The ‘ingenious strategy’ behind most truckers’ least favorite week of the year: International Roadcheck

International Roadcheck Week is hardly the sexiest topic in trucking, but it is a darn-tootin’ important one. Inspectors in the U.S. and Canada halt tens of thousands of trucks for vehicle inspections for a few days every summer or early fall. They remove thousands of trucks and drivers from the road; in 2021, 16.5% of inspected vehicles were put out of service along with 5.3% of drivers.

It’s uncommon for truck drivers to actually get their vehicles inspected at random during most of the year. To avoid International Roadcheck Week, many truckers simply don’t drive during that period of time — which, presumably, means more unsafe vehicles and drivers on the road outside of the inspection blitz. It’s a question that ate at Andrew Balthrop, a research associate at the University of Arkansas Sam M. Walton College of Business.

Around 5% fewer one-person trucking companies are active during International Roadcheck Week. But Balthrop and his fellow researcher, Alex Scott of the University of Tennessee, found a major upside to the inspection blitz — even with all the folks who avoid it. According to their working paper published in March 2021, vehicles are safer a month before and after the inspection period. There’s a 1.8% reduction of vehicle violations, according to Balthrop and Scott’s analysis. Surprise inspection blitzes don’t result in the same uptick of compliance.

I caught up with Balthrop about his research last week at FreightWaves’ Future of Supply Chain conference, and we chatted again on the phone this week about his findings on International Roadcheck Week.

Enjoy a bonus MODES and a lightly edited transcription of our phone interview:

FREIGHTWAVES: For our readers who are not aware of what Roadcheck Week actually is, can you explain a little bit about what it and why it is important to drivers and companies?

BALTHROP: “The International Roadcheck is part of an alliance between the inspectors in Canada and the ones in Mexico and the U.S. to have a unified framework for making sure trucks are safe to operate. That should make it easier to go across borders when you have this kind of unified structure.

“In the U.S., one of these CVSA inspection blitzes is the International Roadcheck that happens for three days in the summer. Usually it’s a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. And usually it’s the first week in June.

“And in it, they focus on Level One inspections, the North American Standard Inspection where they inspect the driver records, the hours of service, the licensure and I believe medical records as well. Then they inspect the truck. It’s an in-depth inspection where the inspector will actually crawl under the truck to look at various things. And these inspections, from the data that I’ve seen, take about a half an hour on average.

“During the Roadcheck Week, they’ll do about 60,000 inspections, so 20,000 a day. They’re going to pull over a lot of trucks, and this can cause a little bit of congestion at the weigh stations and the roadside inspections localities as the inspectors are doing these inspections.”

Roadcheck Week doesn’t catch all truck drivers, but it has a long-lasting benefit to safety

FREIGHTWAVES: So, can most drivers kind of expect to be pulled over? How likely is that?

BALTHROP: “There’s 1 million or 3 million trucks on the road, somewhere around there on any given day. With 20,000 inspections, most drivers still will not get inspected, but there’s going to be a higher proportion of drivers inspected.

“You’re more likely to get inspected on these days. If you don’t have a recent inspection on your record, or if you have a bad recent inspection on your record, you’re more likely to be pulled over on these days.”

FREIGHTWAVES: Your research focused on that it’s just unusual that this inspection is announced, that it’s planned. We were talking before about how normally, if you’re trying to assure quality or compliance, you would not announce an inspection in advance. It would be more of a surprise-type situation.

Can you walk us through why that’s so unusual, or what’s the rationale that you see behind announcing it in advance?

BALTHROP: “It is unusual, and on the surface, it doesn’t make much sense, but it turns out to be kind of an ingenious strategy. So I’ll walk through it here.

“Over the course of a year, there’ll be 2 million inspections of 3 or 4 million trucks out there. The average rate of inspections is pretty low. It’s not uncommon for truckers to go years without having an inspection. With this low inspection intensity, the FMCSA has sort of a problem of, how does it get anybody to abide by the regulations?

“I’m a jaded economist, and I don’t worry or consider too much ethics and morality and all that kind of stuff. It comes down to incentives for drivers to follow these inspections. The incentives do guide behavior. So, how could the FMCSA incentivize drivers to follow these regulations more closely and adhere to the standards?

“They do this by announcing the blitz. This does two things. On one side, it allows everybody to prepare in advance. There’s a bunch of anecdotal evidence out there that people do prepare for these blitzes in advance. They will have their trucks inspected beforehand for any problems. They’ll time maintenance and upkeep in advance to make sure that their vehicles are in order. “They’ll be a little bit more cognizant of the driver-side regulations. One thing we notice in our study is that hours-of-service violations really drop during these extensions, because people see them coming. They don’t fudge the books in any way.”

Owner-operators can evade Roadcheck Week. Big carriers, not so much.

BALTHROP: “The issue with the announcement, on the flip side, is that it allows people to just dodge the inspection entirely. For a long time, people have talked about how owner-operators and smaller carriers time their vacations for this particular time. They could do this for a couple reasons. To avoid the hassle is a nice way to put it, but it also allows you to be noncompliant to avoid the high-intensity inspections.

“You have this balance here that on one side you get the behavior you want with people complying with regulations. That’s the behavior the FMCSA wants. But on the flip side, you get a bunch of people that are kind of outright dodging inspections.

“When you compare these two things on balance, the policy is actually pretty effective because you get a lot of people focused on maintaining their trucks and obeying the rules during that particular week. Especially with the vehicle maintenance stuff, that lasts a long time.

“In our research, we saw that vehicle violations, a month before and up to a month afterwards, is when you still notice your vehicle violations. That trucks are kind of better maintained around these blitzes.

“The ingenious aspect of it is that the FMCSA, by concentrating their inspection resources all at one time and announcing it, they’re making it clear that they’re serious about enforcing these regulations and everybody prepares for it. For the number of inspections that are happening, you get fewer tickets than you would have otherwise expected.

“The FMCSA, they’re putting people through a little bit of a hassle, but they’re not having to write a bunch of tickets to get people to comply. They’re not really punishing a whole bunch of people because, by making this apparent that this is going to happen, people comply and the FMCSA gets what they want essentially without having to come down on carriers too hard.”

A convenient time for a vacation, indeed

FREIGHTWAVES: OK, interesting. And how does this pattern of shutting down, how does that compare for an owner-operator versus a driver for a big fleet?

BALTHROP: “If you’re a motor carrier with thousands of power units, you can’t just pack up and not do business on a particular day. They just don’t have that option. So they get inspected at a higher intensity, and you see the larger carriers kind of more focused on making sure that they’re prepared for these inspections. With so many inspections, the larger carriers are going to be inspected at higher rates. You can really damage your reputation if your equipment isn’t in order on this particular day.

“Versus the smaller carriers, especially if you’re talking about a single-vehicle fleet, an owner-operator type, it is not that difficult to just not work for those three days. And so you see a lot about that.

“In terms of what the roadway composition looks like, if we look at inspection data and relative to a typical day with the usual inspections, on these Roadcheck days, you have about 5% fewer owner-operators on the road than you otherwise would expect.”

FREIGHTWAVES: Wow. And when you say owner-operators, you also mean just like fleets with just —

BALTHROP: “One-vehicle fleets.”

FREIGHTWAVES: OK, that’s interesting.

BALTHROP: “You know, you see a little bit of effect with the smaller fleets, below six vehicles, but it basically disappears by the time you get to a hundred vehicles.

“This effect is being driven by smaller carriers staying off the road in terms of avoidance. You see this goes also how you would expect; it’s also older vehicles that stay off the road. This is correlated with carrier size. The larger carriers use newer vehicles and owner-operators tend to use some of the older vehicles. But it’s particularly the older vehicles that are off the road.

“This makes intuitive sense. Older vehicles are more costly to keep compliant. Maintenance is more costly, and they’ve been around longer so there’s time for more stuff to have broken essentially.

How a truck driver gets stopped for inspection

FREIGHTWAVES: Can you explain a little bit more, the idea of having this inspection history and why it would benefit a larger or small carrier?

BALTHROP: “Getting flagged for inspection is sort of random, but not totally. If somebody notices something obviously wrong with your truck, that’s ground for a more in-depth inspection. Or if you get pulled over for some other reason, this can be grounds for inspection of some type.

“But there’s also the inspection selection service. The computer program that is random, that it randomly flags people in for inspection, but it’s based on your inspection history.

“So if your firm hasn’t been inspected recently, or if your carrier doesn’t have a very dense inspection history, you’ll be more likely to trigger that system to pull you in and have you inspected. If you have a dense inspection history, you’re less likely to get inspected.”

FREIGHTWAVES: So how do you get pulled over for inspection? As a person who only drives a passenger car, my main interaction with being pulled over is, I’m driving down the freeway or wherever, and I get stopped by the police. How does it work for a truck driver? How does getting pulled over or inspected work in that way?

BALTHROP: “The law is that you cannot pass a weigh station without pulling in and getting weighed. At that point they may flag you to be inspected. Now, in the past decade or two, there’s been a bunch of electronic devices that are installed in cabs. You may have heard of PrePass or Drivewise. This allows you to pass weigh stations.

“I don’t have data on how many trucks have the in-cab devices. But from a trucking perspective, they’re so convenient that you don’t have to stop every time you cross a state line. I think the vast, overwhelming majority of trucks have some sort of one of these electronic devices. The DOT inspectors at these roadside inspection points have a dial they can twist essentially about how many people they want to inspect.

“So during the roadcheck inspection week, they’ll crank that dial all the way up and pull everybody over. And if they get too backed up, they might crank it back down a little bit and so on.”

FREIGHTWAVES: OK, interesting. It reminds me of a highly sophisticated E‑ZPass.

