Truckload

The Cass Truckload Linehaul Index rose only 0.4 percent in January, the lowest increase for the index since 2010, while the Cass Intermodal Price Index dropped 2.2 percent.

High inventories nationwide continued to weigh down for-hire U.S. truck tonnage growth in January.

E-commerce opportunities on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border are helping TransForce compensate for loss of energy, less-than-truckload volumes.

Chassis provider TRAC Intermodal and a technology provider have unveiled cloud-based software designed to allow intermodal equipment providers and motor carriers to automate billing and reconcile invoices.

XPO Logistics will not sell its truckload division, but use the former Con-way Truckload to increase its U.S.-Mexico cross-border business.

USA Truck recorded improved profits and operating ratios for both the fourth quarter and full year of 2015, despite double-digit drops in revenue, even excluding fuel surcharges, for both periods.

Lower fuel prices and a softening used truck market constrained fourth-quarter revenue growth at Ryder System, but demand for Ryder’s fleet and supply chain services remained strong.

Class 8 truck orders plummeted 35 percent month-over-month and 48 percent year-over-year in January, another sign that truck capacity may have peaked.

The battle to recruit and keep truck drivers is heating up. As driver turnover at large truckload fleets spikes, more and more carriers are offering targeted pay increases.

The JOC Truckload Capacity Index contracted for the first time in eight quarters, reflecting efforts to better match capacity and demand by large carriers, many of which expect capacity to tighten in the second half of 2016.

Landstar System expanded its capacity in the fourth quarter to its highest level yet, 9,500 owner-operated tractor-trailers. A softer freight market meant lower revenue per truckload, however.

Despite a slower-moving U.S. economy, truckload operator Werner Enterprises

Despite “firm” contract pricing, a drop in truckload spot market opportunities in the fourth quarter worked in tandem with lower fuel surcharges to reduce revenue and profit for Knight Transportation.

Despite a drop in revenue, largely due to lower fuel surcharges, Marten Transport increased net profit almost 20 percent in 2015, while expanding its dedicated trucking business.

Despite an alleged "freight recession," Covenant Transportation Group increased freight revenue 10.8 percent in the fourth quarter, as e-commerce generated a peak-season shipping surge in that benefited the truckload group, which provides capacity to other carriers as well as shippers.

Swift Transportation, the largest U.S. truckload carrier, rejected the idea that the domestic freight industry is in a recession after it reported a fourth-quarter profit of $72.5 million, up 23.9 percent year-over-year.

Heartland Express saw profit and revenue drop in the fourth quarter and 2015, but the company remains highly profitable, and is banking on the road ahead by adding new trucks, raising driver pay.

J.B. Hunt Transport Services beat both Wall Street and Main Street in the fourth quarter, winning more business and hauling more freight when overall U.S. shipment volumes were dropping.

Small trucking companies grumble that federal regulation is pushing them out of business, but a new survey shows which states are also making it harder for owner-operators and small fleet operators to keep rolling.

Truckload carrier U.S. Xpress is offering a big pay hike to accident- and ticket-free solo truck drivers, a route other trucking companies may choose in 2016.

An analysis of federal data by the American Trucking Associations shows the truck-related fatality rate dropped in 2014 for the second straight year, and is 40 percent lower than it was a decade ago, despite increased travel by truckers and motorists on U.S. highways.

Shipper spending on surface transportation fell 2.7 percent in December from November and was down 5.2 percent year-over-year, according to the Cass Freight Index.

Starting Monday, truckers will face fines if they fail to send electronic shipment manifests to Canadian authorities before arriving at the border. Shipments could be delayed.

Net orders for Class 8 heavy trucks rebounded in December, rising 70 percent from November, showing demand for new trucks still exists. Year-over-year, however, orders are down, following a big surge in 2014 and early 2015 that increased U.S. truck capacity.

U.S. shippers and motor companies have one more thing to cheer about heading into the New Year after the average price of diesel hit the lowest point since the spring of 2009.

Truckers in Los Angeles-Long Beach are buying as many new and post-2007 model trucks that they can get their hands on in order to take advantage of a tax break that took effect Dec. 18, but time is running out. The accelerated depreciation provision expires at midnight Thursday.

Excess truck capacity is tugging at the earnings of truckload carriers, including Knight Transportation. The company believes truck capacity may have peaked, but much depends on the strength of consumer demand and retail inventory levels in 2016.

Truckload contract linehaul rates continued to rise in November as intermodal rates fell, according to pricing indices from Cass Information Systems and Avondale partners.

Stubbornly high inventories of retail goods, coupled with drop and hook distribution strategies, is seen as driving demand for dry van and refrigerated trailers, despite a drop in Class 8 tractor demand.

U.S. trucking companies added 2,300 workers in November, after watching payroll drop from an eight-year high in September and October. The uptick may indicate stronger holiday freight demand, but trucking's hiring rate has slowed since 2014.

Class 8 truck orders fell to their lowest level in at least three years, the latest sign of how motor carriers are pulling back on adding capacity as freight demand slows.

The surge in acquisitions keeps building, as truckload carrier Transport America, acquired last year by TransForce, buys logistics company Optimal Freight.

Werner Enterprises, the fifth-largest truckload carrier in the U.S., is raising solo driver pay by an average of $5,000 annually, the latest sign of how motor carriers are forking out more to keep and attract drivers ahead of serious demographic headwinds.

Tis the season for cargo theft — and transportation companies and shippers are advised to be on guard this Thanksgiving weekend.

An increase in inventories in the third quarter and September is skewing the pre-holiday shipping season, depressing imports and overland freight demand.

Last year's increase in truck orders is showing up on U.S. highways and at large truckload fleets, pushing up the JOC Truckload Capacity Index to a seven-year high. But those new tractors are rolling into a soft freight market.

Spot truckload rates have fallen relentlessly this year as U.S. freight demand dried up and contract capacity increased. Excluding fuel surcharges, however, dry van spot rates have "flattened," and contract rate increases slowed, DAT Solutions' Mark Montague says. Whether the market will change substantially any time soon is another question.

An increase in the amount of freight transloaded at the U.S. border means Mexican trucking company Fletes México is using more of its own equipment to haul shipments to a U.S. crossdock facility. The trend has been noted by U.S. logistics operators, who claim it can help reduce a capacity imbalance at the U.S.-Mexican border.

Consolidation continues in Eastern Canada's trucking market as Kriska Transportation Group acquires its second truckload carrier in two months. Access to cross-border shippers and their freight is one of the goals.

J.B. Hunt Transport Services says it expects to see income and revenue gains in 2016 in line with the gains the firm has seen in the recent third quarter and earlier this year.