News

Borderlands is a weekly rundown of developments in the world of United States-Mexico cross-border trucking and trade. This week: Texas port begins $68M channel improvement project; U.S. authorizes entry of Jalisco avocados; Commodities Integrated Logistics Group expands in Pharr; and Texas CBP intercepts first-in-port pests in shipment of flowers.

This week: Loadsmart teams up with The Home Depot Foundation to support veterans, Ruan aids community after celebrating its 90th anniversary, and Walmart donates to nonprofits at the grand opening of a new e-commerce fulfillment center in Pennsylvania.

Container shipping spot rates continue to ease but are still many times higher than they were pre-pandemic.

Outbound tender city volume in the Detroit market has boomed over the summer with no signs of slowing in the second half of the year.

In the nine days since July began, OTRI fell 141 basis points (bps) to its lowest level in over two years: 6.7%. In the three days following that bottom, OTRI clawed back 50 bps. At present, however, it seems as though any upward momentum upon which it could have built has been lost.

President Joe Biden on Friday signed an executive order calling for a three-person board to investigate the issues behind the contract discord between the railroads and unions.

These five reverse logistics companies took the spotlight at The Lead Innovation Summit this week.

The supply side is in a “pencils down” mode as higher rates change ROI calculations.

AB5 protest organizer talks about the meaning behind the movement; would you let a robot handle your freight contracts and the key to driver onboarding on demand on WTT

The Canadian government says it will fund infrastructure projects in Saskatchewan and Ontario, as well as research into how the railways can respond to climate-induced events.

Yang Ming’s newest 11,000-TEU container ship will call the Port of Los Angeles on its maiden voyage.

Sam Stockdale discusses Link Logistics’ decarbonizing strategy for logistics infrastructure on FreightWavesTV’s Net-Zero Carbon.

While technology has a place in the evolution of transportation, not everything in the day-to-day operations should be replaced by it. Interpersonal relationships are essential and the foundation for success.

The Biden administration wants to speed an effort unveiled in March to create a first-time freight data exchange for U.S. container shipments.

Reliance Partners’ Brian Runnels says letting things slide can have deadly consequences.

Canadian trucking association says officials still need to iron out all the details for the ELD mandate scheduled to take effect Jan. 1.

“While this was not an easy decision to make, restructuring our organization keeps us on a path of success, provides the opportunity to improve efficiency and collaboration and allows us to better address the evolving needs of our customers,” said project44 founder and CEO Jett McCandless.

Drone delivery provider Zipline adds yet another health care company to its list of delivery partners.

Layoffs get the attention but plenty of electric transportation startups are still hiring. They are getting creative with fundraising, too.

“Oil and gas money is so embedded in many local budgets, it’s difficult to imagine a future without it,” a recent New York Times article said.

Insurance and risk management firm TT Club says “Book it right and pack it tight” provides guidance for preparing unitized consignments of dangerous goods for carriage by sea.

As inflation has taken hold, consumers have shifted buying habits, but data suggests those changes are happening in different ways across the country.

New guidance from the Federal Maritime Commission on disputing ocean carrier charges is considered a “landmark moment” by U.S. exporters.

Pennsylvania markets see a drop in volumes but a rise in rejections. Booking volumes for imported maritime volumes are down 11%.

Jennifer Rumsey grew up in Columbus, Indiana, where Cummins Inc. is based. Next month, she will become its first female CEO.

In this issue, AB5 port protests enter day 2; SoCal rail chaos; the wrong way to email drivers; heated seats as a service; and more.

AB5 fallout and freight labor unrest are adding to inflation fears, Republican lawmakers are told.

Drivers find the fleet camera system to be more of a wingman than a watchdog.

Ocean carrier HMM announced Thursday it will invest $7.5 billion over the next five years on ships, terminals and logistics facilities.

Railroad crews are facing “all-time low” morale. They could legally strike in July, worsening supply-chain congestion.

After a record year of freight demand in 2021, carriers playing in the spot market benefited from a blank check when naming rates. The federal stimulus enabled consumers to pay […]

The 1,158-acre Gulf Inland Logistics Park near Houston includes a switching railroad and has access to two Class I railroads and major highways.

