Loaded and Rolling

FMCSA Clearinghouse Phase 2 enforcement may impact about 179,000 CDL holders who are in prohibited status for a drug or alcohol violation.

In the wake of the 2024 presidential election, trucking industry groups see new opportunities to change the regulatory and legislative landscape.

A recent FMCSA-sponsored study looking at the impacts of pay and working conditions on long-distance truck and bus drivers also calls into question claims of a persistent driver shortage.

ATA economist Bob Costello cites macroeconomic “return to normalcy” as a promising sign for trucking amid stagflation and private fleet growth.

ATRI’s 2024 “Critical Issues in the Trucking Industry” report saw truck parking dominate driver concerns, while motor carriers worry more about the economy.

Recent research by MIT examines how market dynamics and relationships impact contract performance.

ACT Research and FTR Transportation Intelligence reported strong September Class 8 net orders as OEM order books open up for next year.

On a recent episode of Loaded and Rolling, Matt Leffler, the Armchair Attorney, spoke about the explosion in nuclear verdicts impacting trucking.

A recent FTR Transportation Intelligence conference highlighted continued poor freight market conditions that are forcing fleets to do more with less.

ATRI’s recently released study on the costs and impacts of driver detention found detention times exceeded four hours in 4.9% of stops.

A recent ATA Driver Compensation Study shows median truckload driver salaries are up 10% in two years despite the poor freight market.

In this edition: CDL training programs get grants, autonomous trucking faces a setback and Motive releases its August economic study.

While repairs for accidents grow costlier every year, fleets running Ex-Guard have seen as much as an 80% decrease in towable accidents.

A recent survey by the National Private Truck Council highlighted the growth of private fleets in size, volume and freight value.

Crete Carrier highlighted positive trends in holiday and retail demand as customers stage shipments for Halloween and Christmas.

J.B. Hunt announced the completion of 50,000 autonomous long-haul trucking miles in a collaboration with autonomous trucking company Kodiak Robotics and Bridgestone Americas.

Werner’s Q2 earnings saw worsening financial conditions but improving freight market conditions and signs of capacity tightening.

Heartland Express’ Q2 earnings saw a net loss of $3.5 million as it works to improve its operating ratio and profitability

Recent data by Motive suggests the freight recession is closer to an end as more robust June restocking spurs higher July retail sales.

The FMCSA recently delayed rulemaking on truck speed limiters, pre-2000 engine ELD mandates and automatic emergency braking systems to 2025.

ATRI has released a June update to its operational cost of trucking report, which saw significant increases in insurance premiums and truck and trailer payments during 2023.

OOIDA and other industry groups are suing over the EPA Phase 3 final rule on greenhouse gas emissions standards for heavy-duty vehicles.

The FMCSA plans an online survey to determine driver seat belt usage after recent data shows an increase in fatalities from unrestrained drivers.

Trucker Path released its annual Highest-Rated Major US Trucking Corridors results. The I-90, I-5 and I-44 corridors took top spots in parking availability, truck stop ratings and fuel prices.

Overdrive recently surveyed owner-operators about their views on who is hauling cheap freight.

A recent Flock Freight survey reports 43% of truckload orders were partially empty, highlighting ongoing challenges for trailer space utilization.

Recent reports from Ryder System and Knight-Swift highlight significant total cost of ownership and poor range for electric trucks.

CVSA International Roadcheck is Tuesday through Thursday. Its focus is on tractor protection systems in addition to alcohol and controlled substance possession.

LTL executives highlight shippers moving spillover LTL freight to full truckload amid market weakness and low rates.

Todd Spencer, president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, highlights regulatory challenges at the FreightWaves Small Fleet & Owner-Operator Summit.

J.B. Hunt and Knight-Swift reported higher pressure from customers to cut contracted rates in Q1 bids in an effort to extend savings before the market’s eventual turnaround.

Motive, a telematics, technology and fleet management platform, announced new AI-powered products and telematics hardware at the inaugural Vision 24 Motive Innovation Summit.

Phase 3 greenhouse gas emission standards for heavy-duty vehicles covering model years 2027 through 2032 mandate more zero-emission commercial vehicles.

Ahead of Q1 earnings reports, analysts are adjusting their earnings expectations for truckload companies as excess capacity continues to weigh down pricing and margins.

GP Transco is installing solar panels on its entire fleet of around 600 trucks after testing the tech on 10 trucks over a six-month period. The company says the technology will save around $1,700 per tractor per year.

Excess truckload capacity continues to push down rates and change shipper behaviors to a more transactional approach.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appears poised to sign legislation that addresses predatory towing fees aimed at trucking companies.

Knight-Swift President and CEO David Jackson stepped down Tuesday after a nearly 24-year tenure at the company that saw many mergers and acquisitions, including an expansion into the LTL market.

