P.M. Executive Briefing - July 11

Diesel Cost Notches Downward in Latest Week

Diesel's average pump price, based on a survey of 350 fueling stations and including taxes, averaged $1.449 last week, down from $1.453 reported a week earlier but still higher than during June. For a chart on average prices in recent weeks and the year-ago comparison, click here. Transport Topics

Consolidated Freightways Opens New Terminal in Mexico

Puebla is the fourth largest city in Mexico and a productive manufacturing and commercial area. The city's major exports include motor vehicles and textiles. Transport Topics

GATX Corp. To Sell Storage, Distribution Subsidiary

GATX Corporation, which also includes GATX Rail and GATX Capital, is a finance and services company targeting various industries, including rail and air. GATX Terminals, employing approximately 1,000, had a net income of $26 million last year. It has 37 facilities worldwide with a storage capacity of more than 60 million barrels and handles 700 million barrels each year. Transport Topics

Appeal Set On Extradition Of New Zealand Trucker In Recruitment Scheme

The Queensland Supreme Court in Brisbane, Australia will hear the appeal from 43-year-old Hoani Harawira, who was previously deemed eligible for extradition from Australia to the United States by a Magistrates Court. Harawira's family has lobbied to have him brought back to New Zealand. U.S. authorities, however, want him to face the charges of racketeering, visa fraud, smuggling illegal aliens and conspiracy to launder money in a U.S. court.

arawira was arrested and charged last year with six others after a raid on the Melbourne office of Trek Group, a trucking recruiting firm. U.S. investigators claim the scheme netted more than $21 million from American trucking companies. After the raid, more than 140 drivers were left stranded in the United States. The AAP reported most have since left the United States or been deported to either Australia or New Zealand. Transport Topics

Averitt Offers New Time-Guaranteed Service For LTL Freight

It said this new service for just-in-time shipments will allow customers to guarantee that their LTL shipments arrive at destination by Averitt's standard published service times. If it does not, the shipper's invoice will be voided, Averitt said. The new service will apply to points where Averitt offers direct service, which now includes more than 50,000 points in 17 states, plus to Ontario and Puerto Rico. Transport Topics

Study Shows Larger Input To U.S. Economy From Transportation Industry

Using estimates from the Transportation Satellite Accounts, the report showed that transportation services, primarily trucking and shipping companies, contributed $378 billion to the U.S. economy in 1996, $142 billion more than in the estimate from traditional accounts. That is an increase of 21% from 1992, the only other year for which comparable figures were available.

The reason for the difference between the two estimates is that the TSAs use more detailed information than traditional accounts. Where traditional accounts include a company's own trucking fleet – used for services such as transporting goods from distribution centers to retail outlets, for example – under retailing, TSAs include that information under transportation. Jennifer Botchie, Transport Topics

FerrousExchange And eflatbed.com Join Forces

FerrousExchange currently provides an Internet marketplace for the iron and steel industries. Their new partner, eflatbed.com, is a logistics management service specializing in connecting flatbed freight with over 1,600 carriers. It also has ties to Pittsburgh Logistics Systems, Inc., a third-party logistics provider specializing in steel and related industries.

Both companies have offices in Pittsburgh, and FerrousExchange also operates out of New York and Singapore. The companies also agreed to share responsibilities for exploring further opportunities stemming from the new service. Transport Topics

Union Pacific Settles Shareholder Suit Over SP Acquisition, Congestion Crisis

After UP began merging the SP operations into UP's own system over the next year, congestion problems rapidly mounted to become one of the worst rail service crises in U.S. history. The situation snarled rail traffic coast to coast and clogged both rail-truck intermodal operations and highway truck lanes with a huge extra volume of normally rail-hauled freight.

Amid the congestion woes, some of UP's shareholders in 1997 filed a class-action suit claiming UP failed to disclose material facts, and the Associated Press reports UP will pay $34 million to settle the suit. The settlement, AP adds, was disclosed in a Friday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Transport Topics

ShipLogix Names New VP Of Business Development

Chiodo comes to ShipLogix with more than 21 years of experience in transportation, including 10 years with CHEP Americas, an international pallet and container pooling company. He previously worked in sales management with North American Van Lines and Airborne Express.

ShipLogix is the first Application Service Provider to provide a system that allows shippers, carriers and third-party providers to manage transportation services completely over the Internet. The system is currently in the testing phase and its release is projected for September. Transport Topics