Bulk Freight News & Industry Updates - Stay Ahead in Trucking

During July, we saw turndowns fall apart across the country (OTRI.USA). OTRI, the Outbound Tender Rejection Index, measures the rate at which loads tendered by shippers are being rejected by carriers. The turndown rate indicates the relative balance of trucking capacity and freight demand in a market. The chart below compares turndowns in Los Angeles (white line), Dallas (blue line), and Atlanta (green line), three of the most important freight hubs in the United States:

Route 285 is the formal designation for one of the main roads used to carry supplies to and from the oilfields of West Texas. Locals call it something else: Death Highway.

PIERRE | Lawyers for more than 20 farmers in eastern South Dakota who lost millions of dollars for unpaid grain want a state agency to become receiver for the failed seller.

https://new.bulkloads.com/forum/podcasts/listen/?podcast_id=2

More than 400 drivers have joined a federal lawsuit that claims a Sapulpa trucking company is violating California labor laws and the federal Fair Labor Standards Act by requiring drivers to work without compensation.

New research is underway regarding one of the transportation industrys most prevalent concerns: the lack of safe and available parking.

"Today, there are 150 posted bridges on state highways, and over 2,000 on county roads; out of that number, about 500 county road bridges are closed."

The industry historically reliant on older, white male drivers is facing a record shortage with an estimated 50,000 more drivers needed to meet demand, according to the American Trucking Associations. The lack of available drivers is rippling through the supply chain, causing a bottleneck of goods that is delaying deliveries and prompting some companies to increase prices.

Solar power technology is moving from the roofs of homes to the tops of semi-truck and trailer combinations. The North American Council for Freight Efficiency believes solar panels mounted on tractors trailers can generate enough electricity to help power heating and air conditioning systems, liftgate operation, refrigeration and telematics systems.

As has been noted numerous times before, the lifestyle of the truck driver is not for everyone. Once glamorized in movies and television shows, few kids now grow up wanting to be a truck driver, and that is contributing to the lack of drivers in the industry. Pay scale, time away from home, and other reasons contribute as well, but the ultimate point is that truck drivers are often alone and away from home

Iowa is one of 34 states that does not allow for automated vehicle platooning a budding technology that transportation officials say provides major benefits to the movement of freight.

NEW YORK Wall Street has given the agricultural sector a boost after Trump administration said it is preparing a plan that would send billions in aid to U.S. farmers hurt by tariffs. CF Industries Holding and Mosaic Company both traded up more than 3 percent earlier in the day but ended Tuesday with more modest gains. CF Industries finished up less than 1 percent, while Mosaic added 2.3 percent.

A 2010 survey by the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health showed that, on average, long-haul truck drivers work 50 percent more hours than typical workers and regularly violate U.S. regulations limiting commercial driver work hours for safety reasons.

After many requests our Rates & Analytics feature is now available. You can now do searches by origin to destination radius, equipment, commodity, dates and receive averages rates per mile and by ton for bulk truck freight loads. If you have any questions on this new tool contact us anytime at 800-518-9240 ext 2. Thank you!

New Jerseys Growtopia Farms has taken to unmanned aerial vehicles to improve Jersey Tomato growth, decrease cost, and maximize the overall business, according to NJ.com. Drones in agriculture are nothing new, but their implementation in this industry is certainly seeing rapid growth with each passing season.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Farmers in Texas and other areas experiencing drought are in dire need of hay supplies and dryland crops are burning up. Because of this, some grain farmers are abandoning their grain crops and baling them for cattle feed instead. It wasnt going to make grainwe decided this was the best way, says Stanton Koehn, a corn and soybean farmer from Mexey, Texas. In our area we arent set up to feed actual si

Carriers in the tank/bulk sector posted modest gains in revenue as firms dealt with positive and negative market trends. Higher prices slowed demand for fuel shipments, while increases in oil and gas drilling and production of petrochemicals boosted demand for tankers. A group of 23 carriers in the tank/bulk sector generated revenue of $4.8 billion in 2017, a gain of 3.3% from $4.7 billion

A trucker's refusal to drive a vehicle with a brake alert and a shimmy warrants back pay following his firing, a jury decides.

A jury verdict in a Texas court last week against an oil service company may have set the record for the largest civil penalty ever handed down in an accident involving a truck. The $101 million verdict exceeds by about $10 million a penalty assessed against Werner Enterprises earlier this year. At the time of the Werner decision, that was generally seen as one of the largest verd

The July trucking market has started off slow, at least compared to the peak volumes that we saw at the end of the second quarter. The gradual slow down in rejections is evidence that carriers are getting less selective in the freight market versus May and June. On April 1st, 25.4% of all load tenders in the market were being rejected by carriers. Rejections continued to fall until bottoming out in early May at 19.12% and then rapidlly ascending towards the peak on June 29 of 27%.

