P.M Executive Briefing - Aug. 16
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$40 Million Sought For Highway Guardrails In South Carolina
Transportation officials in South Carolina are lobbying for $40 million to stretch guardrails across one-third of the state's interstate highways, to help prevent cross-median accidents, The State (Columbia, S.C.) newspaper reported Wednesday.The state transportation department released a list this week ranking sections of interstate routes according to their need for guardrails. The department hopes to cover those areas over the next five years, the newspaper said. With the requested funding, transportation officials estimate they could complete 284 miles of interstate median barriers in as few as two years.
In recent weeks, 11 fatalities have occurred in cross-median accidents in the Midlands region of South Carolina, according to the article. Transport Topics
Datalink.net To Provide Wireless Capabilities To On Time Media
Wireless application service provider Datalink.net announced Wednesday it has signed a contract with On Time Media to provide wireless capabilities to that company's online freight-matching services.TruckIt.com and ExpediteLoads.com's load postings and queries will now be accessible to any wireless Web device through Datalink.net's wireless gateway capabilities. Transport Topics
ShipChem.com Taps EDS For Tech Support
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EDS, an e-business and IT consulting firm, will provide technology infrastructure support for ShipChem.com's growing online multi-modal logistics services, ShipChem.com said. Transport Topics
Motorists Encouraged To Avoid Westbound I-70 In Washington County, Md.
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A 35-mile stretch of the interstate's left lane, from the Frederick County line to near Hancock, Md., will be closed each weekday from early morning until about 11 a.m., and motorists are asked to use an alternate route such as U.S. 40, a highway administration spokeswoman told the Herald-Mail.
The closure is due to a Level 3 Communications project involving the laying of fiber-optic cable from Washington, D.C., to Pittsburgh, Pa., and the restoration of vegetation dug up by the workers laying cable, the article said. Transport Topics
West Virginia Proposes To Widen Section Of U.S. 340
A recent proposal by the West Virginia Division of Highways would widen a section of U.S. 340 from two lanes to four lanes, the Herald-Mail (Hagerstown, Md.) reports.A state highway engineer said in the article that, while specific numbers were not available, an increase in traffic warrants the expansion of the highway from Charles Town, W.Va. - south of Martinsburg in the extreme eastern Panhandle of the state - to the Virginia border. The project would cost $24.5 million to $41 million, depending on which specific route is chosen.
West Virginia is short on funding for the project, however, due to current plans that will expand Interstate 81 in Berkeley County (also in the Panhandle) and State Route 9 between Martinsburg and Charles Town, as well as add a W.Va. 9 bypass around Martinsburg, the article said. Transport Topics
Second Quarter Results Down For United Road Services
Vehicle transport and towing company United Road Services reported Wednesday a drop in revenue and a net loss for the second quarter.Revenues for the quarter were $62.7 million, down from $65.5 million in the same quarter a year ago. United Road Services also had a net loss of $140.5 million or $76.23 per diluted share; the company had a net income of $470,000 or 26 cents per diluted share a year ago. Transport Topics
Container Grace Period Cut At Long Beach, Los Angeles Ports
The harbor commissions at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles – the two largest U.S. container ports – voted last week to reduce the free time that containers can be left at the ports, despite truckers, shippers and cargo consolidators arguing the move would only increase costs and not ease congestion.The Journal of Commerce reported the new system limits from seven days to five the time imported containers can remain at the ports before penalties are assessed. For export containers, which are a much lower volume, that free time will shrink from 10 days to seven. These new time limits start Sept. 5.
The penalty, or demurrage, for 20-foot containers will be $19 a day for the first five days and $37 a day after that. Daily charges assessed for 40-foot containers will be $40 in the first five days after the free time and $79 from that point.
Harbor officials hope the change will discourage use of the port as a storage facility and relieve congestion during the peak-shipping season. Trucking companies argued that with the current driver shortage this new system puts more financial burden on them. Transport Topics
Iteris Will Provide Ford Motor Co. With Lane Departure Systems
Odetics Inc. subsidiary Iteris Inc. has agreed to become the exclusive supplier of optical lane departure warning systems for Ford Motor Co. vehicles, Iteris announced Wednesday.Iteris' video-based, in-vehicle AutoVue sensor will be made available as early as the 2003 model year. The system warns sleepy or inattentive drivers of unintended lane departures before they occur, the company said.
Driver fatigue is a concern in the trucking industry, which is also researching possible lane departure systems for trucks. Transport Topics
Industry Week's 'Best Managed' Has Several Truck-Related Firms
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Firms that make the list not only consistently demonstrate an ability to grow sales and profits, but also invest in their employees, new technologies, the environment, safety and their local communities, the magazine said.
"Faced with consolidation, the challenges of globalization and a quickening pace of change, our elite group of winners is poised to outperform their competitors far into the new millennium," the magazine said.
The list, now in its fifth year, is compiled from a list of the world's largest publicly held manufacturing companies, based on revenue. A panel composed of more than 90 experts – including business leaders and academics – voted on the selections. Transport Topics
Madison, Maine Residents Push For Truck Limits
Residents along several rural roads near Madison, Maine want to limit the number of trucks that rumble past their homes instead of staying on major routes, the Central Maine Morning Sentinel (Waterville) reported Wednesday.The residents spoke out at a town selectmen's meeting earlier in the week, asking for a size limit on the trucks and police enforcement on the roads. The article said logging and pulp trucks use those roads to connect with several nearby U.S. highways and avoid traffic jams in nearby Skowhegan, but that residents complain the trucks are using these roads to bypass highway scales and that their roads are not made to support such heavy loads.
The selectmen agree to have the town manager, road commissioner and police chief evaluate the situation and set appropriate weight limits, the Sentinel reported.
Many small towns nationwide have seen their fair share of battles with trucks on local roads and complaints of noise. A recent Washington Post column highlighted a northern Virginia town that has restricted the use of Jacobs Engine Brakes inside its limits due to complaints of the related noise. Transport Topics