A $10 million-plus expense to trucking companies every year … but it’s worth it if just one fatal crash is avoided

FREIGHTWAVES: Zooming out, when we hear about large truck crashes, something like a vehicle maintenance issue is not really the most sexy explanation. But just looking at the FMCSA data, in 29% of all truck crashes, a major factor is brake problems. So it seems like a lot of the truck crashes on the road are caused by vehicle maintenance, versus something like the driver using illegal drugs or some other sort of more dramatic explanation. Can you speak a little bit to why this sort of vehicle maintenance is important for safety in preventing large crashes?

BALTHROP: “We did a little bit of a back-of-the-envelope cost benefit analysis of this. Let me try and make sure I remember it clearly, but we have it in the paper that the cost of this on one side is that you have the compliance costs the firms are undertaking, and then you have to add to that the delay costs from doing this, and then the cost of the inspection itself, having to pay federal inspectors to do this.

“On the benefit side, it reduces crashes. So when we add up, just looking at the cost of what an inspection is, we don’t have a good idea of how to measure the compliance cost. It’d be fun to measure the delay cost, but I don’t have good enough price data on that to get at that cost.

“But if you look at what the cost of an inspection is, it is something like $100 or $120 is what you would pay to have one of these inspections done privately. A lot of people do this in the run-up to inspections, and have it done privately so that you can fix whatever the problems are and be sure that you would pass the FMCSA inspection.

“With that $120 figure, if you aggregate that up to 60,000 inspections or whatever, and you take that in comparison, I’m going to give you a bad figure here, it’s on the order of $10 million. That is about the value of a statistical human life. Looking at this economically, it’s worthwhile if it saves one human life. If you identify just one faulty brake system that would’ve resulted in an accident, you’re getting some value out of the program.

“When you add those other costs in there, we’re going to need to save a couple of lives, but in terms of cost benefit analysis with this kind of stuff, we’re usually looking at orders of magnitude differences in cost and benefits to say something for sure.

“If you can save just a couple lives, this program will pay for itself.”

Time to start inspecting in the winter

FREIGHTWAVES: Then one last question: Is there any rationale for this program happening in the summer?

BALTHROP: “I think part of it is that for the inspectors this gets much harder and much more miserable to do in winter conditions.”

FREIGHTWAVES: That makes sense.

BALTHROP: “Inspectors are less productive. One of the things that we talk about in the paper, that they have in addition to the International Roadcheck, is that they have Brake Week where they focus a little bit more on brake inspections. You have Operation Safe Driver a little bit later on in the summer, usually in September, where it’s a little bit more focused on passenger vehicles and how they drive around these trucks.

“But there’s not one in the winter time. There’s an unannounced brake check that usually happens in May, a surprise inspection that’s just one day. But you’re right in pointing out that it might be worthwhile having one of these in the wintertime. You have this periodic high-intensity inspection that kind of incentivizes everybody to be compliant through the summer.

“But there’s nothing in the winter, so that’s an area. But if I was managing the FMCSA, that would be one of the first questions I ask, ‘Why don’t we have one of these in the wintertime?’”

FREIGHTWAVES: That makes sense. Maybe they can do it in the South or something. Maybe a Miami January inspection …

That’s it for this special bonus MODES. Subscribe here if you’re not already receiving MODES in your inbox every Thursday. Email the reporter at rpremack@www.freightwaves.com with your own tales on International Roadcheck Week or any other trucking topics.

Why the Northeast is quietly running out of diesel

The nozzle of a diesel fuel pump is inserted into the tank of a commercial truck as its driver looks on the bankground.

The East Coast of the U.S. is reporting its lowest seasonal diesel inventory on record. And some trucking companies appear spooked.

The East Coast typically stores around 62 million barrels of diesel during the month of May, according to Department of Energy data. But as of last Friday, that region of the U.S. is reporting under 52 million barrels.

The sharp increase of diesel prices has been a major stressor in America’s $800 billion trucking industry since the beginning of 2022. According to DOE figures, the price per gallon of diesel has reached record highs — a whopping $5.62 per gallon. It’s even higher on the East Coast at $5.90, up 63% from the beginning of this year.

When relief is coming isn’t yet clear, and experts say higher prices are the only way to attract more diesel into the Northeast.

“I wish I had some good news for the Northeast, but it’s bedlam,” Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at OPIS, told FreightWaves.

2022 has seen record-setting diesel prices. (SONAR)

Everyday Americans don’t fill up their cars with diesel, but the fuel powers our nation’s agriculture, industrial and transportation networks. More expensive diesel means the price of everything is liable to increase. Trucks, trains, barges and the like consumed about 122 million gallons of diesel per day in 2020.

Patrick DeHaan, a vice president of communications at fuel price site GasBuddy, reported that retail truck stops are hauling fuel from the Great Lakes to the Northeast, calling it “extraordinary.” We’ve also seen anecdotal reports from truck drivers posting company memos:

pic.twitter.com/yFYyjzYMWE
— Craig Fuller 🛩🚛🇺🇦 (@FreightAlley) May 11, 2022

#FuelShortage #DieselShortage #SupplyChainCrisis pic.twitter.com/zVmXlshXN0
— Don Ricardo 👑 🇺🇸 🇩🇴 (@NjPier) May 5, 2022

Pilot Flying J and Love’s, two of America’s largest truck stops, told the Wall Street Journal yesterday that they were not planning to restrict diesel purchases, but were monitoring low diesel inventory.

Not unlike every other supply chain crunch we’ve seen in the past few years, the cause of the Northeast’s diesel shortage is multifaceted. A yearslong degradation of refineries is rubbing against the Gulf Coast preferring to ship its oil to Europe and Latin America.

Here’s a breakdown:

1. The East Coast has lost half of its refineries.

As Bloomberg’s Javier Blas wrote on May 4 (emphasis ours):

In the past 15 years, the number of refineries on the U.S. East Coast has halved to just seven. The closures have reduced the region’s oil processing capacity to just 818,000 barrels per day, down from 1.64 million barrels per day in 2009. Regional oil demand, however, is stronger.

Rory Johnston, a managing director at Toronto-based research firm Price Street and writer of the newsletter Commodity Context, told FreightWaves that refining is a “thankless industry,” with intense regulations that have limited the opening of new refineries. The Great Recession of 2008 led to several East Coast refineries shuttering, but there have been more recent shutdowns too. One major Philadelphia refinery shuttered in 2019 after a giant fire (and it already had declared bankruptcy), and another refinery in Newfoundland shut down in 2020.

Billionaire John Catsimatidis owns a small oil refinery in the US East Coast and several hundred gas stations from Pennsylvania to New York:

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see diesel being rationed on the East Coast this summer.” #OOTT #DieselCrisis https://t.co/9g1e5UIf20
— Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) May 11, 2022

2. It’s a financial risk to bring diesel to the Northeast.

The Northeast has increasingly relied on diesel from the Gulf region. Much of that diesel travels to the Northeast through the famous and much-adored Colonial Pipeline. You may remember the 5,500-mile pipeline from last year, when a ransomware attack shuttered it for nearly a week!

It takes 18 days for oil to travel on the Colonial Pipeline from its source in Houston to New York City (or, more specifically, Linden, New Jersey), Kloza said.

That’s a long enough time to prioritize Colonial pipelines financially risky for traders — or, as Kloza said, “incredibly dangerous” — thanks to a concept called “backwardation.”

Backwardation refers to the market condition in which the spot price of a commodity like diesel is higher than its futures price. It’s only gotten stronger over time in the diesel market, Kloza said. So, a company could send off a shipment of diesel and find that it dropped by $1 per gallon in the time the diesel traveled from the Gulf Coast to New York — er, New Jersey. That could mean hundreds of thousands or more in lost profits, so traders often avoid such a fate.

“We’re not in an era where there are any U.S. refiners or big U.S. oil companies who would ‘take one for the team’ and bring cargo in where it’s needed,” Kloza said.

The desperation is showing in New England and the mid-Atlantic regions. New England diesel retail prices are up 75% from the beginning of 2022, per DOE data. In the mid-Atlantic, diesel is up 67%.

It’s not worth the risk, even amid ultra-high prices. As FreightWaves’ Kingston reported last week, the spread between a gallon of diesel in the Gulf Coast and its New York harbor price is usually a few cents. Last week, that swung up to 66 cents.

But that uptick still isn’t justifying moving oil to the Northeast — particularly when traders can make so much more money selling diesel abroad.

3. Of course, we can blame COVID and the crisis in Ukraine.

The catalyst for this diesel shortage, of course, is the ongoing conflict in Ukraine — particularly Europe’s desperation for diesel after weaning off Russian molecules.

As CNBC reported in March, Europe is a net importer of diesel. Europe consumed some 6.8 million barrels of diesel each day in 2019; Russia exported some 600,000 barrels per day of that. Today, Europe has only eliminated one-third of its Russian diesel, so prices are expected to continue to climb amid that transition. Latin America, too, has been clammoring for U.S. diesel.

The Gulf Coast has been happy to provide such diesel, amid “insane” prices for diesel abroad, said Johnston. Waterborne exports of diesel from the U.S. Gulf Coast hit record highs last month, according to oil analytics firm Vortexa. (The records only date back to 2016.)

Naturally, COVID is also to blame for the Northeast’s run on diesel. Those refineries still retained on the East Coast scaled back during the pandemic due to staffing issues. It takes six months to a year to reignite refineries that were previously shuttered, Kloza said.

The ‘everything shortage’ endures

It’s been a tale as old as, well, last year. An industry is quietly hampered by supply issues for years, or even decades, and COVID pulls back the curtains on its unsteady foundation. It’s particularly jarring for commodities we never thought about before, like shipping containers or pallets, but that quietly underpinned our livelihood all along.

