News

The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a highway bill on Nov. 5, setting up negotiations with the Senate in an effort to pass the first long-term congressional highway bill in a decade. By a vote of 363-64, the House voted to spend $261 billion on highways and $55 billion on transit over six years….

NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind says his agency is launching a comprehensive effort to crackdown on drowsy driving, a major contributor to U.S. traffic deaths. Rosekind said NHTSA needs better data to measure the problem and increase awareness on the topic. A former NASA scientist, Rosekind is considered an expert on human fatigue. He is a…

Acting Federal Motor Carrier Administration (FMCSA) chief Scott Darling addressed the recent American Trucking Associations annual conference in Philadelphia and called for more cooperation between the industry and the federal government. In his remarks, Darling mentioned the recent commercial motor vehicle safety training grants as an example of how the federal government and the industry…

A recently released national poll finds that a majority of Americans hold the trucking industry in high regard. The poll, conducted by Public Opinion Strategies for the American Trucking Associations, surveyed 800 registered voters on their attitudes about politics, the trucking industry and the state of infrastructure. “Our industry invests more than $7 billion each…

Earlier this month, U.S. DOT’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) announced nearly $2.3 million in grants will be awarded to 13 technical and community colleges to help train veterans for jobs as commercial bus and truck drivers. The funding comes through FMCSA’s Commercial Motor Vehicle –Operator Safety (CMV-OST) grant program. “We support job opportunities…

A national shortage of truck drivers that will rise to 50,000 by the end of the year is resulting in higher pay for drivers as the industry tries to retain existing drivers and attract new ones, according to the American Trucking Associations (ATA). According to the Labor Department, the median annual salary for truck drivers…

Operational costs for truckers ticked up slightly in 2014 when compared to 2013 findings, according to findings released by the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI). The 2015 update to An Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking, using financial data provided directly by motor carriers throughout the country, documents and analyzes trucking costs from 2008…

The boroughs of New York City and the streets of Pensacola, Florida wills serve as field test sites for off-peak deliveries and pickups as part of a U.S. DOT pilot program. USDOT’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) announced $200,000 in grants under its Surface Transportation Research, Development and Deployment Program in order to allow cities with…

USDOT, citing results from a national survey, is calling for the creation of a coalition of groups to address the truck parking shortage problem and help find targeted solutions. USDOT surveyed state departments of transportation and found that in half of the states surveyed truckers were being forced to park on freeway interchange ramps and…

XPO Logistics has agreed to acquire Con-way transportation, truckload and freight brokerage businesses for $3B, an acquisition that will make XPO the second-largest less-than-truckload provider in North America. Con-Way, headquartered in Ann Arbor, Mich., is a Fortune 500 company with a transportation and logistics network of 582 locations and approximately 30,000 employees serving over 36,000…