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InTek Intermodal Index (III) Weekly Market Analysis

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Weekly market intelligence including the InTek Intermodal Index (tracking intermodal spot rates), along with truckload pricing, diesel trends, and railroad volumes

Updated every Thursday | Last updated: July 23, 2026

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This Week at a Glance

Week ending July 20, 2026

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Intermodal Spot Rate

(excluding fuel)

▼ -0.4% vs. last week

▲ +1.1% vs. last year

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Truckload Spot Rate

(excluding fuel, DAT)

▲ +4.8% vs. last week 

▲ +29.4% vs. last year

 

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Diesel Fuel

(EIA National Average)

▲ +7% vs. last week 

▲ +34.7% vs. last year

 

 

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Intermodal Volume

(YTD vs. 2025)

U.S. ▲ +3.5%

North American ▲ +2.8%

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This Week's Analysis

By Rick LaGore, CEO, InTek Logistics | July 20, 2026

Analysis of the InTek Intermodal Index (III) and freight market trends

Trends in the Intermodal Transportation Spot Rate and Market

Intermodal price and intermodal volume moved in opposite directions this week, and that split is the most useful thing in the data. Intermodal spot eased 0.4% while year-to-date volume firmed across six of the seven Class 1 railroads. Truckload spot climbed 4.8%. Diesel added 7.0% and crossed $5 a gallon.

That combination is the shape of conversion rather than recovery. Freight moving off the highway is finding room in an intermodal network that has capacity to absorb it, which is why the volume builds without the price following. A demand-driven move would push both series up together.

The distinction matters for how the confirmation framework reads. Intermodal volume is the series we watch before calling a truckload price move a market turn, and volume did firm. But volume growth that comes from freight converting off the highway is not the same signal as volume growth that comes from more freight existing.

The former says intermodal is winning the cost comparison. Only the latter would say the freight market has turned. With total June freight volumes down against last year, this week produced the former. For shippers, that leaves two things true at once. The case for moving freight to intermodal is stronger than it was a week ago, but the case for a broad freight recovery isn't.

The mode math is straightforward this week while the demand math is less so. Truckload is expensive because capacity has left, not because freight arrived. The Cass Freight Index made the same point directly, noting volumes are down in part because capacity is declining, and that higher fuel prices acted as a drag on goods demand.

In essence, that means the same diesel move that widens intermodal's cost advantage also works against the volume that would confirm a genuine turn. Fuel is a cost input on the freight and a demand input on the goods. Shippers planning the second half on the assumption that rising rates signal returning demand are reading one half of that loop.

Boiling it down to some practical advice: price the spread now, plan the volume conservatively. Intermodal's cost advantage is intact and widening, and this week the volume data showed shippers acting on it. But neither of those is evidence that total freight demand is returning.

InTek Intermodal Index (excluding fuel):

  • Down 0.4% vs. prior week
  • Up 1.1% vs. prior year

The InTek Intermodal Index (III), which tracks intermodal spot rates, eased 0.4% for the week and holds 1.1% above last year - giving back roughly half its year-over-year cushion after four weeks of firming.

Worth flagging against our own read: this index measures spot activity across a working lane mix, so a soft week can carry a mix effect as easily as a market signal.

The softness also fits the volume story rather than contradicting it. Intermodal capacity is not scarce right now. Converting freight is finding room in the network, which is what allows volume to build without pushing price. When the two series start moving up together, that is the reading that carries more weight than either one alone.

National Truckload Spot Rate (DAT, excluding fuel): (DAT Trendline Report)

  • Up 4.8% vs. prior week
  • Up 29.4% vs. prior year

Truckload spot climbed 4.8% for the week, and the three-week sequence now reads up 7.4%, down 5.0%, up 4.8%. That nets to roughly 7% above the pre-holiday base. Last week we called the Independence Day jump mostly calendar distortion. The correction is that the distortion was real and the level it settled at was still higher: About two thirds of that move stuck.

The number underneath it is the one that should get the most attention. Spot is running 29.4% above last year while the contract-weighted Cass Truckload Linehaul Index sits at 149.4, up 5.5% year over year despite a 0.9% monthly dip. With a large share of shipper bids taking effect July 1, that monthly dip reads as a pause rather than a turn. A 29.4% spot market against a 5.5% contract market is repricing runway, and it is pointed one direction.

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Diesel Fuel (EIA):

  • $5.134/gallon
  • Up $0.338 (7%) vs. prior week
  • Up $1.322 (34.7%) vs. prior year

Diesel rose 33.8 cents to $5.134, the second large weekly increase in a row, and is now up 55.6 cents over two weeks and 34.7% above last year. It is back above $5 after easing through June.

The mechanism is worth understanding because it changes how to budget. Crude eased over the same stretch, with Brent averaging $85 per barrel in June, down $22 from May and $32 from its April peak. Diesel went the other way because the tightness sits in refining rather than in crude. Refined product cracks and margins reached four-year highs in early July, with global refinery runs down 6 million barrels per day year over year and Middle East export refineries yet to restart.