Charles Gracey of Hot Seat Services says recruitment can be difficult even in the best of circumstances, with only a tiny fraction of applicants getting an offer and successfully completing orientation.

Canadian transport and logistics provider TFI International plans to spin off Daseke as a separate company sometime in 2025.

Werner recorded a Q4 earnings miss as low rates, excess capacity and lower truckload demand weigh down its one-way truckload business. Dedicated remained a bright spot with management looking to grow in the coming months.

Insurance woes weigh down Knight-Swift earnings. Reading tea leaves with Covenant Logistics’ Q4 results; evolution of cybersecurity in the supply chain with Antwan Banks

On Wednesday, autonomous trucking startup TuSimple went private after voluntarily delisting from Nasdaq following two years of stock and boardroom drama. FreightWaves’ Alan Adler writes, “TuSimple was the first autonomous trucking company to demonstrate driverless operations on an open highway. One of its trucks traveled 80 miles with no human on board from Tucson, Arizona, to Phoenix in December 2021.”

The freight recession may ease earlier than expected, according to recent comments from Morgan Stanley analyst Ravi Shanker. In a call to clients on Monday, Shanker said, “Shippers continue to remain on reorder ‘strike’ while they wait for stronger signals or more favorable conditions on macro but while destocking at the same time, which could lead to everyone wanting to restock at the same time, when the coast clears (or they run out of inventory).”

In December, a federal appeals court ruled that company team drivers’ time spent in sleeper berths after eight hours can be compensated under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The case involved a former CRST trainee who sued CRST in 2016 alleging that the team-based driver training program violated the FLSA based on the carrier’s compensation policy.

The National Transportation Institute (NTI) recently released Q4 2023 driver pay data that shows driver earnings continue to climb in spite of the freight market undergoing a correction. Drivers’ base mileage pay brackets saw a shift, with the 40-to-50-cents-per-mile pay bracket falling 5.2% year over year as fleets raised wages to attract and retain drivers. The 50-to-60-cents-per-mile bracket saw a 6.1% y/y increase.

A report released Monday by the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) examines the costs and potential impacts associated with California’s push for zero-emission vehicles. This report is a companion to a December 2022 ATRI report titled “Charging Infrastructure Challenges for the U.S. Electric Vehicle Fleet.

On Wednesday, FreightWaves hosted the Domestic Supply Chain Summit, a virtual event with RXO Chief Strategy Officer Jared Weisfeld as the keynote speaker. The interview, conducted by enterprise trucking carrier expert Thomas Wasson, included an outlook for 2024 and highlighted the biggest supply chain challenges and opportunities.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration on Monday published a notice in the Federal Register that the state of Florida is seeking an exemption to the CDL testing regulation pertaining to skills testing.

On Wednesday the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) released a report that examined causes and impacts of predatory heavy-duty towing. The report defined predatory towing in which “a T&R [towing and recovery] company egregiously overcharges, illegally seizes assets, damages assets by use of improper equipment, or illegitimately withholds release of a truck, trailer, and/or cargo.”

FreightWaves’ Rachel Premack wrote an article on Wednesday outlining her experience attending a truck driver training conference in Corpus Christi, Texas, by the National Association of Publicly-Funded Truck Driving Schools (NAPFTDS). Premack sought to get more information on a fundamental disagreement in trucking that involves driver turnover and whether there is an ongoing driver shortage.

The changing freight media landscape was on full display at the F3: Future of Freight Festival last week in Chattanooga Tennessee, as influencers, salespeople, presenters and executives intermingled during and after the events.

On Thursday FreightWaves presented the FreightTech 25 awards, which were chosen independently by a panel of CEOs, industry leaders, academics and investors who scored the companies. Chattanooga, Tennessee-based accounting and auditing firm HHM administered the vote. The awards recognize the most innovative and disruptive companies in the freight technology sector.

The Convoy saga has taken another turn as venture-backed freight forwarder Flexport announced Wednesday that it has acquired Convoy’s technology stack for an undisclosed sum. This comes after Convoy, which was valued at $3.8 billion from its final funding round 18 months ago, shuttered operations on Oct. 19.

On Wednesday the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) released its latest Cost of Congestion study showing U.S. highway traffic congestion added $94.6 billion in costs to the trucking industry.

Seattle-based digital freight broker Convoy on Wednesday canceled all shipments from its marketplace and company representatives promised more details of a business transition were forthcoming. By Thursday, company employees were told in a meeting that Convoy was “closing down its core business operations.”

A Q3 shipper survey by Morgan Stanley suggests the freight industry has moved “deeper into limbo” as completion of an excess inventory purge now leads to uncertainty as there is no immediate need to restock.

