Schedule

Overview of Freight Transportation Marketplace
Fundamentals of Freight will begin by providing attendees with a high level profile and exploration of the freight transportation markets. Following this overview, participants will break into two groups -- (1) rail and intermodal, and (2) trucking -- for 90 minutes of presentation and discussion. We encourage trucking executives to utilize this opportunity to better understand rail and intermodal, and vice-versa.

Topics to be addressed include:  · The economic and regulatory factors behind the industry’s evolution · The varied equipment types and commodities moved by each mode · Present trends in freight transportation and a brief look at what to expect going forward

Concurrent sessions running every 30 minutes, exploring transformative ideas in transportation.

Whether you are a first time or returning attendee, you are looking to make the most of your time. Meet several of the FTR Experts who will be leading the charge and let us give you insight into how the depth and breadth of knowledge presented at the conference can help you and your organization. Unsure of what sessions to attend? We will give you the lowdown of what we will be focusing on in each content channel to help you schedule those sessions that will give you maximum benefit.

North American railroads have invested billions of dollars in new technology, Positive Train Control, wayside car inspection systems, drones, automated track inspections, and more. What else is coming? What has been/will be the impact of technology on rail costs? Will technology investments help the railroads improve service enabling faster growth in revenue? We will explore the likely impact of technology on both rail costs and revenue?

As we approach the peak of the baby boomer retirements combined with fewer young workers entering the workforce, there are clear implications to labor and commerce. This shift is affecting purchasing habits, consumer demands, inventory needs, and transportation demand. Likewise, this change will have a clear impact when the economy slows in the future, as declines will not be uniform across industries and demographic subpopulations.

Production commercial electric vehicles are entering the market from upstart newcomers and well-known truck OEMs. Electric vehicles are not the solution for every freight segment, but they are viable alternatives for specific duty cycles. Advances in this technology are rapid. Electric trucks will grow into wider uses as the technology matures and confidence replaces speculation. Arguments for and against electric trucks center on weight, technology, cost, and charging/electric grid issues. Join the North American Council for Freight Efficiency’s Director of Future Technologies Studies, Rick Mihelic, as he brings some clarity and insight into this complex topic.

Vehicle automation and digitalization will bring disruptive change to the trucking industry over the next decade. New business models like the transfer hub concept will eventually enable the operation of driverless trucks on interstates. The consequent operating cost savings will be significant, ranging from 25- 40% cost reductions compared with today's trucks. In addition, booking platforms will increase the transparency of available capacity and freight rates, and partially pass the operating cost savings on to the end customer. Stephan Keese, Senior Partner at Roland Berger, will explore the scope and timing of these trends and their impact on the logistics industry's structure.

Advances in technology have allowed shippers more visibility into their supply chains, specifically when railroads will be serving their facilities. This session will look at the existing tools shippers have and what the expectations are for this technology moving forward. It will examine the benefits and possible cost savings enabled by the enhanced visibility carriers can provide shippers to make shipping by rail easier.

Media Only - With the breadth and depth of topics covered during the full conference, this session is designed to provide a road map of how to most effictively cover content from the conference for one's specific readership. This is an excellent opportunity for media members to make initial contact with the FTR industry experts and find additional resources.

Overview of Freight Transportation Marketplace Fundamentals of Freight will begin by providing attendees with a high level profile and exploration of the freight transportation markets. Following this overview, participants will break into two groups -- (1) rail and intermodal, and (2) trucking -- for 90 minutes of presentation and discussion. We encourage trucking executives to utilize this opportunity to better understand rail and intermodal, and vice-versa.

Topics to be addressed include: · The economic and regulatory factors behind the industry’s evolution · The varied equipment types and commodities moved by each mode · Present trends in freight transportation and a brief look at what to expect going forward

Concurrent sessions running every 30 minutes, exploring transformative ideas in transportation.

Whether you are a first time or returning attendee, you are looking to make the most of your time. Meet several of the FTR Experts who will be leading the charge and let us give you insight into how the depth and breadth of knowledge presented at the conference can help you and your organization. Unsure of what sessions to attend? We will give you the lowdown of what we will be focusing on in each content channel to help you schedule those sessions that will give you maximum benefit.

Although much of the focus on alternative fuel vehicles has been on CNG, LNG, hybrid, hydrogen fuel cell, and electric vehicles, solar energy is increasingly being harnessed either independently or working collectively with other alternative energy solutions for transportation. Solar is breaking new ground and successfully lowering operating costs, increasing vehicle uptime, operating efficiency, and adding to driver satisfaction. It is doing this with the benefit of a quieter, zero carbon emissions footprint. While larger scale adoption of solar solutions may still be in its infancy, it is likely larger than many realize. Is solar part of a combined Hybrid/EV solution that sparks a revolution leading to the decline of diesel as a commercial vehicle energy source? This session will consider the applications, strengths, and weaknesses of the solar option.

Cryptocurrency has been a hot topic over the past year, with plenty of grand claims and strong opinions. Some say it is the future of money and commerce more broadly. Others believe it will be a short-lived bubble. However, most still do not understand it, particularly the difference between bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. While only time will tell for sure, the potential implications are certainly significant. We will discuss what cryptocurrency is, how different cryptocurrencies are built to serve different purposes, what the potential benefits of this technology are, and what its current and potential future shortcomings and challenges may be.

The Internet of Things has created a separation of humans and machines, despite our willingness to surround ourselves with them. The era of sentient tools will close the gap created by the flooding of hardware and polluted data streams caused by our increasing demand for information. The result will be a need for humans to see data and hardware in an entirely new way. This talk will discuss "transhumanism" and the impact of humans having a deeper symbiotic relationship with machines (especially the autonomous kind). Grounded in data and ethnography (human research), we will look at different personas and expectations for solution providers in the years ahead.

We are in the midst of a revolution in big data and the artificial intelligence (AI) necessary to tame it. The roots of neural-inspired computational models go back nearly 75 years, but recent changes have brought the notion of neural networks to the forefront. This talk will cover the history and current practice of AI and neural networks. The speaker will also sort out some of the terminology and jargon around modern neural networks and AI.

Shipper and carriers have always been exposed to the vagaries of freight rates without any ability to hedge that exposure. John Kingston of FreightWaves will discuss one concept to address this longstanding challenge: A commodity exchange to allow anyone whose finances could be affected by volatile freight rates to protect against big swings in rates

What are the legal ramifications when a shipper or carrier knows (or has access to) private financial, business, or health information about a client due to connected business practices? Should all members of a shared business chain or "ledger" be responsible for reporting a breach? Are there legal reasons a logistics/shipping company might not want to participate in data sharing in order to preserve company or client privacy? We will cover the privacy issues that keep your legal counsel up at night.