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Truck tonnage increased in March after a February fall, riding a wave of stronger consumer confidence, retail sales and U.S. imports.

Container ship lines on the Far East-North Europe trade are fighting a losing battle to halt a plunge in rates by canceling sailings, Alphaliner reports in its latest weekly newsletter.

Container lines continue to see their operating costs fall thanks to the steady decline in their largest cost, bunker fuel. Some of those savings are passed onto shippers through lower fuel surcharges.

International trade supports nearly 6.9 million U.S. retail jobs, according to a study commissioned by the National Retail Federation in support of free-trade initiatives.

A private sector-led campaign to lobby Brazilian authorities to allow Santos harbor to be deepened to allow the handling of larger ships is gaining momentum.

Strong volume at Canada’s three largest container ports helped drive Canadian National Railway’s intermodal volume up 14.2 percent in the first quarter compared to the same period a year ago, another sign of how the railroad’s strategy of supply chain collaboration continues to deliver.

Frankfurt airport handled 6.4 percent less freight in March than a year ago as strikes by Lufthansa pilots resulted in the cancellation of intercontinental flights.

Maersk and Crowley Maritime Corp. have agreed to merge their salvage businesses, Svitzer Salvage and Titan Salvage, into a new company, Ardent, which will begin operations on May 1.

Mega-ships and the large container carrier alliances will cause long-term headaches for shippers, believes David Panjwani, John Deere’s global logistics manager for Asia and Africa.

Regulators must continue to work closely with all members of the air cargo supply chain to ensure impending advance data regulations enhance security without impeding cargo flows, according to a new position paper from The International Air Cargo Association (Tiaca).

The Mexican government is pumping $5 billion — more than 77 billion pesos — into its network of 117 ports, as the country’s rising middle class demands more imports and Mexico rises as a regional manufacturing powerhouse.

Con-way Truckload is purchasing 635 new tractors with automated manual transmissions in a bid to attract drivers — especially new recruits.

Third-party logistics provider C.H. Robinson Worldwide has opened the doors at two new global forwarding offices: one in Ho Chi Minh City and another in Antwerp.

The chairman of the International Chamber of Shipping warned that regional maritime regulations on ships’ emissions and ballast-water discharges threaten conflicts with global maritime rules.

The American Trucking Associations is urging the Department of Transportation to move forward with a rulemaking that would require electronic speed limiters on all large trucks.

Hapag-Lloyd has ordered five 10,500-TEU container ships for the South American trades.

The first container ship designed to run on natural gas has been launched at General Dynamics NASSCO in San Diego for operation by Sea Star Line in the U.S. mainland-Puerto Rico trade.

U.S. containerized exports to the east coast of South America will shrink in 2015 by 2.4 percent from the prior year, thanks to unfavorable exchange rates between the Brazilian real and dollar, and subdued demand from Latin America’s biggest economic engine.

Container volumes at the Seattle-Tacoma gateway in March surged by 21 percent compared to March 2014, demonstrating that the Pacific Northwest ports are quickly recovering from the port congestion that accompanied four months of work slowdowns.

A full recovery for the world container market is still a long time out, providing little short-term hope to the container lessing sector, say analysts at Drewry Maritime Research.

In a major setback for the new Narendra Modi-led Indian government’s aggressive effort to rev up the economy, the nation’s merchandise exports for fiscal year 2014-15, which ended March 31, fell far short of the targeted $340 billion, according to preliminary trade figures released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

Five more Chinese ports can now allow foreign-flag vessels to provide cabotage services to their container terminals.

Kerry Logistics has formed a strategic partnership with China’s state-owned rail operator as it begins to tap into Beijing’s One Belt One Road national trade strategy that was announced in March.

The saving grace for carriers on the Asia-Europe trade battling record low freight rates has been lower bunker costs, but even at their present lows, with weakening load factors many ships will not be covering their unit costs, according to Drewry.

There is anecdotal evidence that the stunning new lows for container spot rates being recorded by indices covering the Asia-Europe trade do not reflect the actual level to which the prices have fallen.

Throughput jumped 7.2 percent year-over-year at the port of Rotterdam in the first quarter, driven in part by strong container traffic at Europe's largest port.

Schedule reliability for the core east-west trade lanes hit a five-month peak in March, according to Drewry Maritime Research.

Nunzio LaGrasso, a former International Longshoremen’s Association official in New Jersey, was sentenced this week to state and federal prison terms for his role in an organized-crime scheme to extort money from union members.

U.S. diesel prices have fallen to a low not seen since Avatar raked in hundreds of millions of dollar at movie theaters across the country.

Spot rates in the eastbound trans-Pacific trade lane continue to drag as major U.S West Coast ports make headway on reducing the backlog of cargo that began stacking up at marine terminals since the early fall.

The Port of Virginia plans in June to start pilot testing of a trucker appointment system it hopes to eventually implement port-wide.

China’s grand dream of a maritime Silk Road for the 21st Century is paving the way for Chinese port operators to spread their way of conducting domestic business beyond Chinese borders.

APM Terminals at India’s Port of Nhava Sheva, or Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, said its terminal gates are operating normally and that truck queues outside the terminal are not “unusually” long.

Duisburg, the world’s biggest inland port, boosted container traffic by 13 percent in 2014, outperforming its bigger rivals in the Le Havre-Hamburg range.

The almost complete cessation of liner services at the Port of Portland will add significantly to inland transportation costs incurred by exporters of agricultural and forest products in Oregon and Idaho, the executive director of the Agriculture Transportation Coalition said Thursday.

The most damaging aspect of the exodus of two major container lines from the Port of Portland, Oregon, last month was the loss of more than 650 trade and transportation jobs in Oregon, the port’s executive director says.

The Transportation Intermediaries Association wants truck safety data generated by a controversial federal program — the CSA program — immediately removed from public view.

Container lines appear to have written off April as spot rate data from the Shanghai Containerised Freight Index reveals carriers will this week accept $399 per 20-foot container from Shanghai to North Europe, a new low for the embattled trade.

China’s slowing exports put the brakes on runaway volumes at the world’s largest air cargo carrier in March as throughput on Cathay Pacific-Dragonair tumbled into the single digits after a robust start to the year.