Recall the Great Lumber Shortage of 2020? Big Lumber had unusually low stockpiles of wood by the summer of 2020, thanks to a vicious 2019 in the lumber industry shuttering sawmills and the spring of 2020 sparking staffing issues. (There was also a nasty beetle infestation.) Those in lumber expected the pandemic to slow the economy, not ignite online shopping, construction and housing mania. It meant lumber went from around $350 per thousand board feet pre-pandemic to a crushing $1,515 by the spring of 2021. The lumber price roller coaster persists today.

In diesel, there’s no beetle infestation, but there are plenty of other headaches. It all means higher fuel prices on the East Coast, particularly the Northeast, to lure molecules from the Gulf Coast. And, down the line, probably more expensive stuff for you.

Do you work in the trucking industry? Do you want to say that you hate or love MODES? Are you simply wanting to chitchat? Email the author at rpremack@www.freightwaves.com, and don’t forget to subscribe to MODES.

Updated on May 13 with the latest comments from truck stops.

Exclusive: Central Freight Lines to shut down after 96 years

Nearly, 2,100 employees will be laid off right before Christmas. Central Freight Lines is the largest trucking company to close since Celadon ceased operations in 2019.

Waco, Texas-based Central Freight Lines has notified drivers, employees and customers that the less-than-truckload carrier plans to wind down operations on Monday after 96 years, the company’s president told FreightWaves on Saturday.

“It’s just horrible,” said CFL President Bruce Kalem.

A source close to CFL told FreightWaves that CFL had “too much debt and too many unpaid bills” to continue operating, despite exploring all available options to keep its doors open.

Kalem agreed.

“Years of operating losses and struggles for many years sapped our liquidity, and we had no other place to go at this point,” Kalem told FreightWaves. “Nobody is going to make money on this closing, nobody.”

Central Freight will cease picking up new shipments effective Monday and expects to deliver substantially all freight in its system by Dec. 20, according to a company statement.

A source familiar with the company said he is unsure whether CFL will file Chapter 7 or “liquidate outside of bankruptcy,” but that the LTL carrier has no plans to reorganize.

The company reshuffled its executive team nearly a year ago in an effort to stay afloat, including adding the company’s owner, Jerry Moyes, as CFL’s interim president and chief executive officer. Moyes remained CEO after Kalem was elevated to president in July.

“I think it was surprising that there wasn’t a buyer for the entire company, but buyers were interested in certain pieces but not in the whole thing,” the source, who didn’t want to be identified, told FreightWaves. “Part of it could have been that just the network was so expansive that there was too much overlap with some of the buyers that they didn’t need locations or employees in the places where they already had strong operations.”

Third-party logistics provider GlobalTranz notified its customers that it had removed CFL as “a blanket and CSP carrier option immediately, to prevent any new bookings,” multiple sources told FreightWaves on Saturday.

CFL, which has over 2,100 employees, including 1,325 drivers, and 1,600 power units, is in discussions with “key customers and vendors and expects sufficient liquidity to complete deliveries over the next week in an orderly manner,” a CFL spokesperson said. Approximately 820 employees are based at the company headquarters in Waco.

Despite diligent efforts, CFL “was unable to gain commitments to fund ongoing operations, find a buyer of the entire business or fund a Chapter 11 reorganization,” another source familiar with the company told FreightWaves.

Kalem said the company had 65 terminals prior to its decision to shutter operations.

FreightWaves received a tip from a source nearly two weeks ago that CFL wasn’t renewing its East Coast terminal leases but was unable to confirm the information with CFL executives.

Another source told FreightWaves that some of the LTL carrier’s West Coast terminals had been sold recently, but that no reason was given for the transactions.

At that time, Kalem said the company was “working to find alternatives” and couldn’t speak because of nondisclosure agreements. He said executives at CFL, including Moyes, were trying to do everything to “save the company.”

“Jerry [Moyes] pumped a lot of money into the company, but it just wasn’t enough,” Kalem said.

Kalem said he’s aware that a large carrier is interested in hiring many of CFL’s drivers but isn’t able to name names at this point.

“Central Freight is in negotiations to sell a substantial portion of its equipment,” the company said in a statement. “Additionally, Central Freight is coordinating with other regional LTL carriers to afford its employees opportunities to apply for other LTL jobs in their area.”

As of late Saturday night, Kalem said fuel cards are working and drivers will be paid for freight they’ve hauled for the LTL carrier until all freight is delivered by the Dec. 20 target date.

“I’m going to work feverishly with the time I have left to get these good people jobs — I owe it to them,” Kalem told FreightWaves. “We are going to pay our drivers — that’s why we had to close it like we’re doing now. We are going to deliver all of the freight that’s in our system by next week, and we believe we can do that.”

During the outset of the pandemic, Central Freight Lines was one of four trucking-related companies that received the maximum award of $10 million through the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). This occurred around the time that CFL drivers and employees were forced to take pay cuts, a move that didn’t go over well with drivers.

“It all went to payroll,” Kalem said about the PPP funds. “Yes, our employees and drivers did take a pay cut over the past few years, and we gave most of it back, even raised pay over the past several months, but it just wasn’t enough to attract drivers.”

FreightWaves staffers Todd Maiden, Timothy Dooner and JP Hampstead contributed to this report.

Watch: Central Freight Lines’ impact on the LTL market

FreightWaves CEO and founder Craig Fuller reacts to the Central Freight Lines news:

“With Central struggling for many years and unable to reach profitability, it makes sense that they would want to liquidate while equipment and real estate are fetching record prices.”

Central Freight Lines statement

Here is the statement given by Central Freight Lines to FreightWaves late Saturday after reports surfaced of its impending closure:

“We make this announcement with a heavy heart and extreme regret that the Company cannot continue after nearly 100 years in operation. We would like to thank our outstanding workforce for persevering and for professionally completing the wind-down while supporting each other. Additionally, we thank our customers, vendors, equipment providers, and other stakeholders for their loyalty and support.

“The Company explored all available options to keep operations going. However, operating losses sapped all remaining sources of liquidity, and the Company’s liabilities far exceed its assets, all of which are subject to liens in favor of multiple creditors. Despite diligent efforts, the Company was unable to gain commitments to fund ongoing operations, find a buyer of the entire business, or fund a Chapter 11 reorganization. Given its limited remaining resources, the Company concluded that the best alternative was a safe and orderly wind-down. As we complete the wind-down process, our primary goal will be to offer the smoothest possible transition for all stakeholders while maximizing the amount available to apply toward the Company’s obligations.

“Central Freight is in negotiations to sell a substantial portion of its equipment. Additionally, Central Freight is coordinating with other regional LTL carriers to afford its employees opportunities to apply for other LTL jobs in their area. Discussions are ongoing and no purchase of assets or offer of employment is guaranteed.”

Brief history of Central Freight Lines

1925	Founded in Waco, Texas, by Woody Callan Sr.
1927	Institutes regular routes in Texas between Dallas, Fort Worth and Austin.
1938	Dallas facility opens as world’s largest freight facility.
1991	Receives 48-state interstate operating authority, expands into Oklahoma.
1993	Joins Roadway Regional Group and begins service in Louisiana.
1994	Expands into Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and Mississippi.
1995	Consolidation of Central, Coles, Spartan and Viking Freight Systems into Viking Freight Inc. is announced. Central’s Waco corporate HQ starts closure.
1996	Becomes the Southwestern Division of Viking Freight Inc.
1997	Investment group led by senior Central management purchases assets of former CFL from Viking Freight and reopens as a new Central Freight Lines.
1999	Expands into California and Nevada.
2009	CFL Network provides service to Idaho, Utah, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
2013	Acquires Circle Delivery of Tennessee.
2014	Acquires DTI, a Georgia LTL carrier.
2017	Acquires Wilson; new division created with an increase of 80 terminals.
2020	Wins Carrier of the Year from GlobalTranz. Acquires Volunteer Express Inc. of Dresden, Tennessee.

Source: Central Freight Lines

Warehouse cramming is about to begin — Freightonomics

nVision Global, is a leading Global Freight Audit, Supply Chain Management Services company offering enterprise-wide supply chain solutions. With over 4,000 global business “Partners”, nVision Global not only provides prompt, accurate Freight Audit Solutions, but also providing industry-leading Supply Chain Information Management solutions and services necessary to help its clients maximize efficiencies within their supply chain. To learn more, visit www.nvisionglobal.com

Warehouse space is at a premium right now and with peak season right around the corner, shippers are starting to scramble for space.

Zach Strickland and Anthony Smith look into what shippers are doing to prepare for the end-of-year crunch. They welcome Zac Rogers from Colorado State University to the show to talk through the industry tightness.

The three also talk about the latest Logistics Managers Index results and what they mean for the fourth quarter of 2021.

You can find more Freightonomics episodes and recaps for all our live podcasts here.

Seasonality pushing rejections and rates higher ahead of the Fourth

This week’s DHL Supply Chain Pricing Power Index: 75 (Carriers)

Last week’s DHL Supply Chain Pricing Power Index: 70 (Carriers)

Three-month DHL Supply Chain Pricing Power Index Outlook: 70 (Carriers)

The DHL Supply Chain Pricing Power Index uses the analytics and data in FreightWaves SONAR to analyze the market and estimate the negotiating power for rates between shippers and carriers.

The Pricing Power Index is based on the following indicators:

Load volumes: Absolute levels positive for carriers, momentum neutral

The Outbound Tender Volume Index at 15,980 is nominally higher now than basically at any point in the past 12 months with the exception of the week prior to Thanksgiving/Black Friday last year. OTVI captures all electronic tenders, including rejected ones, so when accounting for the rejection rate, we can get an even more accurate look at volumes.

