Trucking News

Noteworthy news bullets we thought you’d enjoy

• ISM reports solid February manufacturing output (source: Logistics Management)
  • New orders, commonly referred to as the engine that drives manufacturing, saw a 3.8% increase from January, climbing to 61.7. This represented growth for the 21^st consecutive month.

• The ‘Amazon effect’: Is long haul trucking fading away? (source: Over Drive)
  • Today’s owner-operators show a preference for hauls between 250 – 450 miles, a trip that can be completed in a day (sometimes with return included).
  • From there, the shorter 1 – 100 mile run is preferred, and the lengthier hauls greater than 1,000 miles are ranked last in preference.

• Class 8 Sales in February down 2.9% compared to February of 2021 (source: Transport Topics)
  • Class 8 U.S. retail sales in January were 14,916 compared with 15,369 a year earlier.

• Diesel Adds to Record High, Hitting $5.25 a Gallon (source: Transport Topics)
  • Trucking’s main fuel has surged $1.146 in just the past two weeks.
  • The biggest increase was in California where the price rose $0.505 up to $6.264 a gallon.

• POLA and POLB each set new January volume records (source: Logistics Management)
  • Total January POLA volume – at 865,595 TEU (Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units) – were up 3.6% annually, marking the highest volume January in the Port of Los Angeles’s 115 years of operation.

• DOT vulnerability report highlights truck driver pay and ocean shipping reform (source: Freight Waves)
  • Requiring employers to pay truck drivers overtime and supporting legislation boosting shippers’ leverage against ocean carriers are among 62 policy recommendations in a 140-page supply chain vulnerability report the Biden administration unveiled.

• Higher rates lead to unprecedented US LTL revenue gains (source: The Journal of Commerce)
  • Pricing discipline by carriers and increased volumes of international freight and e-commerce led to a 20.4% expansion of the US LTL market in 2021.
  • Total LTL revenue was $50.7 billion in 2021. In 2016, total revenue was $34.9 billion.

• U.S. bound shipments and TEU see sequential declines and annual gains for February (source: Logistics Management)
  • Total February U.S.-bound containerized freight imports – at 2,528,809 TEU – were down 5.5% compared to January and up 6.9% year over year.

• Supply chains top CFO business risk concerns (source: Supply Chain Dive)
  • Supply chain disruptions pose the biggest business risk this year, cited 84% of CFOs in a BDO survey of 600 finance leaders at companies with annual sales of between $500 million and $3 billion.
  • Talent shortages and the potential for tax law changes are other top risks. COVID-19, on the other hand is receding as a priority, although the increase of remote work has heightened cyber security risks.