Wing, the drone delivery arm of Alphabet, is laying out flight plans with an array of advanced aircraft prototypes.

Drayage provider ContainerPort Group has announced the addition of truck capacity in key port markets.

Axle Logistics has partnered with the University of Tennessee’s Haslam College of Business to turn out more well-trained, entry-level sales professionals.

Pilot Co. will build a public network of high-speed charging stations with General Motors to get ahead of electric vehicle charging demand.

KLLM Transport Services, one of the nation’s largest temperature-controlled carriers, on Thursday announced its acquisition of Quest Global.

While companies generally support the Securities and Exchange Commission’s goals of providing climate data to investors, they have apprehension about the burden the rules could place on small carriers.

Some California truckers turned off their trucks, blocked terminals or staged slow rolls to snarl traffic around the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach Wednesday to express frustration over a controversial state law, AB5, that seeks to limit the use of independent contractors and largely classify them as employee drivers.

Peak season imports are expected to remain strong but rail delays require ‘immediate’ attention, says Port of LA’s Gene Seroka.

June shipments data from Cass shows the fourth decline in six months from 2021 levels.

Higher amounts of loaded imports and empty export boxes contributed to a nearly 15% increase in volumes.

Members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen voted to strike if they deem it necessary as the unions and railroads fail to reach a contract agreement.

California’s trucking sector is looking at numerous ways to keep in compliance with AB5, but is doing so without specifics on what’s right and wrong.

Three of the U.S. Postal Service’s nonurgent delivery products will be brought under one umbrella.

WTT looks into an AB5 protest in SoCal; freight and economic outlook for Q3; new study says legal marijuana may lower rate of truck accidents and more

J.B. Hunt Transport Services said it will open a transload facility to serve Southern California’s ports. The move follows several other recent initiatives aimed at upping intermodal service.

Congress introduced a bill to protect the health of port communities and address climate and environmental justice issues.

Canada-based Shoreland Transport has acquired Connors Transfer Limited, increasing the company’s fleet to 258 trucks.

A new survey reports that manufacturers continue to adopt robots, but breakdowns continue to hamper production.

Bay Area-based Elroy Air just signed another agreement to deliver an order of its Chaparral aircraft.

From crude tankers to product carriers to dry cargo ships, the largest vessels are earning less than their smaller counterparts.

Some California truckers who move containers in and out of the marine terminals at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach plan to participate in a work stoppage Wednesday to protest a controversial state law, AB5.

Latam Cargo’s expanded freighter fleet has made it possible to open up extra dedicated service between Europe and the Americas.

Comments filed with the FMCSA underscore concerns over how the agency should regulate freight brokers and dispatchers.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration wants CSX to pay $121,200 total for workplace incidents that might have contributed to the December 2021 blast at the Curtis Bay Coal Terminal.

Canoo Inc. in May said its survival was iffy. With Walmart’s order of 4,500 electric delivery vehicles, the near term looks brighter.

The Atlanta market is beginning to boom again after experiencing a significant dip during the recent holiday.

XPO chooses RXO as the name of the soon-to-be-spun-off brokerage platform.

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling that limits the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to enforce regulations that aimed at reducing carbon emissions from power plants.

Mullen will deliver up to 600 electric cargo vans to DelPack Logistics, an Amazon Delivery Service Partner.

Trevor Milton is angling to use privileged conversations at the electric truck maker in his criminal defense, but Nikola is fighting back.

FarEye is rolling out the Last Mile Mandate this month, an effort to provide guidance to retailers seeking to succeed in the last mile.

Companies that want standard freighters from the pre-owned market are in a race to find suppliers. Raya Airways and ASL are in the door with their orders.

Work is underway to develop container-handling terminals in as many as five states along the Mississippi River.

The benchmark DOE/EIA diesel price was released on time for the first time in four weeks, and registered a more than 10-cent decline.

Import market share to LA and Long Beach remains high, but overall imports have decreased.

Southern California ports can’t evacuate import containers fast enough. The backlog has yet again reached critical levels.

