Trucking News

At a time when LTL shipments and freight volumes in general declined, ODFL increased its fourth-quarter shipment count 8.2 percent, while increasing revenue and profit. Lower fuel surcharges slowed revenue growth, but the carrier outperformed its peers.

Organic and acquisition-fueled growth in 2015 were not enough to offset declining freight volume and falling fuel surcharge revenue in the last three months of the year for Roadrunner Transportation Systems.

ABF Freight, the less-than-truckload arm of ArcBest, laid off more than 200 dock and yard workers as LTL shipments and tonnage dropped in the fourth quarter. ArcBest's asset-light businesses saw volumes rise in the same period.

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.

Shippers using C.H. Robinson Worldwide to move truckload freight saw pricing drop 3 percent on average in the fourth quarter. The logistics operator's volume, net revenue and profit, on the other hand, all rose.

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.

XPO Logistics is moving rapidly to reorganize the less-than-truckload business acquired from Con-way last fall, cutting back-office and management positions while rolling out new technology for dockworkers and truck drivers.

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.

Departures, both voluntarily and otherwise, in the wake of XPO Logistics’ takeover of Con-Way last year are leading to a migration of some executives to XPO's rival YRC Worldwide and leaving others in limbo.

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.

Shippers across the U.S. can expect delays this week as the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast dig out from Winter Storm Jonas, which dumped two or more feet of snow on a region stretching from West Virginia to New England and created icy road conditions in an even larger area.

U.S eastern railroads, parcel providers and trucking companies are warning shippers that a winter storm with blizzard conditions affecting 18 states will delay shipments Friday and through the weekend.

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.

U.S. truck driver hours-of-service rules suspended by Congress won’t be put back in place any time soon, and not without consultation with trucking “stakeholders,” a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration official told trucking and logistics executives today.

Speakers, attendees at the SMC3 JumpStart 2016 conference report inventory levels high enough to slow GDP growth, depress freight demand.

XPO plans to put the former Con-way Freight's outsourced linehaul work up for bid for the first time in years, part of a broader plan to seek greater savings in its logistics and transportation businesses, chairman and CEO Bradley S. Jacobs said.

Fast-growing Dayton Freight Lines is expanding its reach from the Midwest into the South by opening a 32-door, seven-acre service center in Memphis.

The 10-day shutdown of Land Air Express of New England by federal regulators should sound warning bells for U.S. trucking companies, freight brokers and shippers. If they need additional convincing, the announcement Friday that those regulators aim to simplify their efforts to detect unsafe motor carriers and get them off the road should do the trick.

Thanks partly to its acquisition of non-asset truckload specialist Coyote Logistics, UPS is opening new routes into shippers' cross-border supply chains.

Freight demand is likely to stay even lower than usual in early 2016, thanks to retail inventories that climbed higher in November and a drop in December retail sales, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

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.

Stubbornly high inventories helped pushed freight volumes down in December, according to the Cass Freight Index, and could become more costly for shippers in 2016.

Several accidents involving multiple vehicles, including tractor-trailers, closed two Interstate highways in Indiana, disrupting east-west traffic as bands of heavy snow moved through the area toward New York and the Northeast.

After a 10-day shutdown by federal regulators, the regional LTL carrier is back on the streets, but is closing terminals in New Jersey to refocus on its core New England territory.

Softer freight demand could blunt pay increases in 2016, but lower unemployment and higher demand for construction workers could push pay higher.

Shippers with overstocked inventories and plenty of available trucks are looking at a market they wouldn’t have recognized a year ago. What’s not clear is how quickly the balance between demand and capacity might shift again.

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.

For-hire trucking companies hired 9,000 people in November and December combined, reversing a decline in preceding months.