FreightWaves on Tuesday interviewed Angela Acocella, postdoctoral researcher at Tilburg University and researcher with the MIT Center of Transportation and Logistics looking at the impact of ghost lanes on shipper and carrier networks.

Confusion erupted on Monday following reports that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration was looking to set a 68 mph maximum speed setting for trucks newer than the 2003 model year.

A report published Tuesday by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) must make its complaint database more transparent and publicly available.

At a Morgan Stanley investor conference Tuesday, trucking executives predicted a muted peak season after acknowledging the industry is in the midst bottom of the freight cycle while hoping for some improvement in 2024.

Outbound tender volumes will continue to rise out of Texas; spot rates expected to remain around $2.30 per mile

In an article published Tuesday, FreightWaves CEO and founder Craig Fuller made a case that the trucking industry is not consolidating anytime soon.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration on Wednesday released parameters on data collection for a new study to determine the impact of detention time on drivers. The Information Collection Request (ICR) was submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and approval and opened the window for public comments.

On Thursday, self-driving trucking company Kodiak Robotics and Pilot Co. opened their first truckport for autonomous vehicles at the Pilot Travel Center in Villa Rica, Georgia. According to the news release, the truckport will be used by Kodiak to launch and land its autonomous trucks and serve as a hub for drivers to pick and drop off loads for first- and last-mile deliveries.

Proposed rulemaking on automatic emergency braking (AEB) introduced in June by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is getting more pushback from a coalition of state law enforcement officials and brake manufacturers that argue more dialogue is needed before moving forward.

Media outlet TMZ reported that singer-songwriter Taylor Swift gave each truck driver who worked as part of her Eras Tour a bonus check of $100,000 before her Santa Clara, California, show last Saturday.

The saga of less-than-truckload carrier Yellow may be coming to a close based on reporting that Yellow’s senior vice president of sales told staff their last day would be this Friday, and that the carrier would file for bankruptcy on Monday.

Truckload and multimodal carrier J.B. Hunt told analysts on an earnings call Tuesday that it’s still too early to tell how the 2023 peak season for freight will turn out.

The first meeting of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Truck Leasing Task Force (TLTF) discussed and drafted recommendations on Tuesday regarding limiting or eliminating the power a trucking company has over lease purchase agreements with drivers.

The freight recession’s impact on small fleets and owner-operators gained mainstream media attention on Monday with an article by Shannon Pettypiece, a senior policy reporter for NBC News. The article related the story of Arnesha Barron, a 39-year-old driver who in 2021 became an owner-operator after working at a trucking company for six years.

Negotiations between the Teamsters union and Yellow Corp. remain ongoing, with the fate of the nation’s third-largest LTL carrier hanging in the balance. Yellow is facing stiff resistance from the Teamsters over proposed operational changes that would consolidate operations between purchased regional carriers New Penn and Holland and integrate them into Yellow’s nationwide network.

Consulting firm Kearney recently released its 34th annual Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) report, “State of Logistics 2023: The Great Reset.” A major theme of the report is the great rebalancing from the carrier-dominated market of the past two years to a shipper-focused one as freight volumes fell against a backdrop of higher truckload capacity. The report notes that total U.S. logistics costs rose 19.6% in 2022 to a record $2.3 trillion or 9.1% of U.S. gross domestic product.

A proposal by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to alter and expand reporting categories for crashes is drawing criticism from the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, which argues the FMCSA should take stronger action to protect driver safety records.

At the recent UBS Global Industrial and Transportation Conference, Heartland CEO Mike Gerdin and Vice President of Finance Josh Helmich highlighted freight market weakness and outlined the retention impact of their driver minimum pay program.

Using the California Advanced Clean Trucks (ACT) rule, the Biden administration’s proposed Phase 3 truck rule sees the EPA potentially imposing stricter standards on carbon dioxide emissions for truck makers and buyers.

On Wednesday, FreightWaves founder and CEO Craig Fuller sat down with Zach Strickland, FreightWaves’ head of freight market intelligence, to discuss freight market conditions and expectations.

Load board fraud is gaining attention after The Wall Street Journal reported Truckstop, a leading load board provider, found reports of fraud increased 400% from Q4 2021 to Q4 2022, the highest level since 2004, when it began tracking the data. This article prompted Craig Fuller, CEO and founder of FreightWaves, to write an article on Tuesday arguing for massive load board providers to take greater responsibility for instances of fraud that take place on their platforms.

The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) is holding its annual International Roadcheck next Tuesday through Thursday.

SONAR ocean container booking data suggests that the predicted freight rebound in the second half of 2023 may be increasingly unlikely. Import and ocean container booking data is typically used as a leading indicator for future truckload volumes, as containers are offloaded in ports and transferred into intermodal or truckload orders.

