The daily volume of non-refrigerated intermodal containers moving in the United States and Canada. The data is broken out as follows:

Direction of travel

• • Inbound to a market e.g. Chicago or CHI
    • The letter “I” will be the first letter in the ticker i.e. IRAIL20L.CHI
  • Outbound from a market e.g. Chicago or CHI
    • The letter “O” will be the first letter in the ticker i.e. ORAIL20L.CH

Container Length

• • There are five container lengths – 20’, 40’, 45’, 48’ and 53’ which appear after the word “RAIL” in the ticker
    • A loaded 20’ container inbound to Chicago would be IRAIL20L.CHI
  • For international containers (20’,40’, and 45’), you can search for “INT” instead of the equipment size and find total volumes for the combined number of 20’, 40’, and 45’ containers.
    • Loaded international containers inbound to Chicago would be IRAILINTL.CHI
  • For domestic containers (48’, 53’), you can search for “DOM” instead of the equipment size and find total volumes for the combined number of 48’, and 53’ containers.
    • Loaded domestic containers inbound to Chicago would be IRAILDOM.CHI

Loaded or empty

• • A container will have the letter “L” or “E” as the last character in the ticker to designate whether the container is loaded or empty
    • A loaded 20’ container inbound to Chicago would be IRAIL20L.CHI

Origin-destination pairing (OD pairing)

• • Outbound – the volume of loaded 20’ containers moving daily from one market to another can be calculated as follows:
    • Chicago to Atlanta would be ORAIL20L.CHIATL

Volume compared to past year, month, week or fortnight

• • The tickers IRAILLW, IRAILLF, IRAILLM, and IRAILLY display the data compared to one week ago, one fortnight ago, one month ago and one year ago, respectively.
  • These tickers can be used in aggregate (e.g., IRAILLY.USA), outbound from a particular destination (e.g., IRAILLY.CHI) or between an origin-destination pair (e.g., IRAILLY.LAXDAL)
  • The year-ago comparison in IRAILLY helps for analysts to compare trends versus one year ago, removing the impact of seasonality
  • In any of the above tickers, the final “L” can be replaced with “E” (such as IRAILEY) to denote empty containers rather than loaded containers – that is helpful for intermodal providers in determining where empty containers can be sourced

Volume compared to past year, month, week or fortnight

• • The tickers IRAILW, IRAILF, IRAILM, and IRAILY display the data compared to one week ago, one fortnight ago, one month ago and one year ago, respectively.
  • These tickers can be used in aggregate (e.g., IRAILY.USA), outbound from a particular destination (e.g., IRAILY.CHI) or between an origin-destination pair (e.g., IRAILY.LAXDAL)
  • The year-ago comparison in IRAILY helps for analysts to compare trends versus one year ago, removing the impact of seasonality

Country Volume

• • United States
    • Using the same example above, the total volume of outbound 20’ loaded intermodal containers in the U.S. would be ORAIL20L.USA
  • Canada
    • Using the same example above, the total volume of outbound 20’ loaded intermodal containers in Canada would be ORAIL20L.CAN

International Routes

• Canada: ORAIL.USACAN and ORAIL.CANUSA
• Mexico: ORAIL.USAMEX and ORAIL.MEXUSA

• SONAR allows you to compare volumes between countries:

Canada Lanes

• • For container moves from the U.S. to Canada

1. the ticker would be ORAIL20E.CHIMNT
2. Using the same Chicago example above to determine the volume of outbound 20’ loaded containers moving from Chicago to Montreal

Mexico Lanes

• For container moves from the U.S. to Mexico
• the ticker would be ORAIL20E.CHIMXC
  • Using the same Chicago example above to determine the volume of outbound 20’ loaded containers moving from Chicago to Mexico City

Volume Changes

• SONAR also allows you to look at the change in intermodal volumes, weekly, fortnightly, quarterly and yearly.
• Weekly – RTOIT
• Monthly – MORAIL20E, MORAIL40E, MORAIL45E, MORAIL48E, MORAIL53E, MIRAILL, MIRAILE, MORAILL, and MORAILE