Trucking News

The worst reading from the Institute for Supply Management’s Purchasing Managers Index in three years signals a slowdown in freight for less-than-truckload carriers to haul.

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.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration released on Friday the final version of its coercion rule, the first in a number of regulations that could impact U.S. truck capacity moving forward.

For-hire truck tonnage reversed two months of decline in October even as inventories remain a drag on truck freight volume, according to the latest figures from the American Trucking Associations.

Transportation stakeholders received something to celebrate this year as 44 percent of the new $500 million round of the Department of Transportation’s Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery program went to projects dedicated to moving freight.

The National Automobile Dealers Association raised its forecast for 2016 U.S. car and light truck sales to 17.7 million units, a record high that will drive automotive freight and logistics demand.

Less-than-truckload shipments increased marginally in the first nine months of 2015, as freight revenue plummeted, thanks largely to the drop in fuel surcharges, SJ Consulting Group says.

It may come as no surprise that an Atlanta highway interchange known as “Spaghetti Junction,” topped the list of the worst truck bottlenecks in the U.S. this year.

Frank Appel, CEO of Deutsche Post DHL Group, the world’s largest leading logistics and mail communications company since 2008, will share his views on the current and future state of global supply chains on Feb. 28, 2016, at the 16th Annual TPM Conference in Long Beach, California.

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

Shippers are cheering emergency legislation that ended nationwide blockades by Brazilian independent truckers.

Several long-anticipated rules and proposals for trucking may hit the Federal Register in the next two weeks, including the electronic logging mandate, a final rule on driver coercion and proposals on carrier safety ratings and truck speed limiters.

ODFL is offering some shippers a chance to ditch fuel surcharges, a step that could lead to LTL pricing more closely aligned with service and actual costs.

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.

After building to a crescendo in May and April, the number of U.S. transportation job openings has slipped for five straight months, though the numbers are still higher than a year ago.

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.

The Cass Freight Index, both for U.S. freight shipments and payments, dropped a step in October, as shippers worked through piles of inventory.

Mark H. George, chairman, IMC companies, discusses new technological developments sweeping the trucking industry and how those changes will impact the driver shortage with Alessandra Barrett, senior content director, JOC, at the JOC Inland Distribution Conference in Memphis, Tennessee, in October.

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.

Logistics operators at the U.S.-Mexican border are handling more transloaded truck freight, as rising volumes clash with the weak peso and imbalanced capacity.

For-hire trucking companies slow hiring as payrolls hit seven-year highs, wait for signs freight demand will strengthen.

U.S. shippers and the surface transportation providers that serve them can be excused for feeling a bit jittery about the nation’s economic recovery. Nearly every day there’s a new data reading suggesting the U.S. economic rebound is slowing, as high inventories, weak exports, limping domestic factory output and global headwinds, exacerbated by a winded China, take a toll.

A 2 percent gain by the world's Top 50 largest transportation service providers in 2014 marked a turnaround after the group’s combined revenue slipped 0.1 percent in 2013.

Manitoulin Transport, one of Canada's largest less-than-truckload operators, opened a new terminal in Winnipeg, part of an ongoing expansion in Western Canada for the Ontario-based company.

Old Dominion Freight Line is rebuilding its drayage model around company drivers to better align container hauling with its less-than-truckload business and avoid court battles over worker classification. The less-than-truckload carrier is also focusing more on East Coast ports.

The fourth-largest U.S. less-than-truckload carrier could double its market share in coming years, as sustained profitability supports ongoing expansion, CEO David Congdon tells JOC.com.

The government of Brazil is scrambling to block a strike planned by independent truck drivers for Monday.

The U.S. trucking industry won one battle, but lost another in Congress this week. Lawmakers in the House of Representatives passed legislation that clears the way for teenage truck drivers after killing an effort to increase current limits on truck weight.

Trucking companies hauling more than 12 tonnes (13.2 tons) in Russia will have to pay new federal highway tolls starting Nov. 15 that could increase transport costs up to 15 percent.

USA Truck’s profit and revenue fell by double-digits in the third quarter as it works to restructure operations and implement new technology.

Class 8 tractor orders in the U.S. rose 30 percent from September last month, but were 45 percent lower year-over-year, a sign truckers are still digesting a big increase in truck counts and trying to rebalance capacity.

U.S. Class 8 tractor registrations rose significantly in the first half of 2015, with trucking operators in the Midwest and South adding the lion's share of new vehicles, according to IHS Automotive. Those tractors are contributing to a capacity surplus where a shortage was once considered imminent. How long will the "capacity calm" last?

U.S. shippers a year ago were by and large convinced a truck “capacity crunch” was about to hit the industry. The economy was rapidly expanding, freight demand increasing and the driver pool drying up. Something’s changed a year later and for the first time in five years, more U.S. shippers are citing an excess in truckload capacity, according to a recent shipper survey.

ArcBest struggled with the same forces besetting its trucking competitors in the third quarter: lower fuel surcharges, falling shipment volumes and lower industrial output. Its non-asset subsidiaries thrived, however, and ABF Freight still raised prices.

U.S. shippers expect muted freight volume growth through the third quarter of 2016 as they continue to pull from existing stocks before placing new orders after inventories ballooned during the gridlock at West Coast ports.

The Teamsters union is eying California, a state with drivers clamoring for representation and a regulatory climate sympathetic to work misclassification, as a launching pad for a national drayage organizing push.

YRC Worldwide drove further into the black in the third quarter, raising net profit at its national and regional less-than-truckload carriers.