Building Resilience in Transportation Networks

Disruptions are inevitable in transportation, but resilient and agile strategies can bring greater certainty to operations. In late 2024, 92% of shippers who took part in Breakthrough's 2025 State of Transportation survey stated that they were confident in their organization’s ability to handle disruptions. In 2025, shippers’ strategies were upended by evolving trade policies, macroeconomic shifts, and mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures. These changes are driving transportation leaders to continuously evaluate their processes and partnerships, ensuring optimal efficiency across their networks.

Staying agile and resilient is essential for adapting to a fast-changing marketplace and remaining competitive. Transportation inefficiencies often increase costs, delay deliveries, and hurt customer satisfaction, impacting profits and reputation. By taking a close look at energy, freight, and sustainability strategies through transportation analytics platforms, shippers can quickly learn insights to identify opportunities and adapt to disruptions.

Understanding the need for agility

While transportation leaders remain confident in their organization’s ability to handle disruptions, there are still unprecedented events that highlight the need for agility. Supply chain shortages and extreme weather events (44%), and regulatory changes (34%) are most likely to affect the industry, which means this confidence must be backed by proactive strategies and tools. Building resilience is critical for companies navigating today’s volatile landscape.

Organizations are focusing on strategic alignment, expanding best practices globally, and leveraging technological advancements to drive productivity and stay competitive.

Key strategies for building resilient networks

Transportation leaders can take specific steps to increase their agility and withstand disruptions. Below are some of the most effective approaches we see industry-leading shippers adopting:

1. Forge strong partnerships

Strategic partnerships with transportation partners, suppliers, and carriers play a major role in ensuring continuity during disruptions. Collaborating with these key partners enhances capabilities, streamlines operations, and reduces dependency, creating a more resilient supply chain.

2. Invest in route optimization technology

Route optimization tools and transportation analytics play a crucial role during mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures. These tools create opportunities to identify delivery delays, inefficiencies, and capacity issues, helping shippers uncover new efficiencies and streamline operations.

3. Diversify transportation modes

To mitigate risks such as domestic labor issues, 60% of shippers are using a mix of transportation modes, including trucking, rail, air, and maritime shipping. By following this trend, you can achieve significant cost and emissions savings. For example, in 2024, shifting from truckload to intermodal options like truckload and rail could cut emissions by 50% to 70% while reducing costs by 5% to 25%.

4. Use alternative energy

Switching to sustainable energy sources like natural gas offers environmental and financial benefits. With 67% of carriers citing cost savings as a key driver of their sustainability initiatives, and natural gas bringing greater cost stability and being more economical than diesel, alternative energy boosts sustainability and efficiency.

How resilience gives your network a competitive advantage

Resilience is more than just about survival—it’s about gaining a competitive edge. Companies who have strong partnerships and use a variety of transportation modes, alternative energies, and robust analytical tools are better positioned to maintain customer satisfaction and protect margins during volatile times. By embedding agility into your transportation strategy, industry leaders can withstand disruptions while continuing to meet demands.

Next steps for leaders leveraging transportation analytics

Building resilient, agile networks requires both a strategy and a roadmap. The 2025 State of Transportation Report provides data-driven insights into industry trends, challenges, and best practices for shippers and carriers. From transportation analytics to cost-effective solutions, this comprehensive guide is crafted to help companies remain competitive, efficient, and resourceful in an evolving market.