OTVI rose through the back half of May into the national holiday and has risen even further since. Throughout the back half of May and into the middle of June, tender rejections declined substantially. Meaning, current volume throughput is actually understated when comparing OTVI now to OTVI in November 2020. After adjusting for rejected tenders, the accepted outbound tender volume index is just 2.2% below the 2020 peak in November. At that time, OTVI surged towards 17,000, but the rejection rate moved in-kind towards its natural ceiling of 28%. So, the total accepted freight tenders in mid-June is comparable to the peakiest of peak seasons in 2020. Incredible.

However, since the middle of June, tender rejections have begun increasing again heading into Independence Day, a time when many drivers spend time off the road with their families. The move higher in OTVI this week has been driven primarily by higher rejection rates, rather than higher freight demand.

Over the past month, the drivers of freight volumes have continued to be imports and from just about every port. The west coast continues to provide seemingly non-stop container ships, while Houston, New Orleans, Miami and Savannah are seeing very strong throughput as well.

It is van volumes that are driving freight markets higher right now. The Reefer Outbound Tender Volume index has tumbled 25% since its all-time high in the weeks after the polar vortex in February. Since Memorial Day, ROTVI has fallen another 10.5%. This is likely a factor of declining grocery demand, but I would expect the trend to reverse course in the near future as summer festivities accelerate.

Dry van volumes pushed higher in the back half of May and into June while reefer volumes have declined significantly.

SONAR: VOTVI.USA (Blue); ROTVI.USA (Green)

The congestion at our nation’s ports has spread from Los Angeles and Long Beach to Oakland, California. The California coastline is a parking lot of container ships, most of which are full to the brim with imports, awaiting berth. As detailed in the economic section, there are some signs that the reversion is underway with Americans paring back spending on pandemic superstar categories in favor of airlines, lodging and entertainment. But spending remains strong despite the moderation, and low inventory levels offset much of the decline that will occur from slowing demand. Real inventories are 3% higher now than pre-pandemic, but real sales growth is far outpacing inventory growth, leading to the lowest inventory-to-sales ratio in decades.

On the manufacturing side, the ISM Manufacturing PMI expanded in May after declining in April. We’ve been in expansionary territory for 12 consecutive months. New orders, production, imports/exports and employment are all growing. The major issues should come as no surprise: Deliveries are slowing, backlogs are growing and inventories are too low.

In all, there are many, many catalysts to keep freight demand strong for the foreseeable future. Americans are traveling and spending on services at a high clip, but the high savings rate is enabling it to occur without a massive detriment to goods spending.

SONAR: OTVI.USA (2021 – Blue; 2020 – Green; 2019 – Orange; 2018 – Purple)

Tender rejections: Absolute level and momentum positive for carriers

After declining steadily from mid-March to mid-May, the Outbound Tender Reject Index has reversed course heading into Independence Day. This is typical for a national holiday as carriers selectively choose loads to bring drivers closer to home. OTRI now sits above 25% for the first time in June.

One of our newest indices in SONAR gives us the ability to compare markets on as close to an apples-to-apples basis as possible. FreightWaves’ Carrier Trend Market Score indices are divided into two perspectives – shipper/broker and carrier. The scores are positioned on a scale from 1-100 and have values measuring van and refrigerated (reefer) capacity. The higher values represent more favorable trends for whichever perspective. For instance, a value near the high-end of the range would suggest very favorable conditions for carriers in our carrier capacity trend score index.

For the past several weeks, capacity disparities have been driven by import volumes. The markets with the tightest carrier capacity coincide with the nation’s busiest ports. Ontario, California, Savannah, Georgia, and Atlanta all have carrier capacity trend market scores of 100.

SONAR: Capacity Trend Market Score (Carriers – VAN)

By mode. Reefer rejection rates tumbled from it’s all-time high in March to under 35% in mid-June before popping higher over the past two weeks. Reefer rejections are still quite high from a historical standpoint at 38%, but are significantly lower than just three months ago when reefer carriers were rejecting half of all electronically tendered loads.

SONAR: VOTRI.USA (Blue); ROTRI.USA (Orange)

Dry van tenders make up the majority of all tenders, so the van rejection rate mirrors the aggregate index closely. Van rejections have surged from ~23% to ~26% over the past two weeks.

Yes, one-in-four loads being rejected is not ideal, but it’s better than 30%. I am unaware of any meaningful signals that capacity is being added at a rate that would change my outlook. With so many catalysts for demand, and many constraints on drivers including the Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse, driver training school closures and continued government unemployment benefits, the outlook is tight throughout this year and into 2022. That’s not to say we won’t see improvement as consumers revert to pre-pandemic spending habits and drivers enter or reenter the market. But I’m not expecting any quick reversal of this environment; there are simply too many catalysts driving volume and suppressing capacity.

SONAR: OTRI.USA (2020/21 – Blue; 2020 – Green; 2019 – Orange)

Freight rates: Absolute level and momentum positive for carriers

Throughout June, spot rates have moderated while contract rates have pushed higher. The Truckstop.com dry van rate per mile (incl. fuel) has fallen from $3.21 to $3.11 since the beginning of June, while FreightWaves van contract rates have risen from $2.50 to $2.59/mile, exclusive of fuel.

I still believe the Truckstop.com dry van national average will not retest the post-vortex surge pricing that brought spot rates up to an all-time high of $3.30. But, there aren’t many catalysts to bring spot rates down anytime soon either. Demand is unwavering with continued strong consumer goods demand, humming industrial recovery and a potentially cooling, yet still sizzling, hot housing market. And carriers can’t fill enough trucks to keep up with demand.

Prior to the seasonal movements we’re seeing in tender rejections, routing guides generally had been improving through Q2. We should continue to see a convergence between spot and contract rates, but spot rates will remain historically very elevated throughout the summer as demand simply outstrips capacity.

SONAR: TSTOPVRPM.USA (Blue); VCRPM1.USA (Green)

Economic stats: Momentum and absolute level neutral

Several economic releases this week are worth noting.

Weekly jobless claims were released Thursday and give us one of the best close-to-real-time indicators of the overall economy. This week, the data was again very promising as the labor market continues on a bumpy but trajectorially stable recovery path.

First-time filings totaled 411,000 for the week ended June 19, a slight decrease from the previous total of 418,000 but worse than the 380,000 Dow Jones estimate, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Initial claims have held above 400,000 for consecutive weeks after falling to a pandemic low of 374,000 three weeks ago. As things stand, the current level of initial claims is about double where it was prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The good news on the jobs front is that continuing claims are on the decline, falling to 3.39 million, a drop of 144,000. That number runs a week behind the headline claims total.

Initial jobless claims (weekly in May 2020-May 2021)

At the time of writing, the newest weekly data for the week ending May 29 had not been updated in SONAR. This week, claims fell from 405,000 to 385,000.

SONAR: IJC.USA

Consumer. Turning to consumer spending, as measured by Bank of America weekly card (both debit and credit) spending data, total card spending (TCS) in the latest week accelerated to 22% over 2019. This is the first time in June that TCS has topped 20% over 2019, but spending has been running up 16-19% consistently on a two-year comp for months. For contect, the average pre-pandemic two-year growth rate was about 8% (from 2012 to 2019).

The Bank of America team highlighted service spending in the nation’s two largest state economies, California and New York, which are now fully reopened. Spending at restaurants is now well above 2019 in both states, and the team believes there is more capacity for spending to accelerate in the states that were slower to reopen given pent-up demand.

There was also a notable acceleration in spending on clothing this week, according to Bank of America. It could be a reversal from some softening in the early weeks of June, or an indication of people refreshing wardrobes ahead of a return to work, more travel and vacations. One tepid statement for freight markets from this week;s report: Leisure spending is on the rise and durable goods spending is flatlining.

FreightWaves’ Flatbed Outbound Tender Reject Index, both a measure of relative demand and capacity, moves directionally with the ISM PMI.

SONAR: ISM.PMI (Blue); FOTRI.USA (Green)

Manufacturing. Over the past two weeks, regional manufacturing surveys have reported generally positive readings amid logistical challenges. The New York Fed’s Empire State business conditions index declined 6.9 points to 17.4 in June, retreating from strong readings the past two months. The Empire State Index is a diffusion index with a baseline of zero; any reading above zero indicates improving or expansionary conditions.

Delivery times lengthened to a new record during the month, new orders and shipments fell, and inventories entered negative territory. The supply chain and transportation challenges are as visible upstream as downstream, but overall the manufacturing sector is handling. Growth continued throughout the second quarter in both the Empire State and Philly Fed indices.

The Philadelphia Federal Reserve’s business activity index edged lower to a still robust 30.7 in June from 31.5 in the prior month. Unlike NY, the pace of shipments growth accelerated in the Philly region during June. The employment subcomponent rose to a very healthy 30.7 from 19.3 last month, the regional bank said.

Record-long lead times, wide-scale shortages of critical basic materials, rising commodities prices and difficulties in transporting products are continuing to affect all segments of the manufacturing economy, but demand remains strong.

For more information on the FreightWaves Freight Intel Group, please contact Kevin Hill at khill@www.freightwaves.com or Andrew Cox at acox@www.freightwaves.com.

Check out the newest episodes of our podcast, Great Quarter, Guys, here.

Project44 acquires ClearMetal to strengthen predictive tools

Project44, a leader in real-time visibility of the global supply chain, announced on Thursday it has acquired ClearMetal, a San Francisco-based supply chain planning software company that focuses on international freight visibility, predictive planning and overall customer experience. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

ClearMetal, founded by top software engineers and data scientists from Stanford, Google and other Silicon Valley elites, has created a “continuous delivery experience” that leverages proprietary machine learning algorithms that can forecast supply chain disruptions.