The demand for skilled technicians to keep shops and maintenance terminals running continues to challenge recruiters due to high demand. A major source of lost utilization for fleets on the road is getting their vehicles repaired in a timely manner. A lack of technicians continues to plague shops, creating extra downtime and work order backlogs.

Earnings season is upon us and the freight recession lingers worse than salmonella-carrying potato salad at a tailgate party. Wisconsin-based truckload carrier Martin Transport reported its Q1 2023 earnings Tuesday. While operating revenue improved 3.7% from $287.3 million in Q1 2022 to $298 million this year, the actual operating income declined from $35.9 million to $29 million.

Trucking safety advocates are at odds with corporate-backed attempts at implementing a roadside safety exemption for autonomous trucks. For those unaware, current regulations require drivers to use three emergency reflective triangles, or at least six fusees or three liquid-burning road flares, if they stop on the road for reasons other than traffic.

It has been just over a year since Craig Fuller, CEO and founder of FreightWaves, wrote an article titled “Why I believe a freight recession is imminent,” published March 31, 2022, in which he predicted the U.S. trucking market was heading toward a significant downturn.

Rachel Premack, editorial director at FreightWaves, was interviewed Tuesday about her article on the impact of the ELD mandate five years later.

Last month, CloudTrucks surveyed 1,000 U.S. adults about general perceptions of truck drivers and if they have heard of the truck parking shortage. The results, published in CloudTrucks’ 2023 Truck Parking Shortage Survey, highlight that while Americans generally have a positive view of truck drivers, most respondents didn’t know that the parking shortage had a major impact on their quality of life.

A plan to allow 18-to-20-year-old truck drivers to haul interstate cargo got a sharp rebuttal at the Truckload Carriers Association (TCA) conference by Knight-Swift President and CEO David Jackson. The plan was conceived as a way to address the driver shortage and is strongly supported by the Biden administration and the American Trucking Associations (ATA).

Falling spot rates, falling contract rates and falling revenues create rising stress and blood pressure in truckload operations teams.

On Tuesday, FreightWaves Research released survey data suggesting declining freight conditions are impacting owner-operators especially hard. An important takeaway is the potential for many more owner-operators to leave the industry if conditions do not improve.

On Thursday, according to a news release, BP Products North America Inc., a subsidiary of BP, reached an agreement to purchase TravelCenters of America for $1.3 billion in cash. The purchase of TA is expected to add around 280 travel centers and double BP’s global convenience gross margin.

FreightWaves’ Noi Mahoney reports that, according to CargoNet data, a surge in cargo thefts near the end of 2022 led to an estimated $223 million in goods being stolen across Canada and the U.S. 

Christopher Thornycroft, executive vice president at Redwood, joined us to talk about the Lunar New Year and what it means for freight demand. For those unaware, the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday began Jan. 22 and typically lasts two weeks. This year, it will end with the Lantern Festival on Sunday.

A report published Wednesday by Morgan Stanley Research highlights demand expectations and how carriers and brokers are hungry for freight.

Josh Smith, vice president at Variant and over-the-road operations at U.S. Xpress, spoke to FreightWaves about the Variant program and how technology and operations are vital to success in trucking.

On Tuesday, FreightWaves interviewed Werner Chief Information Officer Daragh Mahon about the company’s recent partnership with Samsara, diving into how AI and updated legacy systems are transforming Werner’s 8,500-truck fleet. 

A Republican-backed bill introduced by U.S. Rep Brian Mast, R-Fla., seeks to exempt underage truck drivers from rules that prohibit them from hauling containers to and from marine terminals.

Wabash and J.B. Hunt Transport have signed a multiyear deal that will supply J.B. Hunt with 15,000 trailers. The size and scope of the pact are significant, as the past two years saw pandemic-related supply chain disruptions throttle up new trailer orders, causing the average age of existing trailers to rise.

On Tuesday, FreightWaves interviewed Josh Bouk, president of Trax Technologies, about the recent Securities and Exchange Commission rule-making recommendation back in March 2022 regarding scope 3 emissions. Scope 3 is a part of a larger greenhouse gas emissions overhaul by the SEC, the intent being for companies to disclose their impact on the environment.

Bob Biesterfeld, president and CEO of C.H. Robinson Worldwide Inc., stepped down Tuesday. FreightWaves’ Mark Solomon wrote that according to a person familiar with the matter, this departure had been planned months in advance and mostly was a matter of timing. 

Persistently higher inventory levels are causing a drag on truckload tender volumes as 2023 begins. 2019 and 2018 SONAR data indicates we may approach levels of pre-pandemic seasonality, but higher truckload capacity will continue to negatively impact rates until enough truckload supply leaves the market.