News

UPS doesn’t want any hitchhikers on its cargo aircraft, especially pests like the Japanese beetle. Learn how the company thwarts them.

Walmart leverages ongoing supply chain investments to land a spot among the FreightWaves Shipper of Choice top 10.

JOKR, a 15-minute delivery platform that launched in New York last month and currently is in 10 cities globally, has raised $170 million in a Series A funding round.

Drought, gusty winds and dry thunderstorms will keep the risk of new wildfire development elevated in many Western states (forecast video included).

“Drayage is one of the biggest pain points for shippers right now,” said industry entrepreneur Andrew Leto.

Even as in-store retail sales return, e-commerce continues to grow, showing that 2020’s pandemic-induced spending spree was not a blip, but just a beginning.

J.B. Hunt Transport Services beat second-quarter expectations Monday. However, the back half of 2021 will depend on how well the railroads and shippers can improve their operations.

Hyzon Motors, the fuel cell electric truck maker, has $550 million to invest in production, R&D, and hydrogen making for trucks and buses.

American Trucking Associations announced Monday that Paul Enos has been named chairman of the ATA Trucking Association Executives Council.

Getting shippers to pay for drivers’ wait time could boost driver retention and improve safety, according to a trucking economics expert.

Twelve consecutive weeks of increases in the basis for fuel surcharge is countered by a big decline in commodity markets.

Company looks to take the lead in the cloud-based manufacturing and supply chain segment.

J.B. Hunt Transport Services reported better-than-expected second-quarter results Monday as the company saw double-digit revenue growth in all divisions when compared to the year-ago period, which contained widespread lockdowns from COVID protocols.

The Black Swan drones from Dronamics won’t be carrying little packages to someone’s doorsteps. They’re heavy-lift vehicles and DHL wants to flood Europe’s skies with them.

The ocean carrier said Monday that BNSF is reducing import traffic at the ports of LA and Long Beach, while inbound trains from New York area ocean terminals to three Midwestern destinations are also being monitored.

The order says tired drivers can’t be forced to work, but the definitions are vague.

Netradyne says it has been able to reduce distracted driving cases by 60% and improve following distance by 76%, leading to its global customers’ insurance claims dropping by 82%.

Prologis’ second-quarter results exceeded analysts’ expectations, and guidance moved higher as property rents are increasing at a record pace.

Loaded domestic intermodal container volume is now down on 10 of the 11 densest domestic intermodal lanes that originate in the U.S.

Convoy CEO Dan Lewis talks about the company’s sustainability initiatives in the first episode of the FreightWaves show Net Zero Carbon.

A British Airways plane fell on its face at Heathrow Airport. One ground engineer was too short to reach the landing gear housing, and his colleague put a pin to hold up the landing gear in the wrong place. Oops.

Uber will partner with national grocer Albertsons and 1,200 of its stores.

The current rule can get a person qualified in a year; the ATA proposal has no firm time span.

Heartland Express records its best consolidated operating ratio since its last acquisition was fully integrated.

The Federal Aviation Administration puts Transair on freeze because of safety concerns.

Companies will demand a full, scalable suite of services from their partners over the next few years, leading to widespread consolidation and the emergence of a handful of clear leaders with considerable market share.

TCA Profitability Program Retention Coach Ray Haight has spent most of its career in trucking. Here is why.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, progress toward sustainable supply chains has not slowed like experts predicted, according to a recent report.

Logistics real estate investment trust Prologis announced Monday that demand for space remains robust and that operations are the healthiest in its 38-year history. The company modestly beat expectations for the second quarter and raised its outlook for the rest of 2021.

Direct-to-consumer cannabis is slowly but surely making its way outside of California.

Smoke from Oregon’s Bootleg fire, and dozens of others in the West, could limit truckers’ visibility and produce poor air quality (forecast video included).

Knight-Swift’s acquisition highlights the LTL industry’s sweet spot in the e-commerce supply chain, says a noted consultant.

Nuclear materials couriers are well trained and armed for their job of transporting nuclear materials to sites across the U.S.