In an interview, Jason Duboe, chief growth officer at project44, explained that bringing in ClearMetal’s elite team is essential for the company’s future predictive solutions.

“Their team construct is fundamentally different. When you look at their data science, machine learning and computer science background, they are best in class,” he said. “Applying the team to solve really interesting challenges, starting with highly predictive ETA and deeper exception management to create more predictive analytics is really a key component here.”

Project44 recently acquired Ocean Insights to gain global supply chain vessel visibility and has announced it has expanded its truckload tracking services within Asia. Bringing on this new team of engineers will allow the company to capitalize on strong predictive tools, strengthening the supply chain of its customers.

“We’re going to be expanding deeper into Asia, and from a port perspective, getting data much earlier than competitors,” explained Duboe. “Our freight forwarder integrations will give us much deeper visibility from an end-to-end perspective in these regions.”

Along with the acquired skills the ClearMetal team will bring to project44, it brings a large book of customers, including large CPGs, retailers, manufacturers, distributors and chemical companies. These advanced use cases will strengthen the predictive planning tools, and project44 continues to expand into different customer markets.

“What we gain from ClearMetal is a holistic platform for anybody that joins the platform in the future,” said Duboe. “They have large customers with incredibly demanding and advanced use cases. So when it comes to order and inventory, functionality, supplier onboarding, and moving upstream into those processes, we can capture exceptions earlier on.”

Click here for more articles by Grace Sharkey.

Project44 expands real-time visibility into China

Project44 reels in Ocean Insights in ‘largest acquisition in visibility space’

‘Project44’s vision has always been global’

CN: STB should reject ‘incomplete’ UP-NS merger application

Canadian National urged the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to reject the amended merger application by Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern, claiming it still fails to meet the regulator’s requirements.

Montreal-based CN (NYSE: CNI) in a filing Monday said the application “continues to omit required information regulators and stakeholders need to meaningfully assess the competitive and operational impacts of this major proposed merger.”

The STB in January rejected the initial application from UP (NYSE: UNP) and NS (NYSE: NSC) for missing information on, among other elements, forward-looking market share data; details that would allow UP to walk away from the deal; and specifics on control of a terminal railway in St. Louis that interchanges traffic between railroads.

CN said the revised application addressed only one deficiency by providing the complete merger agreement.

“Applicants still have not offered meaningful competitive enhancements, falling far short of the STB’s higher burden for Class I mergers to enhance competition and meet the public interest standard,” CN said.

The filing also lacks complete competition analyses and market share information, and instances where rail service to shippers would shrink from two Class I options to one, or from three to two. Also, it noted the absence of analyses of downstream competitive impacts from future potential rail consolidation.

CN criticized the proposed Committed Gateway Pricing (CGP) program, which it termed the sole alleged enhancement to competition, calling it a “temporary” and “highly limited” program that applies to less than 1% of U.S. rail traffic.

“CGP excludes major categories of traffic including finished vehicles, intermodal shipments, unit trains, and all customers currently served by CN, CPKC (NYSE: CP), and most short lines,” CN said. According to UP and NS, it claimed, “CGP will actually harm many shippers. Importantly, many shippers would face increases in rail shipping costs due to the CGP program, as shown in the state maps submitted with CN’s comments.

“Rather than provide the required competition analyses, they recycled the same flawed approach the board already rejected,” said Olivier Chouc, CN executive vice-president and chief legal officer, in a release. “Rather than submit the required Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis application, they deleted their prior filing and offered a vague promise in its place. And rather than propose real competitive enhancements, they doubled down on a pricing program that will harm more shippers than it helps as shown by their own expert’s study.

“This is not a serious effort to comply with the Board’s requirements – it is a disregard for the process and for the stakeholders who depend on it.”

The company said it expects the STB to conduct a thorough and fair review.

“CN remains confident the board will hold applicants to the standards required by the board’s regulations and to reject this incomplete application.”

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Read more articles by Stuart Chirls here.

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Retail imports fuel 2nd best April for Port of LA

The Port of Los Angeles processed 890,861 twenty foot equivalent units (TEUs) in April, 5.7% better than the same month a year ago, and the second-best April on record.

LA, with the Port of Long Beach half of the San Pedro Bay maritime gateway, saw consumer demand boost strong imports despite ongoing uncertainty around tariffs and trade policy.

The port handled 3,279,704 TEUs through the first four months of this year, 2% ahead of its five-year average for that stretch and 2% below the 2025 record pace when front-loading was spurred by President Donald Trump’s chaotic tariff policies.

“April was our strongest month this year and the highest cargo volume we’ve seen since last August, a clear sign that the American consumer remains resilient,” Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka said Monday in a media briefing. “Retailers and manufacturers are continuing to move goods despite uncertainty, and based on what we’re seeing in Asia, the next wave of imports – from back-to-school to early holiday merchandise – is already beginning to build.”

That resilience is likely to be tested by soaring gas prices. Seroka said trucking companies, like airlines, could begin to pass on the added cost of diesel fuel, which has increased 50% from the beginning of the year.

Cargo continues to move with no back-ups or delays, said Seroka, who recently visited Asia. “Factories are running at full capacity.”

April loaded imports totaled 459,825 TEUs, ahead by 5% y/y and up 21% from March. Loaded exports dipped 0.5% to 127,726 TEUs.

Empties surged 10% to 303,310 TEUs, said Seroka, as liners reposition assets to handle peak season eastbound goods on the trans-Pacific.

Read more articles by Stuart Chirls here.

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Fighting Distracted Driving Starts with Leadership

Mike Fackler, Technical Director of Transportation for Travelers Insurance, joined FreightWaves’ Malcolm Harris on What the Truck?!? to break down why the solutions to distracted driving don’t start with the driver.

According to Fackler, the scope of the problem is bigger than a phone in someone’s hand. Yes, cell phones remain the dominant distraction on the road, but tight schedules, communication demands, and the operational realities of running freight make the picture far more layered.

Federal regulations already prohibit CMV operators from using hand-held mobile devices while driving — a rule that carries significant fines and penalties for both drivers and carriers. But Fackler argues that compliance alone isn’t enough.

“When you think about distractions as a whole, you have to think about all the responsibilities, all the things that drivers are trying to balance,” Fackler said. “With tight schedules and communication demands, they’ve got multiple responsibilities. They’re trying to juggle all these things at once, and they’re trying to safely get to where they’re going.”

Regulatory compliance and internal discipline are essential — and legally required — starting points. But approaching distraction as a systemic condition rather than an individual failing means going further than enforcement alone to build a culture where safe behavior is the norm, not just the rule.

The root of the problem, says Fackler, sits in the C-suite and in dispatch offices long before it lands in the cab of a truck. When a distracted-driving incident occurs, the default response tends to focus on what the driver should have done differently. Fackler argues, that’s looking at it backwards.

“Distraction is just a symptom of a bigger issue,” Fackler said. “If we want to address distracted driving, we have to step back and ask ourselves what kind of culture we’re building and what behaviors we’re reinforcing every single day.”

That question applies across every level of an organization. There’s often a direct line between leadership behavior and fleet outcomes, and the small, daily decisions made by executives, managers, and dispatchers are what ultimately shape how drivers behave on the road. Leaders who take calls while driving, fire off texts from behind the wheel, or dial into meetings on the move are, in effect, establishing the unwritten rules of their organizations.

“It’s the small everyday decisions that your culture gets locked into,” Fackler said.

Accountability, Fackler says, is a principle that has to be universal in order to be meaningful. He pointed to a lesson from one of his former football coaches that has stuck with him throughout his career.

“Accountability is the ultimate form of leadership,” Fackler said, crediting the coach. “Expectations cannot be implied and they cannot only be spoken.”

That philosophy extends to how organizations handle their best performers. Fleet leaders should understand that tension well.

A veteran driver with a clean record and years of loyal service gets caught using a phone on the road. Do you enforce the same consequence you’d hand down to a first-year driver? Fackler said the answer has to be yes, every time.

“You can’t have different rules for different people, because when you do that, things start to break down,” he said. “You can’t make an exception and say, ‘Well, this is one of our best drivers.’ Allowing employees off the hook and failing to enforce your expectations is what undermines your safety culture and leads to the problems that we see.”

Drivers are perceptive. When leadership says one thing but does another, or when star performers play by different rules, the message that reaches the driver’s seat is that distracted driving is tolerable.

“When you have an organization that lacks a clear strategy and clear policies around expectations for distracted driving, you’re effectively telling drivers that staying connected and staying distracted is more important than staying safe,” Fackler said.

He offered a simple, practical example of what right looks like at the leadership level: “Leaders should say, ‘Hey, I’ll call you back when I’m parked’ instead of responding in the moment.”

There’s a broader picture beyond individual incidents to the long game of organizational safety culture. Perfection isn’t the target, according to Fackler. Progress is.

“The goal should be to build culture over time and try to enforce the expectations that we do the right thing even when no one’s watching,” Fackler said. “It’s not one single instance that defines an organization, but it’s the thousands of small decisions that happen up before it.”

Fleet operators, then, have a challenge and an opportunity simultaneously. Distracted driving isn’t going to disappear overnight. The technology, the communication demands, the operational pressures that create distraction are only intensifying. What can change is how organizations position themselves relative to those pressures. Leaders are responsible for whether they treat distraction as an inevitable cost of doing business or as a cultural problem they have the power to address.

Fackler left leaders with three questions to pressure-test their own organizations: “Companies need to ask themselves: Do we have clear policies around distracted driving? Are the expectations communicated and are they reinforced consistently? Is leadership actively involved?”

Safety performance directly impacts insurance outcomes, regulatory standing, and public perception in the freight industry. The answer to distracted driving begins behind the desk.

Click here to learn more about Travelers.

