Government

The U.S. economy showed signs of stabilization in late July and August, though trucking and transportation industry reports were mixed, the Federal Reserve said Wednesday.

Air and freight forwarder UTi Worldwide reported a decline in net income and revenue for its fiscal second quarter.

The National Transportation Safety Board has instituted a policy banning texting and talking on cell phones by its employees while they are working, the Associated Press reported.

The Department of Transportation has released a new software application that it said will help the transportation industry to deliver products more efficiently.

Ken Eggen at Tango Transport in Shreveport, La., knows that one size doesn’t fit all. That is why he has separate preventative maintenance checklists for each of the three engine models his fleet runs. He goes a step further and sits down with his shop managers quarterly to pick through those checklists and make adjustments.

Are third-party logistics providers a necessary division in the trucking industry? My opinion is “yes.” We are a group of people who work hard to keep customers and drivers happy, at an agreeable rate.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has proposed “fixing” the underperforming revenue aspects of its Unified Carrier Registration agreement by shifting more of the financial burden to the nation’s law-abiding trucking fleets.

Registration fees that trucking companies and freight brokers must pay will more than double to as much as $83,000 in 2010 under a plan put forward by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration last week.

Some key manufacturing indicators showed gains last week, a sign the economy is shifting from recession to expansion, several economists said. However, they warned that the turnaround is uneven, which makes business statistics confusing and trends difficult to track clearly.