For shippers, that means a falling crude headline is not a fuel surcharge forecast. Diesel can stay elevated on distillate supply alone. Intermodal is roughly three times more fuel efficient than over-the-road trucking, so a 34.7% year-over-year diesel gap is currently the single largest line in the mode comparison, even ahead of the significant linehaul difference.

(The full spreadsheet of the historical weekly price moves of diesel full can be found at https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/gasdiesel.)

 

Year-to-Date Intermodal Volume by Region and Railroad vs. 2025

Volume moved this week, and it moved up almost everywhere. North American intermodal improved to 2.8% and US intermodal to 3.5%, with six of the seven Class I readings changing and five of them gaining ground.

A tenth of a point on a year-to-date figure is worth more than it looks nearly 30 weeks into the year. The cumulative average is heavy by now, so moving it at all means the incremental week ran well above the year's pace. This was a better week for intermodal volume than the size of the changes suggests.

UP posted the largest improvement among the US carriers, narrowing from -2.1% to -1.7%. CSX added two tenths to 6.1% and BNSF a tenth to 5.4%, while NS held at 4.1%. GMXT moved from 16.2% to 17.4%, though it works from a smaller base than the US carriers, so its readings swing further on any given week and should be weighted accordingly. CN slipped from -1.5% to -1.8%, the only reading to lose ground, while CPKC improved from -1.8% to -1.6%.

Worth watching: Combined eastern volume continues to run ahead of western volume. Long-haul western lanes have favored intermodal for years, so much of that freight converted long ago. The eastern gains are landing where truckload pricing pressure is sharpest and where the conversion decision is still open.

Set against the June Cass shipments decline of 4.1% year over year, intermodal volume running 3.5% ahead of last year says intermodal is taking share while the total amount of freight moving contracts. That is what conversion looks like in the aggregate data, and it is a more durable signal than any single week of spot pricing.

North American Intermodal

2.8%

U.S. Intermodal

3.5%

Volume by Class 1 Railroad

BNSF 5.4%
CN -1.8%
CPKC -1.6%
CSX 6.1%
GMXT 17.4%
NS 4.1%
UP -1.7%

 

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Intermodal Spot Rate Trend Charts

InTek Intermodal Index (III) spot rate per mile including fuel, showing weekly trends

Intermodal Spot Rate Per Mile (Including Fuel)

  

InTek Intermodal Index (III) spot rate per mile excluding fuel, showing weekly trends

Intermodal Spot Rate Per Mile (Excluding Fuel)

 

InTek Intermodal Index (III) average intermodal spot rate per mile from 2021 to 2026 Intermodal Spot Rate Average Per Mile (2014-2026)

InTek Intermodal Index (III) average intermodal percentage rate change per mile from 2021 to 2026

Intermodal Spot Rate Y/Y % Change (2014-2026)

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What to watch next week

Three things to watch heading into the week of July 27, 2026.

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Do the two intermodal series start moving together?

Price softened while volume firmed. That combination is consistent with converting freight finding available capacity, which is what the current market should look like. Watch whether volume keeps building and whether spot stabilizes alongside it. Volume and price rising together is the reading that would carry real weight under the confirmation framework.

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Does diesel keep running on refining tightness?

Crude has eased while diesel has climbed two straight weeks. Watch the July 27 EIA release to see whether the two series stay disconnected. If they do, fuel budgets built off crude forecasts are the wrong budgets, and the intermodal efficiency advantage only compounds from here.

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Does contract start chasing spot for truckload?

Truckload spot at 29.4% year over year against contract-weighted linehaul at 5.5% is a wide gap, and July 1 bid cycles are just now landing in the data. That spread is the clearest available measure of how much repricing shippers still have in front of them.

Last week's scorecard

Last week we flagged three things. Here is how they played out.

  • Where does truckload settle once the holiday distortion clears? Above the base, not below it. Spot came back up 4.8% after the 5.0% giveback, leaving the three-week sequence roughly 7% above where it started before July 4. Our call that the jump was mostly distortion was partly wrong. Only the weekly magnitude was noise.

  • Does diesel hold the jump? It did more than hold. Diesel added another 7.0% to $5.134, widening the year-over-year gap from 27.6% to 34.7%. We flagged $4.75 as the line where fuel surcharge exposure becomes a live third-quarter budget item. That line is well behind us now.

  • Does volume confirm the price move? No, and the June data was clear about it. Cass shipments fell 4.1% year over year while the expenditures component rose 11.2%, accelerating from a 7.5% gain in May. Spend is rising on rates and fuel while the freight underneath it shrinks. That is the price-without-volume pattern we have been describing, printed in one month's data.

About the InTek Intermodal Index:

The InTek Intermodal Index (III) tracks weekly domestic intermodal spot rates on a per-mile basis, both including and excluding fuel surcharges. Each week's report includes comprehensive market analysis covering truckload pricing trends, diesel fuel costs, and Class I railroad intermodal volumes to provide context for rate movements.

Published every Thursday since 2014, the Index serves as a resource for shippers, carriers, and industry analysts tracking North American freight market trends.

Citation: InTek Intermodal Index. (2026). Weekly Intermodal Spot Rate Report. Retrieved from https://www.inteklogistics.com/spot-rates

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