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Dave Osiecki, executive vice president and chief of national advocacy for the American Trucking Assn., will discuss the future of the U.S. trucking industry as keynote speaker at next month’s Logistics Workshop sponsored by Furniture/Today and the American Home Furnishings Alliance.
The workshop, themed "Building Tomorrow’s Supply Chain Today," is set for June 2-3 at Hilton University Place in Charlotte, N.C. Learn More... APICS and American Society of Transportation and Logistics (AST&L) announced today that the boards of directors of both organizations have approved an agreement under which AST&L will merge with APICS upon ratification by an AST&L member vote.
"AST&L has respected credentials, robust industry content, a network of subject matter experts, and our organizations have worked together for years. We are enhancing our capabilities to address two of the most important topics in the global economy today ─ developing supply chain talent and elevating supply chain performance." The merger will expand, extend and deepen the end-to-end supply chain body of knowledge that fuels APICS’s global supply chain research, education and certification programs. Together, APICS and AST&L will offer unmatched content and subject matter expertise that will enable individuals and organizations to meet key supply chain and logistics challenges. Learn More... At its annual Safety & Security Division Annual Meeting on May 4 in Charlotte, NC, the Truckload Carriers Association (TCA) presented the 2015 Clare C. Casey Award to Dean Newell, vice president of safety and training for Maverick Transportation. The award is given to a safety professional whose actions and achievements have had a profound and positive benefit or contribution to better safety on our highways, TCA said.
According to TCA, Newell has been employed by Maverick Transportation for more than 30 years. He began as a professional truck driver and then held positions in recruiting, driver services and safety. Today, he manages a fleet of more than 1,400 tractors and 2,000 trailers as well as oversees eight terminal/facility locations and eight on-site loading and securement locations that employ more than 1,500 people. He continually seeks to develop new initiatives to address the ever-changing safety and driver training needs of the company, TCA said. Learn More... 
Even with Interstate 94 potholes the size of Big Ten linebackers, Michigan voters declared decisively they do not want to endure an increase in the sales tax to pay for much-needed repairs to battered roads and bridges.
It probably was a tactical error by state leaders to use the broad-based sales tax to finance highways. Diesel and gasoline taxes are more tightly linked to road usage and therefore would have made a better, more logical target, but a coalition of political interests could not reach agreement on such a proposal. Still, with "no" votes outstripping the "yes" count by a 4-1 ratio, a fuel-tax proposal might not have made it into effect either. Learn More... American Fast Freight Inc., a logistics and trucking operator, announced the acquisition of Caribbean Shipping Services Inc. to expand in the U.S.-Puerto Rico ocean shipping market.
Terms weren’t announced by American Fast Freight, which specializes in managing ocean freight shipments among the U.S. mainland and offshore points such as Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. The announcement did say that Paul Robbins, chairman of Jacksonville, Florida-based Caribbean, will remain head of that company with the title of president. Learn More... One recent morning, Ivan Sandul, a 28-year-old truck driver from Sacramento, Calif., found himself wishing there was an app to make his job easier.
After driving a load of machine parts more than 3,000 miles from California and dropping it off in Canada, he was up at dawn, working the phone from a parking spot in upstate New York, trying to find a load to help begin paying the cost of his return trip home. On his fifth call, he found a freight broker looking for a driver to haul a load of metal from a nearby recycling plant to Ohio. "I said, ‘I’ll take it. I’m not going to wait any longer,’" Mr. Sandul said. "’I have to get moving.’" Learn More... 
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is urging state lawmakers in the final weeks of this year's legislative session to pass his version of a bill that would ensure transportation revenues are spent only on transportation projects.
The Democratic governor said creating a so-called lockbox for transportation revenues is the first step toward overhauling Connecticut's transportation system. Malloy has proposed spending $100 billion over 30 years to rehabilitate and improve the state's transportation system, including highways, bridges and rail. "This issue has kicked around for a long time," Malloy told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "I think we need to resolve it." Learn More... This spring, both the Indiana Motor Trucking Association (IMTA) and the Illinois Trucking Association (ITA) hosted summits to recognize fleets for excellence in safety management.