Borderlands is a weekly rundown of developments in the world of United States-Mexico cross-border trucking and trade. This week: Mexico facing severe shortage of truck drivers; Mexico creates new national customs agency; CBP expands Santa Teresa port of entry cargo capacity; and DHL Express to invest $360M in Americas infrastructure.

Intermodal volumes are down while tender rejections are up. The rails may be missing a huge growth opportunity, but is there anything they can do about it?

Flying horses exist beyond myths. Specialized aircraft are used to transport them around the world. Find out how hundreds are being flown to the Tokyo Olympics

J.B. Hunt shares sustainable environmental and social highlights for 2020, but the company’s only emission-reduction target relates to carbon intensity.

This week: Schneider donates to the American Red Cross to provide pandemic relief in India, ATA opens its online store earlier for National Driver Appreciation Week merch and the St. Christopher Fund holds its first art auction.

Despite epic container rates and hefty dry bulk profits, stocks fell by double digits over the past three weeks.

The container crisis continues and Steve Ferreira looks for relief.

The president of Panama, Laurentino Cortizo Cohen, visited Port Houston Thursday to celebrate five years since his country completed the expansion of the Panama Canal.

On this episode of The Stockout, Mike Baudendistellooks at how one company’s shares are falling in response to a public report.

Officials are hoping to reopen a section of Interstate 16 in Georgia on Friday after a truck damaged an overpass.

The Cuban government blames the U.S. economic embargo for its woes. The situation has worsened and authorities are allowing some cargo airlines to make flights to Havana.

project44 and Tive are off to the races with NASCAR, dash cam footage review, driver safety

California’s largest vertically integrated cannabis company now serves 60% of the state’s households.

Despite headwinds, KCS thinks it can still achieve double-digit revenue growth for 2021.

The main purpose of these agreements is preparation. Companies can revisit and revise an SLA that they find no longer serves them. If trouble comes when there is no SLA in place, however, resolving conflict can become difficult.

The two firms reach equity and operating agreements to expand their presence in the Indian market.

Labor talks with grocery chains Safeway and Fred Meyer went in different directions Thursday. Fred Meyer stores could soon see empty shelves.

Cleveron has developed a driving test to certify operators of remotely controlled last-mile delivery vehicles.

Supply chain bottlenecks are raising red flags for inflation down the road.

UP Partners is looking for transformative technology companies that will underpin a society dominated by unmanned aircraft.

Get the inside story of the monthslong investigation into a sophisticated double-brokering network on the latest episode of Long-Haul Crime Log, FreightWaves’ true-crime podcast.

Truck Talk is a weekly newsletter that offers perspective and context on news in the trucking industry.

We’re two weeks into the third quarter, a time when seasonal freight movement moderates ahead of the back-to-school season and the eventual peak holiday season. Thus far, the moderation simply hasn’t materialized.

The newly wrapped Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE, driven for Rick Ware Racing and sponsored by BYRD Racing, will showcase the two FreighTech companies for the NASCAR Cup Series midsummer installment.

Also on the podcast: A key agency reviews the outlook for the tight oil market.

The past week in images features a Georgia overpass dislodged by a truck, big rigs wrecked during a New Mexico dust storm and vehicles floating in Arizona floodwaters.

The $700 million fee to terminate a merger agreement with Canadian Pacific dented KCS’ second-quarter net income. But revenues were up 37% year-over-year.

A slow-moving system could flood some places this weekend from the Mississippi Valley to the East Coast (forecast video included).

In today’s edition, we highlight the fallout from K-Ratio’s closing of its fuel hedging program, Uber Freight’s expansion into the LTL space and more.

Container ships in the congestion-plagued trans-Pacific trade have stepped on the gas, with some vessels now topping 20 knots.

Matt Blois continues his conversations about resilient supply chains with two experts from Vizient.

Are you getting the most out of the people you talk to? Get some tips on gaining better content out of your experts on this episode of Cyberly.

