(TNS) — The Port of New Orleans and the New Orleans Public Belt Railroad are using new technology aimed at making it easier to get the large, heavy equipment needed to build large industrial projects, such as an AI data center and a planned modern steel mill, to construction sites.
The technology combines a customized AI program with a digital map of the New Orleans Public Belt System to enable logistics companies to transport heavy freight via rail to their intended destination in the most efficient way possible.
“This technology changes the conversation for customers who transport oversized cargo,” said Beth Branch, president and CEO of Port NOLA and CEO of the New Orleans Public Loop Railroad, who announced the development at an industry conference last month. “Planning large-scale industrial shipments can require weeks of engineering considerations and coordination between multiple railroads before a customer knows whether a route is possible. This gives them an almost immediate answer.”
The technology will be provided to Port NOLA through a partnership with New Orleans-based logistics company UTC Transo. The logistics company, founded earlier this spring, is a joint venture between veteran maritime executive Gregory Russovich’s Transoceanic Development and Houston-based global logistics company UTC Overseas.
UTC and software company Palantir developed an AI rail program that UTC Transo is currently deploying at Port NOLA. It’s part of a broader effort by the new company to take advantage of New Orleans’ access to the port, six Class A rail lines and two major interstate highways amid a statewide industrial construction boom.
“This is about New Orleans providing cutting-edge logistics solutions to the global energy sector,” Rusovich said. “Cargo owners want certainty. They want to know early in the process if their cargo can be moved, how it can be moved, and how quickly they can make decisions.”
“This helps bring certainty,” he said.
Aiming for efficiency
This new technology is a customer-facing app that allows shippers to input their cargo dimensions, weight, and rail vehicle specifications into a digital platform that can quickly determine whether their goods can pass through the rail network and recommend the best route options.
Underneath that system is a “digital twin” of the New Orleans Public Loop Railroad. It is essentially a live digital replica of the rail network, continuously tracking availability, bridge ratings, intersection geometry, and infrastructure status in real time.
Logistics companies have been using software for years to determine the best way to move customer cargo from ports to rail or freight lines. UTC Transo officials say the new tool will help them do better by positioning New Orleans as a gateway for smarter, more predictable project freight as global supply chains become increasingly driven by speed, visibility and data.
“Customers need better information earlier in the process, and they need logistics partners who can help solve infrastructure challenges before cargo reaches the port,” said Marco Poisler, UTC International Chief Operating Officer, Global Energy & Capital Projects. “That’s exactly what this partnership is about.”
louisiana bias
UTC Transo is known in the logistics industry as a “freight forwarder,” and as its name suggests, it handles the transportation of freight from manufacturers and suppliers to end users anywhere in the world.
It’s a complex, technical business that involves dealing with import and export regulations, customs, and ever-changing tariff rates, transporting goods across oceans, finding ports with the best facilities and lowest rates to unload them, and then figuring out how to get the cargo to its final destination, whether by barge, rail, or truck.
UTC Transo focuses specifically on transporting project-specific bulk cargo to individual job sites across the state. This means large amounts of specialized equipment, machinery, and spools and piles of raw materials weighing tens of thousands of tons.
UTC Overseas, like other global logistics companies primarily headquartered in Houston, already does some of this work in the state. UTC Transo is the first New Orleans-based company to be unabashedly Louisiana-biased.
Mr. Russovich announced the company in April. This is because Louisiana, known for its historic maritime industry and port system along the lower Mississippi River, has lost market share in logistics operations to Houston, Savannah, Jacksonville, Mobile and other southern ports in recent years for several reasons.
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