BNSF Railway reduced by 12 hours its average transit time for domestic and international intermodal traffic and improved shipment availability in some lanes by as much as 20 hours during the first quarter of 2009 compared with last year. Working with its intermodal partners and leveraging available capacity, BNSF also reports that it is achieving as much as 99 percent in door-to-door, on-time deliveries.
BNSF executives credit capital investments and productivity enhancements for the gains in intermodal performance. BNSF has spent about $30 billion over the last decade to improve its infrastructure and expand its locomotive fleet. At the end of 2007, BNSF operated over about 32,000 miles of track. Of this amount, almost 5,000 miles is double-tracked, including most of the Southern Transcon.
BNSF is investing in cutting-edge transportation technologies. Advanced automated gate systems were recently installed at BNSF intermodal facilities in Chicago, Ill.; Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas; San Bernardino, Calif.; and Memphis, Tenn. These new entry gates employ recorded remote inspection of trucks and biometric identification of drivers through the collection of fingerprints and other information. The new gates allow for a aster turnaround and eliminate a significant portion of exhaust from idling diesel engines.