Trucking News

With 2010 contract bidding in full swing, one shipper has advice for his fellow shippers: “Help the good carriers out.”

The trucking companies that succeed in the new decade may take lessons from their oldest competitors.

“We’re seeing business activity improving, and supply and demand are beginning to come back into balance,” the co-chairman of the Chattanooga, Tenn.-based truckload carrier said.

Trucking companies and their customers, parched by a three-year decline in freight shipping followed by a recession that amounted to a depression in consumer demand, are eager for any sign that econom

Truckers should be green with envy at the pricing power their oceangoing counterparts are beginning to wield.

Like the first few raindrops after a long drought, the freight rate increases ocean and surface carriers are beginning to nail down are not enough to slake their thirst.

Shipments of commercial trailers hit a 32-year low in December while reaching their highest point in 2009, said ACT Research.

YRC Worldwide will release fourth-quarter financial results Feb.

The number of people killed in accidents involving heavy trucks declined 12 percent in 2008, the latest year for which complete figures are available.

Arkansas Best will take a $64 million charge in the fourth quarter because of impairment to the value of goodwill at its less-than-truckload subsidiary, ABF Freight System.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters urged federal regulators at a hearing to scrap a regulation that increased the number of hours truckers can drive.

The American Trucking Associations wants federal regulators to add more flexibility to truck driver hours of service rules, but not to cut the daily driving limit of 11 hours (

Diesel prices slipped back nine-tenths of a cent last week after a three-week surge. The national retail average fell from $2.879 to $2.87 per gallon as of Jan.

Truckload pricing must rise alongside freight volume as capacity tightens and higher costs bear down on truckload carriers, says veteran trucking executive Pat Quinn.

In terms of freight volume, truckload carriers are doing better than many analysts expected in early 2010, thanks to a strong finish to 2009.

The head of the Transportation Intermediaries Association says the group could accept a 10-fold increase in bonds required for licensed freight brokers in exchange for stronger regulation of the licen

UPS is adding 245 new delivery trucks powered by compressed natural gas to its fleet in Colorado and California, expanding its use of CNG vehicles more than 20 percent.

YRC Worldwide regional subsidiary Holland reduced transit times on cross-border lanes linking Toronto and the U.S. Midwest, cutting a day from transit times in some lanes.

The American Trucking Associations is suing the Department of Transportation in an attempt to force it to declare what supporting documents trucking companies must keep to prove their employees comply

Con-way Freight is speeding service by a full day in some lanes by cutting transit times to 460 U.S. destinations.

Flatbed trucking has been flatlining.

When heavy snows and frigid weather hit much of the nation in the first two weeks of the year, several states lifted weight restrictions on trucks, some to help endangered crops to get to market and o

Universal Truckload Services rolled out of 2009 with three new subsidiaries acquired in December -- a truckload carrier, a freight forwarder and a logistics operator.

FedEx Freight will raise its base rates 5.9 percent Feb. 1, signaling its retreat from a less-than-truckload price war that cut into profits in the second half of last year.

Trucking's spot market shot up 11 percent in December from November as freight volumes more than doubled year-over-year, according to TransCore.

YRC Worldwide is engaging its competitors -- and the media -- in a fierce battle for freight and customer confidence after squelching fears of a near-term bankruptcy.

Production of heavy trucks will increase 22 percent in the first quarter, as manufacturers work to fulfill the last orders placed by truckers in 2009, ACT Research says.

Arrow Trucking, which stranded hundreds of drivdrs in an abrupt shutdown Christmas week and filed for bankruptcy protection in the face of a series of lawsuits, relaunched its Web site with a call to

Arrow Trucking, the flatbed carrier that suddenly closed just before Christmas, entered bankruptcy amid a welter of lawsuits and allegations of fraud from one of its lenders.

Roadrunner Transportation Services this month closed on the acquisition of Bullet Freight Systems.

The average retail price of diesel fuel soared 8.2 cents last week to a 13-month high of $2.879 per gallon, according to figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

In what may be the first acquisition in trucking of 2010, Henderson Transport, a truckload carrier in Bensenville, Ill., bought Towns Transportation, Birmingham, Ala.

Daimler Trucks North America, Navistar and Cummins received more than $100 million in federal grants Monday to improve the fuel mileage of heavy-duty trucks.

The economic recovery may turn out to be crueler than the recession for trucking companies battered by the worst downturn in decades.

YRC Worldwide clinched a deal with reluctant bondholders last month with a lot of help from its good friends, the Teamsters.

Forget Times Square.

U.S. rail and water transport jobs edged up slightly in December, but the larger trucking and air sectors continued to cut back.

If any segment of the trucking industry were naturally resistant to recession, it would be food hauling and refrigerated transport.

Trucking executives rolled into 2010 hoping business, if not much better, would not be any worse than in 2009. But they aren’t expecting much of a boost early in the year.

Truckload demand gained strength in early 2010, with little sign of a post-holiday downturn, according to Morgan Stanley.