end. You don't call different people for different legs. You call one number, and they own it.
Single invoice: Great IMCs consolidate everything, with linehaul, dray, fuel, and any accessorials assembled into one invoice - and then invoice their customer once on a single freight document.
Door-to-door service model: Great IMCs quote and execute door-to-door. They don't quote linehaul separately from dray and expect you to assemble the pieces. You get a pickup address, a delivery address, and a rate. Done.
Exception ownership: When issues occur, great IMCs handle them without requiring you to coordinate between parties. They manage the railroad, the dray carrier, and the terminal. You get updates and solutions, not excuses.
Fragmented contacts: Average IMCs have different people for different functions. Call this person for pricing, that person for dispatch, another for tracking, someone else for billing. The burden of coordination falls on you.
Multiple invoices: Average IMCs may bill multiple times for the same shipment, making cost tracking and reconciliation a headache.
Ramp-to-ramp thinking: Average IMCs operate with a ramp-to-ramp mentality versus a door-to-door solution that looks truck-like.
Great IMCs invest in technology because they don't have capital tied up in containers and trucks. Their competitive advantage comes from systems that deliver better service, not asset ownership.
Key technology capabilities:
Great IMCs provide technology that makes your job easier:
Average IMCs operate on legacy systems:
This might seem counterintuitive, but one of the best indicators of a great IMC is their willingness to tell you when intermodal isn't the right choice.
An IMC who oversells intermodal and pushes the solution onto lanes where it doesn't fit, overpromises on service, or downplays the trade-offs isn't your partner. They're setting you up for disappointment.
A great IMC tells you the truth:
This honesty protects you from service failures. It also protects intermodal's reputation where a shipper has a bad experience on a lane that never should have been intermodal creates negative perception that extends to lanes where it would work perfectly.
Everything an IMC tells you in a sales conversation is marketing. The real test is performance.
JOC Intermodal Service Scorecard: Does this IMC appear in industry surveys? How do they rank?
Customer references: Will they provide references from shippers with similar freight profiles to yours? A great IMC shares references quickly and confidently. An average one hedges.
Performance data: Can they share actual performance metrics: on-time delivery percentage, accessorial rates, claim ratios? Great IMCs track this data and use it for continuous improvement.
Longevity: How long have they been in business? How long have their customers stayed with them? Retention is a proxy for satisfaction.
Industry reputation: What do others in the industry say? Talk to your peers. Ask your truckload brokers. Check LinkedIn.
Use this checklist when evaluating intermodal providers:
Choosing an IMC isn't a procurement checkbox. It's a strategic decision that determines whether intermodal works for your organization.
The wrong IMC turns intermodal into a frustrating experience of missed deliveries, surprise charges, and finger-pointing.
The right IMC makes intermodal feel like truckload where it is simple, reliable, and cost-effective.
The criteria that matter most:
Use the checklist in this article. Ask the hard questions. Check references. Evaluate based on what actually drives your experience.
And remember: nearly 88% of shippers are satisfied with their IMCs. The ones who aren't usually made a choice based on the wrong criteria.
Make the right choice, and intermodal becomes one of the best decisions you make for your supply chain.
This article is part of a comprehensive series on intermodal decision-making:
At InTek Logistics, we're happy to answer every question on this checklist — and we'll give you straight answers, including telling you when intermodal isn't the right fit.
We've earned consistently high marks in JOC shipper surveys because we focus on the things that actually matter: service quality, communication, drayage management, and treating your freight like our reputation depends on it — because it does.
Contact us for a conversation or visit our home page to learn more.