The abrupt closure of K-Ratio’s fuel hedging program in late June has left trucking companies scrambling as they await answers from the Chicago-based company as to what happened and if they will recoup money owed to them since K-Ratio shuttered its fuel swap options platform.

Owner-operators see a downside to keeping FMCSA’s emergency hours-of-service order in place.

Truckload’s operating ratio was better but OR deteriorated for dedicated.

Makers of PPE and test kits are laying off hundreds of workers as the demand for their products drop.

The UAW casts a second vote, barely approving a new contract at Volvo Trucks North America. The same proposal was rejected six days earlier.

The USMCA has brought about new opportunities for cross-border trade. Is your organization taking advantage of these changes?

The FMCSA has agreed to make changes to improve its oversight of state driver’s license agencies.

Aurora Innovation gets a $10.6 billion enterprise value, the second highest of four autonomous driving software developers seeking to go public.

Even though there is no indication Tesla is interested in eVTOLs at this time, Morgan Stanley says the company will eventually offer services related to urban air mobility.

The seven-day suspension of service, starting on Sunday, is aimed at helping ocean carriers, UP and other stakeholders to catch up and relieve the congestion at West Coast ports and busy inland terminals, especially Chicago.

Delta Air Lines is seeing strong domestic travel demand, but cargo also helped the company move beyond breakeven in the second quarter.

The instability of a global pandemic made it clear that up-to-date technology is required to survive, not just thrive.

U.S. rail traffic was flat year-over-year as the July Fourth weekend impacted volume comparisons. Also, Northwestern University released a report describing how freight rail handled supply chain challenges over the past year.

“We will learn how our customers use the product, learn their pain points and inject those solutions into the product as we go, really changing the user experience.”

A 7-mile stretch of I-16 in Georgia has been shut down after a hopper dislodged an overpass Thursday.

Total June container volume was 292,627 TEUs, a 39% increase compared to the same month in 2020.

The United States’ resident delivery colossus could unveil a game-changing last-mile solution.

As employees return to the office, scammers are upping their efforts to scam companies and hack systems.

“We have to compete in a marketplace where my competitors don’t even have to be profitable.”

Officials say the Bootleg fire, the largest wildfire in the U.S. at more than 200,000 acres, may not be fully contained until the fall (forecast video included).

In today’s edition, we highlight the latest tech advances for autonomous trucks, an analysis for investing in the LTL market and more.

Hitachi ABB Power Systems Vice President Daniel Simounet talks about where opportunities might already exist to electrify freight rail — provided that the railroads, government and utilities are willing to collaborate together.

Temperature-controlled logistics real estate investment trust Lineage Logistics and venture capital firm 8VC have formed an alliance to invest in technology startups in the transportation and logistics industry.

“This collaboration brings us closer to another source of data and another way to look at last-mile problems.”

P.A.M. Transportation benefited from a tight truckload market in the second quarter to post record revenue and operating income.

Look behind soft June trailer orders for the real story of what’s happening in a constrained equipment market.

Wave of cargo delayed by COVID outbreak in Yantian, China, is starting to hit California’s already strained terminals.

Improving utilization of existing resources in a capacity-crunched market is a “game changer,” Locomation CEO Çetin Meriçli says.

The pandemic forced researchers to incorporate remote elements into clinical trials. Now, that’s becoming routine and logistics companies are stepping up to make it possible.

On today’s episode of WHAT THE TRUCK?!?, Dooner and The Dude are coming to you live from FreightWaves’ Autonomous & Electric Vehicles virtual event with a big lineup of the best in the AV/EV business.

The FAA is giving airlines until the end of the year to run passenger freighters with cargo on seats and other parts of the cabin where people normally travel.

The head of a key trucking group says the net impact of all the changes is a “chilling effect” on the use of independent contractors.

Truckers don’t have to get burned by summer heat waves if they and their carriers keep their cool and prepare.

“We’re investing in our supply chain at an unprecedented scale in order to optimize that process end-to-end.”

Grants and incentives will be needed to offset high front-end costs, Ryder EV executive says.