Gordon Trucking Inc., headquartered in Pacific, Wash. won the Fleet Safety Awards for the large fleet divisions in both Illinois and Indiana. "We are honored to be recognized by the IMTA and ITA for our commitment to safe operation," says Brett Terchila, vice president of operations for Gordon Trucking Inc., eastern region. "This recognition is the result of a safety culture created by our organization working together to place safety at the forefront of everything we do. We owe thanks to our driving associates for their continued professionalism and commitment to our core values of safety, service and sustainability." In 2015, Gordon Trucking has received state safety awards in Indiana, Illinois, Oregon and California and expects to receive several more this year. Learn More... 
MOUNT HOLLY — Daimler Trucks North America says it will add more than 600 jobs to its Freightliner plant in Gaston County.
The Charlotte Observer reported that the company plans to add a third shift at its plant in Mount Holly over the next three months. The company plans to add 580 manufacturing jobs and 26 supervisor, engineering or administrative positions. The Mount Holly plant makes Freightliner medium-duty and severe-duty trucks. The new jobs will pay an average of nearly $15 per hour. Learn More... Want to save some loonies?
You can, and in a big way, according to a new study from the North American Council for Freight Efficiency (NACFE), a group that aims to double the efficiency of the continent’s trucking fleet. Its Annual Fleet Fuel Study of more than 53,000 tractors and 160,000 trailers, operated by 14 fleets, achieved fuel savings of U.S.$477 million in 2014 by adopting a variety of fuel efficiency technologies. It found such improvements save U.S.$9,000 per year per truck, with an estimated payback period of two and a half years while reducing their carbon emissions by 19%. This year’s study also discovered the adoption of fuel-saving technologies had increased from 18% in 2003 to 42% in 2014. As a result, the 14 fleets have achieved 7.0 mpg on average for all their trucks, while their 2015-model-year trucks have reached as high as 8.5 mpg. That is well above the national average of 5.9 mpg, reported by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration. Learn More... 
Attendees of the recent 2015 Green Transportation Summit and Expo in Portland, Ore., had a chance to take a variety of alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs) for a spin at the Portland International Raceway during the conference's Performance Ride and Drive event. It was a great opportunity for fleet managers looking to expand their use of AFVs to see the latest technologies and kick some tires before making a major buying decision.
Tim D'Alessandro of Rogue Valley Transportation District in Oregon checked out a propane-fueled Blue Bird Vision school bus, which is powered by the Ford 6.8-liter engine and uses ROUSH CleanTech's autogas fuel system. Eighty percent of D'Alessandro's current fleet runs on CNG, but he's considering a move to propane for an upcoming purchase of 23 paratransit vehicles. Learn More... The latest bad news from the Bay Bridge’s new span is that one of the steel rods anchoring the tower has failed an important test of its integrity, increasing the possibility that hundreds of other rods are in danger of cracking. Nearly all 424 of the tower’s high-strength rods, which provide additional seismic protection, sat in water for a long period of time, exposing them to the possibility of corrosion.
Though state officials continue to insist that the bridge is perfectly safe, U.S. Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, is calling for a smart and simple solution: bringing in an independent expert review. "The governor should ask the Department of Transportation to do an audit," DeSaulnier said in a meeting with The Chronicle editorial board this week. Learn More... 
As many expected, Gov. Nathan Deal has appointed state Rep. Jay Roberts, R-Ocilla, as planning director of the Georgia Department of Transportation — essentially, the governor’s man in the all-important but otherwise independent agency.
As chairman of the House Transportation Committee, Roberts was the lead sponsor on HB 170, the $900 million-a-year transportation funding bill recently signed by Deal. From the press release: "Rep. Roberts is a subject matter expert and a statewide leader on transportation issues," Deal said. "He’s earned the trust of his colleagues on the two transportation committees, and I look forward to their confirmation of his nomination." Learn More... In a world where your everyday needs can be met with the swipe of a plastic card or an automatic withdrawal from your bank account, it can be difficult to figure out where all of your money goes. That can lead to serious problems – not the least of which is our nation's troubling retirement-savings shortfall.
But data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics' annual Consumer Expenditure Survey gives a clearer picture of where our nation as a whole spends its money. On average, an American household spends $140 per day on eight broad categories. Learn More... |
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