Surface

Discount retailer Dollar Tree is building a $104.4 million distribution center in 'upstate' South Carolina, near the Greer Inland Port and the I-85 corridor, expanding its Southeastern logistics footprint.

Gateway Distriparks Ltd., India’s leading port-based logistics provider, has received government approvals for the construction of a new inland container depot facility at Viramgam, near Ahmedabad in Gujarat State, allowing hinterland shippers improved rail access to the country’s western gateway ports.

USA Truck is changing CEOs, but not the strategies that helped the truckload carrier return to profit last year after several years of losses.

A U.S. district court has ruled that federal law precludes Massachusetts from regulating transportation rates, routes and services by requiring express-delivery drivers to be company employees.

Net orders for Class 8 trucks in North America fell in June for the fourth consecutive month, but that’s no cause of concern, according to transportation research firm FTR.

Norfolk Southern Railway is planning a $34 million plan to expand its Rickenbacker Intermodal Terminal outside of Columbus to meet growing distribution demand in central Ohio.

Ira Rosenfeld, who covered transportation for The Journal of Commerce and later was spokesman for Overnite Transportation and UPS Freight, died Saturday in Richmond, Virginia, after a heart attack. He was 68.

When J.B. Hunt reports lower second-quarter intermodal volumes next month the culprits will be U.S. West Coast port congestion and the intermodal marketing company’s own decision to sacrifice market share for higher rates, according to a BB&T Capital Markets report.

A U.S. Department of Transportation study couldn’t conclude whether heavier trucks impact highway safety, but it did find they would not significantly impact intermodal conversions.

A software company that provides information on truck stops, weigh stations and other on-the-road services to U.S. truckers is now offering a free beta test of its freight marketplace platform to the public.

After five years of hiring gains and substantial pay raises, U.S. trucking companies finally employ more workers than they did before the Great Recession. But they’re far from end of the road.

Union Pacific Railroad has embargoed international intermodal cargo originating from the U.S. West Coast at its Denver terminal due to a “severe” shortage of chassis there.

Shippers tapping containerized rail services between the Port of Antwerp and Duisburg are poised to see greater reliability and experience less congestion at the North European seaport after the former joined forces with duisport, Europe’s largest inland port.

India’s transportation infrastructure upgrade program got another push with the World Bank approving the release of $650 million, the third tranche of a long–term program to help build up New Delhi’s much-delayed, eastern, dedicated freight corridor project.

Daseke Inc., the fastest growing U.S. trucking company, is merging with Bulldog Hiway Express, an open-deck and flatbed carrier with extensive port drayage operations in the Southeast.

Jon Poelma has been promoted to senior vice president and chief operating officer of Consolidated Chassis Management. CCM manages six regional chassis pools containing more than 140,000 intermodal chassis at 240 U.S. rail and port intermodal locations.

Intermodal industry veteran Steven L. Rubin has been appointed chief executive officer of ITS Technologies & Logistics. ITS provides outsourced operating services for intermodal railroad facilities, container yard services for global shipping and container leasing companies and automotive loading and unloading services.

State-owned rail operator Container Corporation of India has slashed its charges for the movement of empty containers between Chennai Port and Bangalore, providing some respite for shippers struggling with port delays and ocean carrier surcharges.

The Michigan-based truckload carrier expects lower second quarter revenue than a year ago but better revenue than in the first quarter as the freight economy slowly expands.

The U.S. Department of Transportation is under renewed pressure to overhaul its key truck safety initiative after a 2014 study only recently made public found the program’s safety metrics don’t always align with the real risk of accidents on the road.

The value of the goods shipped between the U.S. and Canada dropped 12.5 percent in April, thanks to low oil prices, a strong U.S. dollar and a shrinking Canadian economy.

Kazakhstan’s national rail operator and DHL Global Forwarding have signed a memorandum of understanding that will provide the logistics operator with additional block trains on the fast-developing land bridge between China and Europe.

Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska wants a study on whether 18- to 20-year-olds should be allowed to drive heavy trucks across state lines, a step trucking concerns short of qualified drivers increasingly support. Current federal rules restrict interstate CDLs to drivers at least 21 years of age.

European ports’ hinterland connections will get a boost via the European Union’s largest-ever infrastructure investment totaling 13.1 billion euro ($14.5 billion).

Truckload and less-than-truckload pricing expected to rise more quickly than freight volumes, as carriers seek to counter rising operating costs and shippers look to secure capacity.

U.S shippers and third-party logistics providers could see truckload rates increase by as much as 25 percent over the next two to three years, according to one of the heads of the largest privately held freight payment company in the U.S.

Trucking executives plan to invest more capital in trucks and to hire more workers over the next 12 months, a sign of their confidence in the economy and good news for shippers concerned about the availability of truck capacity in the year ahead.

Spurred by growing container volumes, terminal operator Hutchison Port Holdings’ Barcelona subsidiary has expanded the port’s hinterland connectivity.

Northern Nevada tops the list for shippers in advanced manufacturing interested in returning to or expanding existing facilities in the U.S., according to recent study from a national site-selection firm. And while the cost of logistics didn’t figure quantitatively into the firm’s ultimate rankings, total landed costs did.

The purchase of ReTrans, an intermodal and truck freight brokerage with more than $500 million in annual revenue, extends the reach of Kuehne + Nagel, the second-largest global 3PL, far beyond U.S. ports and into the nation's industrial heartland.

The Canadian General Freight Index declined slightly in April, but year-over-year base trucking rates were up nearly 7 percent, the index revealed. In a surprise turn, truckload costs for Canadian shippers dropped in April, while domestic and cross-border less-than-truckload rates climbed.

In a significant infrastructure investment push, the government of India has approved new cost estimates for its long-planned eastern and western dedicated freight corridor projects, designed to upgrade intermodal connectivity between hinterlands and gateway ports in the country.

SkyBitz joins competitors such as Orbcomm, Omnitracs and PeopleNet that are acquiring smaller businesses to expand their telematics offerings.

Veteran transportation executive Hank Bartos will temporarily run Con-way Truckload as Con-way seeks a permanent candidate to run the $632 million carrier.

Chief executives of companies that operate in the highly competitive trucking and logistics space admit they have a real challenge on their hands as they work to provide good service, seek new business and turn a profit as operating costs, including truck driver wages, go up.

Truck drivers may be legally permitted to drive 11 hours a day, but do they? Trucking technology provider PeopleNet reviewed data from more than 200,000 onboard computers used to log driver hours and concluded many drivers don’t even come close to that limit.

With longshore unions on both coasts moving aggressively to enforce chassis inspection requirements, the American Trucking Associations wants the Federal Maritime Commission and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to immediately put an end to inspections it says are creating costly delays for drayage truck drivers.

Tightening capacity fueled by growing demand spells the end to historically low logistics costs, according to the latest State of Logistics report out of the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals.

Truck tonnage in the U.S. rose 1.1 percent in May after dropping 1.4 percent in April, but large inventories and slow-paced manufacturing growth are limiting freight demand.