The insufficient number of truckers paired with the growing demand for freight transportation is pushing the industry into a substantial capacity crunch. By the end of 2017, there were around 50,000 unfilled positions for drivers across the U.S. Experts say that the shortage can reach 174,000 by 2026 if the trend continues.

By Kevin Barlow of The Pantagraph (TNS)

Gluts of corn, wheat and other crops are finally easing after years of oversupply, but prices have yet to meaningfully rebound.

The Trucking Alliance today issued a policy statement calling for the federal government to require ELDs in all CMVs regardless of commodity type or length of haul, and for state legislatures to require ELDs for all CMVs that operate exclusively within their borders.

Theres a side of the trucking industry most dont see. Look behind the hardened exterior and youll find a community of people dedicated to both their profession and their community. During the summer months, on any weekend youll find a truck show going on somewhere in the U.S. Drivers who work 60-hour weeks will often buy their own cleaning products, spend six to eight hours cleaning their rigs on their own time just so they can participate in community event

Russian Government officials have sent a warning to WA grain growers during the first day of CBHs international study tour, saying the country will overrun Australian grain in Asian markets once grain transport issues are rectified in the countrys south. More than 35 WA farmers met Government officials and Russian farmers union representatives on Monday, the first official day in a CBH study tour of the Krasnoda

For five of the last six years I have been an official reviewer for the Department Of Energys Annual Merit Review for Vehicle Technologies projects. I have had the chance, along with other industry participants, to review lots of very interesting projects. If you are interested in seeing the types of projects that have been explored over the last 10 years check out these presentations.

This is the first of a two-part story on the best practices involving truck and trailer leasing options. We interviewed people from five companies that lease trucks and/or trailers to the trucking industry with a focus on the small and micro-carrier.

UPSHUR COUNTY, TX (KLTV) - An Upshur County jury has awarded more than $75 million to a man who sued a major trucking company that he said caused his 2013 crash. The plaintiff, Joshua Patterson, filed a lawsuit against FTS International Manufacturing, as well as one of its former drivers, Bill Acker. Patterson filed the suit after Acker, who was driving a semi-truck at the time of the crash, rear-ended Patterson's pick-up truck.

Shorter (and sometimes longer) contracts, volume commitments, and even higher rates are among the many types of bait shippers are using to capture elusive truckload capacity.

The mega-frac is turning the typically annoying sand of West Texas into the new gold, and the oil and gas land rush on the Permian Basin has now extended into the dry, gritty sand that only a year ago few would have given a second thought.

The rail company, headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, told the Omaha World-Herald that the current trade disruption: Affects the 7,300 communities Union Pacific serves. Specifically, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) renegotiation effort is harming U.S. railways.

A rush to get soybeans out of the country ahead of retaliatory Chinese tariffs caused a spike in exports in the second quarter as farmers and grain elevators hurriedly loaded trains and ships.

Once cyclical, problems such as the driver shortage are becoming systemic. That threatens to bake higher costs into transportation rates.

A growing shortage of truck drivers may be producing a new problem: faster inflation. Supply chain bottlenecks are "increasingly feeding into prices" with transportation costs posting a 1.1 percent gain in June, their biggest gain since 2008, according to Oxford Economics. At the same time, the Trump administration's trade policies and tariffs may exacerbate the situation further by pushing up the prices of consumer goods imported from China and other countries. "It's an issue

By Steve Jordon / World-Herald staff writer

A lot of people in the transportation industry still believe there is a federal law prohibiting shippers or brokers from recovering amounts owed by motor carriers when freight loss or damage has occurred by offsetting those amounts against what the shipper or broker owes the carrier for delivery services.

The newest frac sand company, Covia Holdings, is also the largest Frac sand production transitioning to local sources to eliminate $30-60 per ton railroad costs New mines in shale plays coming online may create an oversupply of sand

FARGO Two men accused of stealing about $8,700 worth of grain have been cleared of charges after a jury acquitted one of them and the case against the other was dropped.

Broke down this morning around 11am in this small town of Concordia,KS. Damn fuel fitting cracked and then broke off when i tried to take it out,now im stuck with one half of the fitting inside of the head. Well its sunday, they dont have cab service or uber in this area. Theres OReillys in town few miles south of me, my fat ass walked there and bought the bolt extractor tool. On my way back to my truck a pickup pulls up and offers me a ride,t