Customers are eager to move products via rail once network congestion subsides, executives said during Greenbrier’s quarterly earnings call on Monday.

The air cargo market is down 8% to 9% in the past two months, but the decline is relative. 2022 is still shaping up well versus 2019, before the pandemic.

Prime Day 2022 begins Tuesday, but with slowing e-commerce growth, success might look different for Amazon this year.

The Biden administration’s proposed rule requiring new state-level tailpipe emissions performance measures sets dangerous precedents for infrastructure investment, according to road builders.

Using a combination of technology and proactive management, shippers can turn failed deliveries into happy customers.

Industrial outdoor storage sites continue to attract the attention of transportation providers and investors with deep pockets.

All Nippon Airways is partially changing a large order for Boeing’s upgraded 777 of the future to include a couple of cargo jets.

Borderlands is a weekly rundown of developments in the world of United States-Mexico cross-border trucking and trade. This week: Cargamos aims to revolutionize last-mile deliveries across Mexico; Pass Automotive to manufacture parts for Tesla in Mexico; speculative truck terminal under construction in Houston; and Posco International to build electric vehicle parts plant in Mexico.

This week: St. Christopher reaches a giving milestone and kicks off its Round Up Campaign with TA, the BTA announces a new board chairman and UPS holds its first Impact Summit.

AskWaves chats with an industry insider about the work the less-than-truckload industry is doing to close the automation gap.

Despite Slync.io CEO Chris Kirchner’s claims that the FreightTech company “has solved its liquidity issues,” former and current employees say they want him to make good on his promises and pay them for the two months of wages they are owed.

There were 125 container ships waiting offshore on Friday, including 36 off Savannah, 24 off Southern California and 20 each off Houston and New York.

Volumes fall and rejections rise, signifying that capacity is still tight following the Fourth of July.

Texas man gets 2 years in prison for selling $215K worth of fraudulent CDLs.

To date, drivers have completed 45,000 loads and have earned over $75 million using CloudTrucks’ solutions, according to co-founder and CEO Tobenna Arodiogbu.

Volume levels are depressed this week by Monday’s holiday. The national average rate of tender rejections sunk below 7% late in the week, but linehaul spot rates…

Nippon Express has launched a multimodal transport service for shipments from the U.S. and Canada to Asia via Mexico.

On demand on WTT: Marine autonomy as a service; the market for drivers; latest on port contracts and more

Home discount retailer Big Lots adds same-day delivery from 1,000 U.S. stores.

More consumers are engaging in daily online purchases, according to a new survey, with those living paycheck-to-paycheck among the most active.

Three days after nearly 450 employees, including 135 drivers, were laid off, Williston, Vermont-based LandAir’s management team and its private equity owners have yet to disclose what led to the decision.

Twin SPAC backer ArcLight Capital is investing $50 million in a truck-as-a-service business that handles Class 1-8 vehicles.

Truck transportation jobs recorded another increase in June, but the rate of growth was slower than recent months, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics report.

Three weeks’ worth of benchmark diesel prices have been published by the EIA as it gets past technical issues.

(UPDATED: Oct. 25, 2022 3:05 P.M. ET) Alabama’s Huntsville International Airport in the past year has attracted new air cargo services controlled by major global logistics companies, solidifying its reputation […]

Refrigerated volume out of the San Francisco area has begun to pick up just in time for summer peak season.

It’s probably poor planning rather than bad luck. Reliance Partners’ Brian Runnels says you shouldn’t be shocked to find no parking available if you waited until the last minute.

In the second quarter, new highs were set for Cosco profits, OOCL revenue per container, and Evergreen operating revenues.

NTI makes jobs more attractive through up-to-date market data.

Has CPG ingredient inflation peaked?  I can only speculate whether the recent pullback in commodity prices will continue, but with crude oil off its high, crop prices well off their […]

Beginning Thursday through July 17, hazmat haulers will be forbidden from traveling on Interstate 59/20 through downtown Birmingham, Alabama, as the World Games open.

With security breaches on the rise, companies across the industry realize that their current strategies are not doing enough to safeguard their systems, files and data.