FAA clears grounded MD-11s for return to service

FedEx on Sunday operated an MD-11 freighter aircraft in commercial service for the first time since early November after the Federal Aviation Administration lifted a flight ban that was implemented following the fiery crash of a UPS cargo jet.

“After extensive review, the FAA approved Boeing’s protocol for safely returning MD-11 airplanes to service,” the agency said in a statement provided to FreightWaves. Airlines must replace a structural component before they can fly the aircraft.

FedEx (NYSE: FDX) conducted a short test flight in and out of Memphis International Airport on Saturday evening. FreightWaves previously reported that FedEx was on the cusp of resurrecting its fleet of 29 McDonnell Douglas MD-11 aircraft after jointly developing with Boeing a new part aimed at correcting a flaw that led to fatigue cracks in the airframe. FedEx told employees during a town hall last week that it would gradually phase in the remaining planes after they go through maintenance facilities to replace the component and pilots complete a refresher training course.

FedEx on Sunday operated one MD-11 from its super hub in Memphis to Los Angeles International Airport, according to data on aircraft tracking site Flightradar24. A second plane flew from Memphis to Miami.

UPS Flight 2976 crashed during takeoff from Louisville airport in Kentucky when the left engine detached from the wing.. A preliminary finding by the National Transportation Safety Board last year found fatigue cracks in the pylon holding the engine to the wing. The problem was traced to a bearing in one of the lug nuts that holds the pylon together. FedEx last week said it will remove the pylons from planes where they are parked around the world and ship them to its maintenance hubs in Memphis and Indianapolis for the bearing replacement.

FedEx says it will keep operating the aging MD-11 aircraft until 2032 because it needs them to meet rising demand for cargo. UPS opted to retire its fleet of MD-11s.

Western Global Airlines is the only remaining airline with an MD-11 fleet.

Click here for more FreightWaves/American Shipper stories by Eric Kulisch.

Write to Eric Kulisch at ekulisch@freightwaves.com.

Kentucky congressman urges FAA to permanently shut down MD-11 aircraft

FedEx prepares to reactivate grounded MD-11 fleet in May

NTSB links fatigue cracks to fatal crash of UPS cargo jet

Six found dead inside cargo train near Texas-Mexico border

Authorities are investigating after six people were found dead inside a Union Pacific cargo train boxcar at a rail yard in Laredo, Texas, on Sunday.

The bodies were discovered Sunday afternoon during a routine inspection by a Union Pacific employee before the train was scheduled to continue north, according to the Laredo Police Department, The Los Angeles Times reported.

Police said officers and emergency crews responded to the Union Pacific rail yard around 3 p.m. Authorities confirmed six fatalities — five men and one woman — at the scene.

Jose Espinoza, public information officer for the Laredo Police Department, told reporters the investigation remains in its early stages. The identities, ages and immigration status of the victims had not been released as of Monday morning.

Temperatures in Laredo climbed into the low-to-mid 90s Sunday afternoon, although officials have not determined whether heat played a role in the deaths. Autopsies are expected to be conducted by the Webb County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Union Pacific said it is cooperating with law enforcement agencies investigating the incident.

“Union Pacific is saddened by this incident and is working closely with law enforcement to investigate,” the railroad said in a statement.

Federal agencies, including Homeland Security Investigations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Texas Rangers, are assisting with the investigation, according to reports.

Laredo is one of the country’s busiest trade gateways with Mexico and a major rail crossing hub for North American freight traffic. The city handles billions of dollars in cross-border commerce annually and sees roughly a dozen freight trains arrive daily from Mexico.

Proficient’s 1Q earnings: tough quarter, better 2Q ahead, stock takes a dive

Proficient Auto Logistics’ (NASDAQ: PAL) earnings report and conference call with analysts sounded very similar to others that have been heard this quarter: tough quarter overall, January and February were terrible, March was better and it’s looking good into April and May.

The difference is that Proficient’s stock price was pummeled as a result, while others, like RXO (NYSE: RXO), rebounded on the stronger outlook.

Proficient’s stock dropped Friday after the earnings release and conference call late Thursday. On Friday, the price fell almost 19%, to $5.95, a decline of 1.39%.

At about 2:20 pm EDT Monday, Proficient had rebounded 4.03% to $6.19. However, earlier in the day it had hit its 52-week low of $5.72.

It has been a rough ride for Proficient shareholders who held the stock after the company went public.

A long slide

In August 2020, Proficient stock, according to Yahoo Finance, touched $20 during intraday trading. The gap between that price and Monday’s earlier 52-week low is a decline of more than 71%.

On the earnings call, CEO Richard O’Dell’s first comments were about the bad news. “The first two months of the quarter were affected by extended automotive plant shutdowns, weaker-than-expected industry seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR for auto sales), severe winter weather and a slow recovery of the rail and sea transportation pipelines that feed our network,” O’Dell said. “These factors constrained volumes and resulted in revenue levels below the comparable periods of 2025 and below comparably higher fixed cost coverage levels with the Brothers acquisition reflected in our 2026 expense base.”

Improvement in March

But in line with what other transportation-related companies have noted this quarter, “revenue and volume trends improved in March,” O’Dell said. As a result, revenue was only 2% less than a year earlier, he added. “Looking to the second quarter, recent trends indicate more stable volume levels, supported by seasonal strengthening, improved weather, dealer inventory and strong tax refunds,” O’Dell said.

O’Dell also said the annual SAAR for April was 16.1 million vehicles, compared to 16.3 million in March, both a healthy number.

Some of the data comparisons year-over-year were positive, even as sequential numbers took a hit.

Total deliveries, both by company drivers and subhaulers, were up 1.5% from a year ago, with company deliveries up 14.3% and subhaulers down 4.8%. But deliveries were down 13.5% sequentially from the fourth quarter.

The growth in company deliveries is part of the company’s strategic plan to bring more business in house.

But revenue per unit was down 1.8% year-on-year for company deliveries and down 4.3% for subhaulers. That figure rose slightly from the fourth quarter, up 2.9% for company deliveries and 2.7% for subhaulers.

OR exceeds 100%

The worst number was in operating ratio: it deteriorated to 103.4% for the first quarter, compared to 98.7% a year earlier and 98.6% sequentially.

O’Dell echoed a theme heard from other trucking executives this earnings season: capacity is tightening even in the fairly niche market of auto transportation.

“The rebound in volumes in March and April made capacity tightening more evident, exposing underlying supply loss that had previously been less visible,” O’Dell said. “Supply losses appear to be driven by a combination of factors, including financial pressure from low volume, compounded by relatively weaker rates, increased relative scrutiny or regulatory scrutiny and driver migration towards other forms of trucking as the broader trucking rates have improved.”

More than with most trucking companies, Proficient spoke openly about the “headwinds” created by fuel surcharges. While the anomalies of surcharges mean that it can benefit some trucking companies beyond passing higher pump prices down to the shipper, Proficient appears to have been negatively impacted by the rise in retail diesel.

Impact of higher fuel

O’Dell put a number on it: higher fuel prices had a $1 million hit on the company’s profitability in the first quarter. (It wasn’t clear what measure of profitability O’Dell was referring to. Proficient had EBITDA of $4.47 million in the quarter, for an EBITDA margin of 4.8%, and a net loss of $8.3 million before income taxes. The operating loss was $3.17 million).

He said the lag between changes in the fuel surcharge and what was paid to secure those supplies hurt Proficient.

“In Q1, fuel started to increase markedly in March,” O’Dell said. “And because the indexes that set the fuel surcharge don’t reset until the beginning of April, we were paying out real-time fuel costs during the month of March that didn’t have a comparable increase in the reimbursement.”

O’Dell spelled out how Proficient sees a shift in the market that can benefit auto haulers.

What he described as “third party capacity” would be pulled from contracted markets, as it moves toward higher levels in the spot market. Those contracts at lower-priced numbers, in turn, according to O’Dell, “have struggled to secure consistent capacity when seasonal volume returns and in several instances leading to a redistribution at market-level economics.”

He added that situation “is clearly a turning point in the auto haul market.”

Amy Rice, the company’s president and COO, said that change in market structure was not opening the door to new business opportunities for Proficient, as it mostly has stuck with what it already had on the books.

She said spot business was less than 5% across Proficient’s activities in the quarter, “so it continues to be a very small portion of the portfolio.”

Proficient said the company’s estimate on second quarter revenue is between $105 million and $110 million. First quarter revenue before fuel surcharge revenue was $86.2 million.

Second quarter 2025 revenue was $115 million, though Proficient executives said on the call that the 2025 numbers were inflated by “pull forward” activity by auto buyers trying to get ahead of tariffs.

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Project44 launches Autopilot, an AI-enabled logistics operating system that offers infinite labor

Project44 has launched Autopilot, a no-code platform that lets shippers, brokers and 3PLs deploy AI agents across their supply chain workflows without writing prompts, building integrations or hiring an engineering team to wire it up.

The product is the culmination of more than 18 months of agent deployment across the project44 network. According to the company, that work has already produced a 4% reduction in freight spend, a 70% reduction in manual coordination, sourcing cycles up to 75% faster and as much as a 40% reduction in disruption-related costs.

But Autopilot is more than another feature release. It is project44’s bet on what the next decade of supply chain software looks like. It is also a direct challenge to the wave of agentic AI startups that have raised hundreds of millions over the past two years to automate the very workflows project44 is now automating itself.

(A screenshot of project44’s Autopilot. (Image: project44)

What Autopilot actually is

Autopilot gives users a visual workflow canvas where AI agents respond to real-time logistics signals (a late shipment, a missing PRO number, a container dwelling too long at the port of discharge) and act on them autonomously. Customers configure the triggers, set conditional branching by carrier or lane, define escalation paths and choose post-agent actions like notifications, task creation or routing work to a human operator. A draft-and-publish model lets teams iterate on workflow configurations without disrupting live operations, and every agent action is logged and auditable through project44’s Movement Collaboration Center.

