• TPM25
  • March 2-5, 2025 | Long Beach Convention Center

William B. Cassidy

Journal of Commerce by S&P Global

Senior Editor, Trucking, and Domestic Transportation

Bill Cassidy is senior editor of trucking for the JOC, where he leads coverage and analysis of trucking and North American transportation. He joined the publication in 2009, after 13 years at Traffic World magazine where he served as executive editor, managing editor, and associate editor. Based in Washington, DC, Cassidy has been reporting on trucking since 1984, when he joined Fleet Owner magazine in New York. He also has covered logistics management and supply chain technology, the rail and maritime industries, Congress, and federal agencies. Cassidy speaks regularly to industry groups, is a regular participant on SiriusXM radio's "Road Dog Trucking" program, and co-chairs the programming committee for the annual JOC Inland Distribution Conference.

Sessions With William B. Cassidy

Monday, 3 March

  • 02:50pm - 03:30pm (PST) / 03/mar/2025 10:50 pm - 03/mar/2025 11:30 pm

    US-Mexico Trade and Logistics: One Border, Many Solutions
    The long-term growth in US-Mexico cross-border trade brings new pressures to bear on the infrastructure needed to move freight across the border, but not all border crossings are the same. In fact, crossing points such as Laredo and El Paso, Texas, serve very different types of customers with different supply chains and logistics and transportation needs. This session will explore the issues shippers, especially US importers, face in Laredo and El Paso and how those border crossings are evolving. Laredo is the largest channel for US trade across any border and a funnel for long-haul truckload and intermodal freight. To the west, El Paso and Juarez are shorter-haul hubs for maquila manufacturing. That makes for different supply chains and different needs. We’ll look at how other border crossings are evolving, and the impact of greater international ocean trade via Mexico, as well as truck, intermodal rail, package and air volumes. The potential impact of Trump administration tariffs on Mexican exports to the US will be on the table as well. 
  • 04:50pm - 05:30pm (PST) / 04/mar/2025 12:50 am - 04/mar/2025 01:30 am

    US Trucking: Crunch Ahead or Calm?

    A key question facing shippers of international containers as 2025 begins: Is US trucking in some type of bubble insulating shippers from price volatility or has the trucking market changed structurally to one of permanently higher capacity that absorbs potential pricing shocks. This is the second — or is it the third? — year in which many expect the cyclical truckload market to turn, with higher demand putting pressure on pricing that can add significantly to end-to-end shipping costs. Previous years that have seen the market inflect have put shippers through painful price increases when it comes to getting goods to market by truck in the US: 2014, 2018 and 2021 are examples where end-to-end shipping costs rose substantially due to trucking. But 2025 looks different. Double-digit increases in international containerized imports last year hardly made a dent in truck capacity or pricing. There wasn't a shortage of drayage capacity. As of December, there were more than 90,000 more trucking companies on US highways than there were in 2019. But how long will that abundance last? Repeated predictions of tighter capacity have proved wrong in recent years, as demand remained lower than supply despite the loss of substantial numbers of carriers. Are we headed for another capacity crunch in 2025, if freight demand rises? Or has the market changed enough since 2019 that we’re unlikely to see the kind of crunch seen in the last decade. The US manufacturing downturn is a major reason we've had excess capacity and low trucking rates since 2022. All the discussion about tariffs, inflation and the Federal Reserve’s changing plans for rate cuts could lead to a much different demand picture than we expected just a few months ago. This session will answer these and other questions about truck capacity in a pivotal, transitional year. 

Tuesday, 4 March

  • 05:05pm - 05:45pm (PST) / 05/mar/2025 01:05 am - 05/mar/2025 01:45 am

    Supply Chain Disasters: Planning for the Unthinkable
    There’s no shortage of potential events that can disrupt and derail supply chains, from global pandemics and regional conflicts to port strikes and supplier bankruptcies. But a surprisingly large majority of shippers surveyed don’t even have a written disaster plan to ensure their supply chains and their businesses can survive the unexpected. Only about 30% of businesses pre-emptively plan for supply chain disruption in a formal manner, using disaster preparedness plans, according to consulting firm Colliers SCS. When it comes to risk management, "doing nothing” costs real money, reducing corporate profitability even before accounting for the potential cost of supply chain disruption. This session will hammer out practical steps to develop written risk management and continuity plans that protect end-to-end global supply chains from first to final mile. Topics covered will include what needs to be covered by such plans, who should develop them, how to win support and resources from the C-level. How should plans be implemented when disaster strikes? What are the real budgetary benefits of having a written plan and can we really plan for disasters and problems as yet unimagined? 
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