The pre-built library covers about 40 workflows today, including collecting truck milestones, late shipment reason codes, missing PRO numbers, and carrier outreach for ETA confirmation. Project44 says it is shipping two to three new ones a week. Administrators can toggle any of them on with a click and tailor the steps to fit their own escalation paths and notification preferences. No prompt engineering. No TMS integration project. No data normalization.

Eastman Chemical Co., an early customer, said in the launch announcement that the platform let its team expand into APAC and onboard less-technical carriers without adding operational complexity. “The right work reaches the right people without manual intervention,” said Josh Moss, Eastman’s process lead for global supply chain.

Signal, trigger, action

In a conversation previewing the launch, founder and CEO Jett McCandless walked me through what he called the signal-trigger-action evolution of project44’s platform, and by extension of supply chain visibility itself.

“Signal” is the network. It’s the data graph project44 has spent more than a decade building, which now connects 259,000 carriers and processes 1.5 billion shipments a year across 186 countries and territories, ingesting more than 700 million logistics events a day. McCandless calls it the world’s largest synchronous logistics data graph, and he is not subtle about what it cost.

“It costs me a billion dollars to build this layer here,” McCandless said. “Maybe even more, but that’s the context that we need for everything.”

“Trigger” is what project44 layered on top during the COVID era: an exception engine, released around 2022, that turned the firehose of raw shipment data into prioritized work items. “Action,” the new layer, is Autopilot.

McCandless’ framing captures something most supply chain software companies dance around: visibility didn’t solve the underlying problem. It exposed it.

“When we turn the lights on, what came back was chaos,” he said. “Right now you can see everything that’s going on. But how do you separate noise from signal? How do you know what the actual exceptions are?”

By the time exception engines arrived, customers had a different problem: they could see what was wrong, but they couldn’t process it fast enough. “Humans don’t have the ability to process as much as that’s there,” McCandless said. “So you’d actually have to hire more humans.”

Autopilot, in his telling, is what closes that gap, turning the action layer into something that scales with the work rather than with headcount. “People have been buying technology to help humans do jobs,” he said. “Now we’re finally at the point where you can buy this technology and it will do the job.”

(Image: project44)

The competitive claim

The most provocative thing about Autopilot isn’t the product. It’s the competitive claim project44 is making around it.

McCandless argues that the agentic AI startups crowding logistics conferences, are not really competitors. They are, in his framing, blank-canvas tools without the underlying data, system of record or distribution to deploy at scale on their own.

McCandless stated, “They don’t have any context. So all these companies have to create data lakes, normalize the data, sync it with their TMS and their CRM and all these other systems. Then they have to hire prompt engineers. They have to connect into project44 and extract the data. And then piece agents together to communicate and hand information back and forth. Most of the projects are failing.”

The wrinkle: project44 actually uses some of those same vendors inside Autopilot. The platform routes specific tasks, like a carrier callback in a particular language or an inbound voice agent for a fleet that won’t take a webhook, to whichever agent vendor performs best for the job. All the top agent vendor brands all show up in the routing layer. Customers never see them and never get a separate invoice.

That is a meaningful repositioning. McCandless is effectively arguing that the agent companies aren’t a layer; they are a commodity input, features inside a larger platform. He cited a line he attributes to logistics-tech investor Art Mesher: “One man’s product is just another man’s feature.” “The answer,” he said, of whether project44 has built a defensible platform versus a feature, “is yes for us.

Why not “control tower”

Notably absent from project44’s positioning is the phrase the rest of the category has spent five years trying to own: control tower. FourKites uses it. So do most of the legacy TMS vendors. McCandless rejects the framing.

Control towers, in his telling, evoke air traffic: tens of thousands of human controllers operating a system built on 1960s technology. That is the opposite of what Autopilot is designed to do. When project44 rebranded from a visibility company to a “decision intelligence platform” last summer, McCandless said the company seriously considered calling itself an “intelligent operating system,” and held off only to make sure it could ship product that delivered on the framing first. “When you look at what this is,” he said, “this is that intelligent operating system. And we haven’t rebranded to that.” Yet.

The business backdrop

Autopilot arrives at an interesting moment for project44 commercially. McCandless said the company has reached cash flow break-even and is growing its shipper business, a strategic cohort segment of its book, at 20% + year over year.

Headcount, which peaked at 1,200, now sits at 582. McCandless said the company will never exceed 600 people. The reason: AI now writes roughly 85% of project44’s code. And we leverage AI for Operations. McCandless argues that as the cost of building software trends toward zero, the moat shifts to three things: distribution into the largest shippers and LSPs, proprietary data and a culture that can absorb constant change. The first two are defensible by the same billion-dollar data graph that underwrites Autopilot.

And there is one more wrinkle that may matter most for shippers evaluating the platform: Autopilot is currently free. “We actually don’t charge for it at all right now,” McCandless said. The implied pricing model is outcome-based. Project44 will share in the savings or efficiency Autopilot delivers rather than billing on seats, tokens or per-agent fees. That is consistent with where AI software broadly is heading, but freight tech vendors have been notably slow to commit to it.

What to watch

Autopilot is a category claim. Project44 is arguing that the action layer, not the visibility layer, is where the next wave of supply chain software value will be captured, and that the only companies positioned to capture it are the ones with all three: the data graph, the distribution into the largest shippers and 3PLs and the culture of self disruption.

The bet is not unreasonable. The agentic AI vendors raising aggressively against this thesis will need to prove they can do more than build standalone tools. Legacy TMS players will need to figure out how to bolt agents onto on-premises architectures that were never built for it. And for shippers and 3PLs, if Autopilot delivers anything close to the freight-spend, manual-coordination and sourcing-cycle improvements project44 is advertising, the math on staffing logistics operations teams changes quickly. The action layer, as McCandless puts it, finally has infinite labor.

SONAR Launches Carrier Safety Dashboard — Right on Time for International Roadcheck Week

New FMCSA and CSA intelligence tool goes live as North American enforcement enters its most intense 72 hours of the year — and as the CDL crackdown reshapes the driver pool in real time

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — May 12, 2026 — SONAR today announced the launch of its new Carrier Safety Dashboard, a comprehensive intelligence tool that centralizes Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) and Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) data — including crashes, carriers and census, roadside inspections, and an in-depth view of out-of-service (OOS) violations — into a single, interactive platform.

The dashboard goes live on the opening day of the 2026 CVSA International Roadcheck, the largest targeted commercial motor vehicle enforcement event in the world — and at a moment when the non-domiciled CDL crackdown is already driving structural change in carrier safety compliance across the country.

Access the Carrier Safety Dashboard now at sonar.surf/fmcsa-dashboard.

What’s Inside the Carrier Safety Dashboard

The dashboard is organized into three primary modules, each filterable by current year, last 12 months, last 3 years, all time, or a custom date range.

Crashes

The crash module presents federal recordable CMV crash data across five key metrics: total crashes, fatal crashes, injury-only crashes, hazmat-involved crashes, and tow-aways. Over the last 12 months, SONAR’s dashboard shows 158,338 total federal recordable crashes, including 3,916 fatal crashes (2.47% of total), 60,386 injury crashes (38.14%), 740 hazmat incidents, and 146,967 vehicles towed.

A monthly crash trend chart breaks out total crashes, fatal crashes, and hazmat releases over time, while lower-panel charts display hazmat releases by month, crash severity split, and cargo body type — with refrigerated trailers representing the highest-volume crash category at 63,378 incidents over the period.

Carriers & Census

The carriers module provides a full view of the registered carrier population. Over the last 12 months, 172,689 carriers have been registered across all operating types: 99,358 interstate (A), 67,325 intrastate non-hazmat (C), and 4,027 intrastate hazmat (B). A geographic heat map illustrates carrier concentration by state, with California and Texas leading all other states by a significant margin.

Inspections

The inspections module aggregates roadside inspection data across driver and vehicle categories. Over the last 12 months, the dashboard shows 2,908,513 total roadside inspections, with 579,831 OOS violations and 13,220 hazmat violations — including 4,236 hazmat OOS orders. California and Texas lead all states in inspection volume, followed by North Carolina, New York, and a cluster of southern and midwestern states. By inspection level, walk-around (Level II) inspections account for 36.0% of all inspections, driver-only (Level III) for 35.2%, and full (Level I) for 25.8%.

OOS Violations — Deep Dive

The OOS module provides the deepest analytical layer in the dashboard. With 2,284,768 total OOS violations recorded and an overall OOS rate of 17.5%, the data surfaces which regulatory categories are generating the most enforcement action — and where that enforcement converts most aggressively to trucks being pulled from service.

By CFR Part, §393 (Parts & Accessories — Brakes, Lights, Tires) is the leading source of both all violations and OOS violations, followed by §392. A side-by-side bar chart for the top 10 CFR Parts makes the gap between total violations and OOS conversions immediately visible.

By CSA BASIC category, Vehicle Maintenance leads at 20.7% of OOS violations, followed by Unsafe Driving (14.2%), Hours of Service (11.3%), Hazardous Materials (8.5%), Driver Fitness (6.1%), Driving of CMVs (4.5%), and Lights/Electrical (4.0%) — with all other categories comprising the remaining 30.9%.

Why the Timing Matters: International Roadcheck Begins Today

The 2026 CVSA International Roadcheck runs May 12–14, during which certified inspectors across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico will conduct an average of 15 inspections per minute over 72 hours. This annual enforcement blitz is the single largest concentrated data-collection and enforcement event in commercial motor vehicle safety — and its results flow directly into CSA scores, OOS records, and FMCSA databases that now live inside SONAR’s new dashboard.

This year’s Roadcheck carries two areas of special enforcement focus:

Driver Focus: ELD Tampering, Falsification, or Manipulation — Inspectors will scrutinize driver records of duty status for anomalies, suspicious edits, and patterns inconsistent with routes and timing. Last year, falsification of records was the second most-cited driver violation across all of North America at 58,382 violations. A driver found with a falsified log faces a 10-hour out-of-service order — harsher than the 4–5 hours typically imposed for an underlying HOS violation — plus a more damaging entry on their inspection record.

Vehicle Focus: Cargo Securement — In 2025, 18,108 violations were issued for cargo not secured to prevent leaking, spilling, or falling, and 16,054 more for unsecured vehicle components or dunnage. The 2026 Roadcheck will emphasize that loads must be contained, immobilized, and secured against all forms of roadway hazard.

Roadcheck week has historically tightened spot freight rates as some drivers elect to park their trucks rather than risk inspection, capacity temporarily exits the market, and tender rejection rates rise. With the freight market already showing signs of structural tightening — OTRI.USA running at 14.43%, approximately 12% above its 6-month average — the enforcement event lands on an already sensitive capacity environment. For a full analysis of what Roadcheck week means for freight rates and market dynamics, see FreightWaves’ Chart of the Week: What Roadcheck Week Means for the Freight Market.

The CDL Crackdown: A New Layer of OOS Exposure

The dashboard launch comes as the non-domiciled CDL enforcement wave introduces a category of OOS risk that did not exist at scale one year ago — and that makes the Driver Fitness BASIC category inside SONAR’s OOS deep dive one of the most closely watched data points in the industry right now.

On March 16, 2026, an FMCSA Final Rule took effect limiting non-domiciled CDL eligibility to a narrow set of verifiable nonimmigrant visa categories. FMCSA estimates that 97% of the approximately 200,000 non-domiciled CDL holders nationwide will not qualify under the new requirements. California cancelled 13,000 licenses in early March. New York lost $73.5 million in federal highway funding after refusing to revoke approximately 17,000 contested CDLs — licenses that a federal audit found were issued with a 53% failure rate against lawful presence documentation requirements.

The enforcement consequence is direct: a driver operating with an invalid CDL during a roadside inspection — including during Roadcheck week — is placed out of service immediately. In severe cases, carriers can receive acute violation status, limiting fleet-wide operations. SONAR’s ELPVOOS.USA index — which tracks English Language Proficiency and driver qualification OOS violations — has spiked 110% above its pre-2025 baseline and remains structurally elevated at +71% above pre-2025 levels. Each OOS event removes a truck for the day and triggers a compliance review. The new Carrier Safety Dashboard is the first SONAR tool to bring this enforcement data into a centralized, filterable visual environment where carriers can benchmark their own exposure and monitor the national trend.

For the full analysis of the CDL crackdown, its regulatory timeline, state-by-state enforcement actions, and freight market implications — including J.B. Hunt’s projection of 214,000–437,000 drivers potentially removed from the workforce over the next two to three years — read the SONAR blog: The CDL Crackdown Is Here. Here’s What It Means for U.S. Freight.

For the live SONAR Sitrep — tracking OTRI, NTIL, VCRPM1, ROTRI, ELPVOOS, OTVI, and CDNCA signals as the supply correction unfolds — visit: sonar.surf/sitreps?tab=cdl-crackdown

And for context on the deferred maintenance backlog that carriers are carrying out of the freight recession — a compounding risk factor heading into peak Roadcheck enforcement — see the SONAR Fleet Maintenance Sitrep: SONAR Sitrep: Fleet Maintenance — Behind the Curve Post-Freight Recession

Access the SONAR Sitrep on Maintenance and Trucking safety here.

Why SONAR Built This Now

The regulatory environment has fundamentally changed what it means to operate a compliant fleet in 2026. Between the CDL enforcement wave, Roadcheck’s ELD and cargo securement focus, and a freight market where capacity tightening is already visible in SONAR’s leading indices, the need for a single source of truth on carrier safety data has never been more acute.

The SONAR Carrier Safety Dashboard gives freight stakeholders the centralized, up-to-date intelligence they need — whether evaluating their own compliance posture, assessing the carrier base supporting a routing guide, managing broker risk, or monitoring the national enforcement environment heading into the most active inspection period of the year.

Access the Dashboard

The SONAR Carrier Safety Dashboard is available now to SONAR subscribers at sonar.surf/fmcsa-dashboard.

Not yet a SONAR subscriber? Schedule a consultation at GoSONAR.com to see the full platform — including the Carrier Safety Dashboard, SONAR Sitreps, and the full suite of freight market intelligence tools.

Postal Service hires former UPS logistics exec as chief strategy officer

A U.S. Postal Service tractor-trailer truck on a road with green grass and trees around.

The U.S. Postal Service has hired Matt Connelly, a logistics and supply chain industry veteran with more than 30 years experience at parcel giant UPS, as chief solutions and strategy officer, Postmaster General David Steiner said Friday.

At UPS (NYSE: UPS), Connelly developed air freight, ocean freight, parcel and third-party logistics capabilities and played a key role in reshaping the UPS domestic network to handle the rise in e-commerce shipping.

“Matt’s expertise will help us sharpen our network planning, execution and alignment across operations, sales and marketing as we continue driving service excellence,” Steiner told the board of governors while presenting the organization’s second-quarter fiscal results.

Connelly has worked as a special advisor to Steiner for the past seven months, according to his LinkedIn profile. Steiner spent several years on the board of directors at FedEx before becoming postmaster general.

The Postal Service lost $2 billion in the second quarter and has lost more than $30 billion since the close of fiscal year 2021. Steiner has said the agency can’t simply cut its way to financial stability and has made parcel revenue growth a key priority.

Last month, the USPS named Pete Routsolias as chief logistics officer, a role he filled on an acting basis since December. He joined the organization in 2020 after holding senior transportation leadership positions at Ashley Distribution Services, Univar Solutions and XPO Logistics.

In 2022, Connelly helped found Vesta Freight, a truck brokerage based in Nashville, Tennessee, and served as its chairman. Prior to that he spent nearly three years as CEO of non-profit organization Good360, where is credited with significantly expanding its reverse logistics capabilities. He was co-chairman of the board between 2011 and 2019.

From January 2017 to July 2019, Connelly served as vice president of network planning at UPS, where he was responsible for the design and performance of the North American transportation network. His duties included the sourcing of more than $1 billion in annual surface transportation spending and optimizing UPS private fleet and partnerships, developing e-commerce delivery strategies, and providing zone-skipping solutions for UPS’s 80 largest customers.

He also managed the UPS integration of truck brokerage Coyote Logistics in the middle of last decade. (UPS has since sold off Coyote.) Connelly spent more than 12 years as vice president and general manager of UPS Supply Chain Services in the Americas region, helping to integrate the acquisition of Menlo Forwarding and otherwise directing the company’s freight forwarding business.

Earlier in his career at UPS, Connelly held several leadership positions, including senior director, managing domestic small package operations.

(Correction: Connelly’s name was misspelled in an earlier version of this story.)

Click here for more FreightWaves/American Shipper stories by Eric Kulisch.

Write to Eric Kulisch at ekulisch@freightwaves.com.

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U.S.-managed bulk ship attacked in Persian Gulf

A bulk carrier managed by a U.S. company was hit by suspected hostile fire in the Persian Gulf, one of several ships to be attacked in the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend as the United States and Iran fail to reach agreement on a permanent ceasefire.

The UK’s Maritime Operations Center on Monday said the Safesea Neha, a 590-foot bulk vessel sailing under the Marshall Islands flag and managed by U.S.-based Safesea Group, was reportedly struck by a projectile on May 10 near Doha, Qatar. The incident caused a small fire but no injuries aboard the 16-year old ship.

The incident is the first against a merchant ship with U.S. ties since the peace process between the U.S. and Iran began.

The ship provides logistics support for United Nations peacekeeping missions, the World Food Programme, and the U.S. General Services Administration.

Based in Piscataway, N.J., Safesea provides vessel management and other maritime logistics services.

Global shipping rate futures have seen some stabilization over the past week, an indication that carriers are managing the ongoing conflict in the Strait of Hormuz in an effort to moderate price surges. An estimated 1,500 vessels remain trapped in the gulf.

The U.S. Central Command said it disabled two Iranian tankers over the weekend, while three naval vessels came under attack by Iran.

President Donald Trump rejected the latest peace proposal by Tehran. The government there said it would not submit to U.S. demands, particularly over possession of its uranium stockpile.

Read more articles by Stuart Chirls here.

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Georgia Ports’ $5B bet: Rewriting supply chain logistics

Weaker ocean rates hit Maersk Q1 profit

Panama container terminal bidding stacked against U.S. companies: Source

Roadcheck Week doesn’t catch all truck drivers, but it has a long-lasting benefit to safety

Owner-operators can evade Roadcheck Week. Big carriers, not so much.

A convenient time for a vacation, indeed

How a truck driver gets stopped for inspection

A $10 million-plus expense to trucking companies every year … but it’s worth it if just one fatal crash is avoided

Time to start inspecting in the winter

1. The East Coast has lost half of its refineries.

2. It’s a financial risk to bring diesel to the Northeast.

3. Of course, we can blame COVID and the crisis in Ukraine.

The ‘everything shortage’ endures

Watch: Central Freight Lines’ impact on the LTL market

Central Freight Lines statement

Brief history of Central Freight Lines

RELATED STORIES:

What Autopilot actually is

Signal, trigger, action

The competitive claim

The business backdrop

What to watch

Crashes

Carriers & Census

Inspections

OOS Violations — Deep Dive

RELATED STORIES: