Challenge to California’s Advanced Clean Trucks EPA waiver on hold

A legal challenge to the waiver granted by the Environmental Protection Agency allowing the implementation of California’s Advanced Clean Trucks (ACT) rule is being put on hold.

On Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit granted abeyance of the challenge while two other cases regarding EPA actions on emissions make their way through the federal court system.

Those cases are Ohio vs. EPA and Texas vs. EPA. The Ohio case, which has a long list of other red-state plaintiffs, challenged the ability of the EPA to grant California a waiver that allows it to implement emissions standards exceeding federal rules. The states filed suit in May 2022.

Texas vs. EPA challenges the federal government’s ability to mandate tighter motor vehicle emission standards. Peter Zalzal, an attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund, one of the intervenors in the case, told FreightWaves the “key issue there is really challenging EPA’s ability to consider electric vehicles and setting standards under Section 202 of the Clean Air Act.” He said a decision from the District of Columbia court could come down in a matter of weeks, though it might stretch out to months.

The Texas suit does not deal with the California rule directly. It was filed in November 2022.

Both the Ohio and Texas cases were heard in September in the District of Columbia court, the same venue where the lawsuit by lead plaintiff Western States Trucking Association (WSTA) against the ACT waiver was filed. That suit has other plaintiffs and a wide range of states that have signed on as intervenors, either backing the WSTA effort or in defense of the EPA and its waiver powers.

In a brief order handed down Thursday, the District of Columbia court ordered that the WSTA case be held in abeyance until resolution of Ohio vs. EPA and Texas vs. EPA.

The EPA had requested the abeyance Nov. 24. In that request, the agency said the briefs submitted by the plaintiffs in the WSTA case “now show that the large majority of issues presented in this case are, in fact, already before the Court in Ohio v. EPA and Texas v. EPA.”

“Resolution of those two cases could decide or substantially narrow the issues in this [the WSTA] case,” the EPA wrote.

The Advanced Clean Trucks rule is a mandate on OEMs and their sales into the Golden State. The ACT calls for zero-emission vehicles to represent 55% of Class 2b-3 truck sales, 75% of Class 4-8 straight truck sales and 40% of Class 7-8 tractor sales by 2035. After that, there is a 100% ZEV sales requirement beginning in 2036.

The separate Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) rule in California is seen as a partner regulation to the ACT, as it mandates the ZEV composition in fleets as opposed to the ACT mandate on truck sales into the state. The California Air Resources Board only last month filed a waiver request with EPA for the ACF after controversy over whether such a waiver was necessary.

The filing of the waiver request for the ACF rule came several weeks after the California Trucking Association filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California against implementation of the ACF, saying CARB needed a waiver to promulgate the rule.

More articles by John Kingston

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Transactions become smooth like butter

The Stockout show highlights CPG and retail industry trends

On Monday, Grace Sharkey and I went through the year’s biggest trends in the CPG and retail industries, as we saw them. The full show can be seen here and back episodes can be seen here.

Retailers focus on convenience, speed and value

For retailers, the largest trends are related to removing barriers to purchases and making transactions “frictionless.” Examples include Walmart’s phone-based Scan and Go checkouts and Target’s ability to accept curbside returns while also delivering your merchandise and even your Starbucks order at the same time. Removing transaction barriers becomes increasingly important amid growth in social media-driven impulse purchases.

The concept of transaction barriers was also one of the issues at the heart of the Federal Trade Commission’s lawsuit against Amazon and the debate about whether the e-commerce giant was abusing a monopoly position. The FTC alleges that Amazon is selectively using barriers to exploit its monopoly. Not playing by Amazon’s rules results in marketplace sellers not winning the “buy box,” which is typically too big of a barrier to overcome. The same goes for sellers’ inclusion in Prime, which generally requires using Amazon’s fulfillment services.

This year, retailers also continued to up their game on fast and consistent service levels, which prompted Amazon’s shift from a national to a regional fulfillment model and Walmart’s push for the “perfect” online order — with no substitutions or delayed items. Those initiatives have increased demand for automated warehousing and fulfillment in urban locations close to consumption centers and may require retailers to maintain higher inventory levels and invest more heavily in technology and logistics.

(Chart: Barchart.com Inc.)

Yet, despite the focus on convenience and speed, other retailers also won by delivering superior value. I would argue that Costco is one of the least convenient places to shop. Customers trade speed and selection for lower prices on SKUs that are rarely exactly what they want. All the while, customers are assumed to be thieves until their receipt is checked (which now seems prescient). But, it’s the perfect business model amid the cost-of-living crisis, and Costco shares hit an all-time high in recent days. Similarly, private-label discounter Aldi is the fastest-growing grocery chain in the United States.

CPGs clung to elevated retail prices

After rallying last year, the shares of many CPG companies have been pressured this year. Those include General Mills (black line) and J.M. Smucker Co. (blue line), which have posted one-year total returns of negative 23% and negative 20.1%, respectively. That can be attributed to several factors, including investors’ greater appetite for riskier sectors and higher interest rates on corporate bonds, which provide an alternative to consumer staples shares known for strong dividend yields. Other bearish viewpoints on CPG cite rising consumer sensitivity to elevated prices and the impact that Ozempic and similar drugs may have on food and snack sales.

(Chart: Barchart.com Inc.)

There is also the potential for margin contraction. As commodity prices have retreated this year, national CPG brands have clung to elevated prices even as prices of fresh foods and, to a lesser extent, private-label packaged brands have eased. National CPG companies justified the still-high prices by citing rising input costs other than ingredients, such as labor and packaging costs. Now it seems like CPG prices can no longer defy gravity — on both the latest Walmart and Costco analyst calls, the retailers’ management teams suggested they are on paths toward easing CPG prices.

Railroad analyst says service levels will be the most critical railroad issue next year

(Image: FWTV)

Last week on People Speaking Rail (PSR), I interviewed independent railroad analyst Tony Hatch. Hatch has followed the industry closely for a long time and hosted a major railroad conference last month (as he does every November) that included Class I railroad CEOs, Surface Transportation Board members, shippers, consultants and union representatives. This year, it even featured a fiery exchange between the STB chairman and Union Pacific leadership. Tuesday’s show discussed whether the railroads’ “no-furlough pledge” is realistic, the “cult of the OR,” the outlook for railroad regulations and what the railroads need to do to regain share from the highway, among other topics. The full show can be seen here, and catch up on past episodes of PSR here. This week on PSR, Joanna Marsh and I discussed our reaction to the points expressed on John Oliver’s comedic critique of the railroad industry. On my scorecard, I have three criticisms that seemed fair and five that were either unfair or lacked needed context.

To subscribe to The Stockout, FreightWaves’ CPG and retail newsletter, click here.

Mexican seaport adds new charge on container shipments

Officials in the Mexican state of Baja California recently passed a $5 charge for all containers moving through the Port of Ensenada beginning in 2024.

The container tax initiative was spearheaded by officials from the city of Ensenada, Mexico, who said local roadways see heavy use from container transporters moving goods from the port to other destinations across Mexico.

“They transport up to 70 tons of cargo a day,” Ensenada Mayor Armando Ayala Robles told El Imparcial. “Three years ago we invested [$5 million] in the stretch of road from San Miguel [Beach] to the Port of Ensenada, and right now we are spending an average of [$587,000] a year to maintain that stretch of road.”

The Port of Ensenada is located along Mexico’s Pacific Coast, about 90 miles south of San Diego. The port handles about 250,000 containers a year. From January through November, it handled 429,721 twenty-foot equivalent units, a 4.7% year-over-year increase compared to 2022.

The tax proposal was approved by the state legislature of Baja California on Wednesday.

Trucking industry officials and customs brokers across the country said the tax could be a blow to nearshoring opportunities in Mexico.

“The imposition of new taxes on productive sectors will have a highly harmful effect on attracting future investments and will scare away those already present,” Miguel Angel Martinez Millan, president of Mexico’s freight chamber of commerce (CANACAR), said in a news release. “It is incomprehensible that, in the midst of an expansion process due to the arrival of nearshoring, authorities such as those of Ensenada promote restrictive regulations that make this important port less attractive.”

The Mexican Association of Shipping Agents (AMANAC) said it already costs about $24 in administrative fees to move a single container through the country’s ports.

Norma Pocoroba, president of AMANAC, sent an open letter last week to local and state officials urging them to reject the initiative.

“In order to avoid irreversible effects on the maritime port and foreign trade sector, your attentive support is requested in order not to approve the initiative sent by the mayor of the municipality of Ensenada to the Congress of Baja California,” Pocoroba said. “We consider that the tax entails overregulation … the economy and development of the sector would be affected, especially in an important economic and commercial exchange zone such as the Port of Ensenada.”

More articles by Noi Mahoney

CBP halts rail operations at 2 Texas ports of entry

Mexico averaged 57 thefts a day from cargo trucks in Q3

The top US-Mexico business stories of 2023

Reshaping the perception of trucking for a new era — Taking the Hire Road

On this week’s episode of Taking the Hire Road, Jeremy Reymer, founder of DriverReach, is joined by Chris Woody, director of safety at The M&W Logistics Group.

Woody is a distinguished veteran of the industry, having been named the Tennessee Trucking Association’s Safety Professional of the Year in 2021 and having helped M&W to win the American Trucking Associations’ President’s Trophy in 2022.

Yet, like many within the trucking industry, Woody relates that he fell into this line of work “by accident.” More than a decade ago, he began working with M&W in its payroll department. Over time, however, he began to involve himself with multiple aspects of the company, garnering interest as well as notice.

By the time M&W’s previous director of safety decided to retire, Woody was an obvious choice to replace him.

Part of what made Woody such a viable candidate was his obvious passion for defending truckers, both against regulatory snares and in the court of public opinion. “I despise injustice,” he states, “and I feel that the reputation that trucking has — the inherent bias that the public has against us — affects so much down the line.”

Woody defines his mission at M&W as twofold. First, he seeks to inform the public about the central role that truckers play in our economy and, by so doing, undo some of the negative biases associated with the industry. “Everyone needs to know what these men and women do,” he argues, “and how they put their lives on the line just so we can enjoy the very comfortable lifestyles that we have.”

Second, Woody appreciates the countless risks intrinsic to truck driving. “No matter how good your safety record is, no matter how many bells and whistles you have on your truck, or how good your drivers are, they are in danger every time they get on the road.”

Being so uniquely vulnerable, then, truckers need someone to watch their backs. The regulatory environment surrounding the industry is confusing, constantly changing and, given the aforementioned public bias, exposes drivers to nuclear verdicts when accidents occur.

Yet even though driver safety and regulatory compliance are important issues, they tend to fall by the wayside when markets are tough, as priorities shift to finding loads and keeping the lights on.

While such a change in priorities is understandable, Woody points out that it is ultimately shortsighted. “Carriers should be asking themselves: ‘What am I going to look like when I come out on the other side? Will I be in total shambles or, when everything takes off again, am I going to be in shape to run?’”

When the market’s momentum inevitably swings back to favoring carriers, it is vital that fleets be prepared to take advantage of it.

“I think the right move for everybody is to continue to hire, have those trucks filled up and understand that this cyclical stuff always happens,” Woody advises.

Click here to learn more about The M&W Logistics Group.

Running on Ice: Freezers hit the desert

Your latest info on all things cold chain

Hello, and welcome to the coolest community in freight! Here you’ll find the latest information on warehouse news, tech developments and all things reefer madness-related. I’m your controller of the thermostat, Mary O’Connell. Thanks for having me!

All thawed out

From left: Vivian Banda, regional representative for Sen. Cortez Masto; Clay Mitchell, Storey County, Nevada, commissioner; Sam Tippman, president and CEO of Ti Cold; Chris Hughes, president and CEO of Arcadia Cold Storage; and Alex Bacchus, director of business development for the Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development.

Cold storage is growing in the desert thanks to Arcadia Cold Storage & Logistics’ Reno, Nevada, facility. The facility, built and designed by Ti Cold, is poised to serve major markets in California, Nevada, Utah and the Pacific Northwest. It is one of the first large-scale 3PL cold storage facilities in the Reno market.

According to a news release, “The fully-racked, state-of-the-art facility has five fully convertible rooms with the ability to handle frozen and chilled temperatures from -10 to 40 degrees F. It is also equipped with a 60′ deep refrigerated dock and doors to manage distribution and container handling services. Boasting 254,460 square feet of space, the 37,260 pallet positions are situated in modern 50′ clear height rooms with 6-8 High Pallet Racking, and using EVAPCOLD Low Charge Ammonia refrigeration system that is not only environmentally friendly, but is blast freeze ready in a fully convertible space.”

This is the second facility in recent years Arcadia has had Ti Cold build; the first was in Phoenix. It’s likely this isn’t the last we’ve seen of the duo.

Temperature checks

A state-level effort to improve the supply chain has surfaced with a potential cold storage facility at Pier 11 in Red Hook, Brooklyn. U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman, New York State Sen. Andrew Gounards, New York State Assemblymember Marcela Mitaynes, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso and New York City Councilmember Alexa Aciles wrote a letter to the New York City Economic Development Corp. urging the organization to select a sublease proposal at Pier 11 of the Red Hook Main Terminal that will include cold storage capabilities.

The main driver for this proposal is that produce currently imported into the terminal gets put on trucks immediately for shipment to refrigerated locations outside the city. The Red Hook community has seen an increase in traffic, diesel pollution, excess wear and tear on the roads and expressways, and ultimately safety concerns for pedestrians.

One cold storage facility could improve the community significantly through reduced diesel pollution alone. As more problems like this come to light in the cold chain, it’s going to take stronger collaboration among communities, governments and developers to solve them.

Food and drugs

One new addition to the prepared meals side of things evidently isn’t enough: There are two new offerings coming out — one for frozen foods and one for the refrigerated section.

On the frozen side of things, plant-based seafood company Konscious Foods is adding 10 new products. Everything from salmon and tuna blocks to Korean barbecue mushroom onigiri is hitting the freezer section in 2024.

Yves Potvin, founder and president of Konscious Foods, said, “We are on a mission to help consumers embrace a more plant-based and sustainable diet by breaking the barriers to entry in this category — such as taste and affordability. By bringing our beloved products to more distribution channels, we know more people will be able to embrace a plant-forward lifestyle.”

On the refrigerated side, Real Good Food Co., king of the “better-for-you” options in the freezer aisle, has moved to slightly less cold. The company has come out with a new low-carb burrito: chicken and pepper jack cheese burritos with 31 grams of protein and 13 net grams of carbs.

Bryan Freeman, executive chairman of Real Good Food, said: “Club shoppers today are looking for nutritious foods across all categories and usage occasions, and Real Good Foods is positioned to provide access to these offerings across multiple temperature states and categories.”

Cold chain lanes

This week’s reefer market is booming Jacksonville, Florida. Jacksonville Port Authority has been the leading driver for import volume and subsequently the outbound tender volumes for the market. Reefer outbound tender volumes are finally rising to late-summer levels, whereas reefer outbound tender rejection levels are low at 2.11% compared to the national average rejection rate for reefer loads of 7.34%. That’s a great thing for shippers looking to save a little on freight rates for the end of the year but not an ideal market for carriers looking to end the year with a bang.

Is SONAR for you? Check it out with a demo!

Shelf life

Help Us Launch Truck Driver Barbie!

We Tried All Of Gordon Ramsay’s Frozen Meals

Kraft Heinz Develops 360Crisp for Lunchables Grilled Cheesies

Carrier Transicold and GIZ Announce Agreement to Advance Cold Chain Development and Decarbonization in Costa Rica and South Africa at COP28

Wanna chat in the cooler? Shoot me an email with comments, questions or story ideas at moconnell@www.freightwaves.com.

See you on the internet.

Mary

If this newsletter was forwarded to you, you must be pretty chill. Join the coolest community in freight and subscribe for more at www.freightwaves.com/subscribe.

Loaded and Rolling: ATRI reports on California’s electric truck challenges

ATRI reports on California’s electric truck challenges

A report released Monday by the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) examines the costs and potential impacts associated with California’s push for zero-emission vehicles. This report is a companion to a December 2022 ATRI report titled “Charging Infrastructure Challenges for the U.S. Electric Vehicle Fleet.” Both reports highlight that full vehicle fleet electrification would require substantially more electricity generation than currently available.

For California, its greenhouse gas emission-reduction laws seek to have trucks and buses operating in the state be 100% zero emission by 2045 while sales of new passenger cars and trucks are slated to be zero emission by 2035. To power this zero-emission plan, ATRI noted that California would need to generate 57.2% more electricity than it currently produces. Cost is another factor, with the report adding a new battery-electric truck would cost more than $425,000 with a projected cost per mile as high as $1.21 if equipment, utility upgrades and electricity costs are factored in.

The report also said more trucks will be required to haul goods based on data ATRI collected. “If today’s diesel tractors were replaced with much heavier electric trucks — one-third of the truckload sector would suddenly be too heavy for U.S. roads. The result — additional electric trucks would be needed to move the same amount of freight as a diesel truck. For every 1,000 trucks, an additional 343 trucks would be required due to battery weight,” it said.

Battery-electric truck tires in the spotlight

Tires specifically made for Class 8 battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) are gaining more attention from OEMs and tiremakers, according to a recent article by David Cullin with the Commercial Carrier Journal. The push for tire modifications is in part influenced by Class 8 BEVs’ higher base weight from components such as battery packs and different performance profiles such as acceleration and torque, which can impact tire wear and performance.

“Truck tare weights vary considerably,” said Rick Mihelic, director of emerging technologies for the North American Council for Freight Efficiency (NACFE). “Some daycab EV tractors are within 2,000 lbs. of sleeper-equipped diesel trucks. But some may be 5,000 lbs. and some as much as 10,000 lbs. more than a sleeper diesel. And daycab diesels are 3,000 to 5,000 lbs. lighter than sleeper diesels. So, yes, tare weights of electric-powered daycabs are heavier and that will wear tires more quickly.”

This purchasing and maintenance challenge will be an additional factor for large fleets as they examine possible replacements from traditional internal combustion engines (ICE). Tom Clauer, senior manager of commercial product planning at Yokohama Tire, told CCJ that larger battery configurations can cause weight increases up to 5,000 pounds compared to ICE units. Clauer added that for long-haul applications, larger batteries or hydrogen/battery power sources will also impact tire wear due to extra torque applied on drive-axle positions. Acceleration and deceleration for BEVs will impact tread profiles, possibly creating situations in which fleets that are early adopters may require separate tire profiles for their ICE or BEV Class 8 units.

Market update: November net trailer orders plunge 38% from October

Recent data from FTR Transportation Intelligence suggests trailer orders are approaching pre-pandemic historical averages. FTR reported November U.S. net trailer orders declined 13,000 units or 38% month over month (m/m) to 21,362 units. Compared to one year ago, orders fell 45% but remain 7% above the average for 2023. Trailer production also fell in November 12% m/m to 23,770 units. The report noted lower trailer production is typically normal after October.

Eric Starks, chairman at FTR, added in the report, “With orders coming in under production levels, backlogs in November fell slightly, shedding almost 2,500 units to end at just over 140,000 units. The more pronounced fall in production resulted in an increase for the backlog-to-build ratio to 5.9 months. This ratio is in line with the historical average prior to 2020 and suggests the industry is moving towards a pre-pandemic level of stability.”

FreightWaves’ Alan Adler wrote that OEM maker Wabash said during its third-quarter earnings call “that its first-to-final-mile portfolio would offset softer near-term demand for dry vans.” Adler had earlier written that long-term trailer supply deals such as the one announced with J.B. Hunt Transport Services in January was part of Wabash’s strategy of hedging against economic or market swings that can result in higher order cancellations.

FreightWaves SONAR spotlight: Spot linehaul to contract spread narrows

Summary: The spread between the spot linehaul rate and contracted initial reported base rate per mile (RATES) narrowed to 63 cents per mile in favor of contracted freight. Part of the improvement can be attributed to truckload capacity disruptions leading up to and following the Thanksgiving holiday. This improved spot to contract spread may be short-lived as the initial contract reported base rate per mile (VCRPM1) is on a 14-day lag, with the most recent value at $2.32 per mile on Dec. 5. The gap is expected to widen again as spot market linehaul rates (NTIL) fell from $1.69 per mile on Dec. 5 to $1.62 per mile as of Monday.

Overabundance of truckload capacity remains the central theme explaining recent spot market declines with the FreightWaves National Truckload Index 7-Day Average (NTI) falling 6 cents per mile all-in from $2.31 per mile on Dec. 11 to $2.25 per mile. Falling fuel prices may be impacting recent spot rate declines with the DOE/EIA average weekly price of diesel fuel declining 9.3 cents per gallon to $3.894 per gallon in spite of recent geopolitical events in the Red Sea.

Recent improvements in nationwide outbound tender rejection rates suggest contracted truckload supply is tightening leading up to the Christmas and New Year’s holidays with OTRI rising 72 basis points from 3.57% on Dec. 11 to 4.29%. The rise in rejection rates is in contrast with nationwide outbound tender volumes, which fell 559.93 points or 4.72% from 11,876.1 points on Dec. 11 to 11,316.17 points.

The Routing Guide: Links from around the web

Nuclear verdict alert: More than $16M awarded in Georgia court (FreightWaves)

Diesel benchmark down again, futures markets up amid Red Sea tension (FreightWaves)

Overtime for truckers: A behind-the-scenes look at proposed legislation (The Trucker)

Knight-Swift pares back executives’ equity incentives (Trucking Dive)

Help Us Launch Truck Driver Barbie! (Change.org)

Convoy autopsy continues: Panel sees capacity issues, lack of discipline (FreightWaves)

HaulerHub is changing trucking. Here’s how

The 21st century is nearly a quarter of the way through, and the U.S. trucking industry is still riddled with inefficiencies and beset by a lack of clear communication. It doesn’t have to be.

HaulerHub is looking to carve a new path with its platform. The company hopes to revolutionize the way shippers and haulers collaborate by zeroing in on transparency and streamlined operations where they’re needed most.

HaulerHub co-founder Sam Agyemang and Business Analyst Sagar Sudhir recently joined FreightWaves’ Isaiah Buchanan to talk about what sets their product apart. The HaulerHub app is designed to be a highly intuitive and secure load board. The two highlighted several persistent problems they’re combating: double brokering, fraud and cargo theft.

Central to HaulerHub’s strategy is a robust compliance system, designed to prevent the entry of bad actors onto the platform. HaulerHub’s multifaceted security measures and five-layer onboarding process play a crucial role in maintaining the integrity of the platform. This rigorous approach to vetting ensures carrier compliance, while sophisticated algorithms detect and flag suspicious activities.

“There’s not a perfect system, but the system that we’ve created really does help reduce fraud drastically,” Agyemang said.

HaulerHub’s approach to industry challenges

At its core, HaulerHub was born from the necessity to streamline the slow technology adoption process, both for carriers and shippers. This dual focus has been instrumental in creating a platform that addresses the needs of both.

The company’s commitment to compliance and platform integrity is evident in its approach to preventing double brokering. The onboarding process upholds the highest standards of integrity and trust within its community.

The multilayered security approach, combined with a community-focused platform, provides a robust defense against fraudulent activities. This approach not only protects its users but also builds a foundation of trust and reliability, essential in the logistics and transportation industry.

In short, HaulerHub’s innovative approach, stringent compliance measures and relentless pursuit of fraud prevention mark a leap forward for the trucking industry. By addressing critical challenges head-on, the company sets a new benchmark in operational efficiency and platform integrity, revolutionizing the way shippers and haulers collaborate in this vital sector.

“People keep evolving, and the frauds keep evolving,” Sudhir said. “So we consistently and continuously work on improving the security of our platform.”

Innovations in pricing, documentation and self-dispatch

HaulerHub’s cutting-edge live pricing tools are also empowering shippers and haulers to make informed, data-driven decisions regarding load rates.

These pricing tools provide real-time market rate information. They allow shippers to better understand competitive rates for specific lanes where they wish to move their loads. Similarly, carriers benefit from this technology by gaining access to a comprehensive overview of loads and rates, helping them select those that align with their operational needs and financial goals.

Beyond pricing, HaulerHub addresses one of the most cumbersome aspects of the trucking industry: documentation. The company has significantly simplified the paperwork process by creating a centralized platform for all essential documents. From bills of lading to images of tractor-trailers, every critical piece of paperwork and documentation is digitized and stored in one accessible location. This not only streamlines operations but also reduces the administrative burden on both shippers and carriers.

At the heart of HaulerHub’s innovation is the concept of self-dispatch. This system empowers carriers with greater independence and efficiency, allowing them to manage their operations without relying on additional operators or intermediaries. The digitalization of documentation and the introduction of automated systems further enhance this independence, making self-dispatch a reality for modern haulers.

HaulerHub’s unique position and future outlook

HaulerHub is distinguishing itself with a unique blend of community focus, user-friendly technology and practical solutions to everyday challenges. This approach has positioned the company not just as a service provider, but as a community builder, reshaping the way shippers and haulers interact and operate.

Central to the philosophy is an emphasis on transparent operations and a no-hidden-fee policy. This commitment reflects a deeper understanding of the industry’s demand for straightforward, cost-effective solutions. By ensuring there are no additional charges for services, particularly for shippers paying for loads within seven days, HaulerHub is reinforcing its position as a partner in efficiency and financial sustainability in the trucking sector.

Essentially, the company is looking to set new standards in the trucking industry.

“It’s about to be 2024,” Agyemang said. “I can’t think of a better time to adopt new technology and start driving and hauling on the road with us today.”

A peek into the logistics rumor mill of the 1980s

FreightWaves Classics is sponsored by Old Dominion Freight Line — Helping the World Keep Promises. Learn more here.

FreightWaves explores the archives of American Shipper’s nearly 70-year-old collection of shipping and maritime publications to showcase interesting freight stories of long ago.

In this week’s edition from the January 1984 issue, we look at the rumor mill of 1980s logistics.

Have you heard the latest rumor?

Did you hear that United States Lines has canceled its giant shipbuilding order with Korea’s Daewoo yard? Did anyone share the news that Crowley Maritime was constructing a road across Costa Rica for a Ro/Ro service to circumvent the Panama Canal? Did you know that the maritime reform bill will definitely be law before February but without the independent action provision? And how about Charlie Hiltzheimer coming out of premature retirement and taking over at CAST Shipping (before it goes belly-up)?

Well, you can just forget at least three of the foregoing because they probably have no basis in truth. All of them have filtered through the rumor mill recently, and if experience serves, only one is even close to the mark. Yet they represent a mere smattering of the traffic that streaks through the international ocean carrier/shipper gossip network every day.

In no industry are rumors more rampant and relished than the maritime industry. A day without a rumor is a dark one indeed. There is no better phrase to begin a cable than, “Heard a rumor …,” and a surefire way to get someone to return a phone call is to leave the message: “Wanted to check out a rumor.” The choicest targets tend to be carrier financial woes, executive moves, conference entries and departures, deployment strategies, labor problems, and the glacial legislative process. Some whoppers are easy to flush out or dismiss, others prove to have contained a kernel of truth after it has died, and some persist despite repeated denials for a long, long time.

Root causes

To determine why there are so many rumors is no mean psychosociological feat. Veteran observers provided a few armchair explanations. Said one, “It’s a basically entrepreneurial industry and there are a lot of big egos. They are a small number of people and are constantly in touch through the conference system. Most of them have very few contacts outside the industry. Their whole livelihood is wrapped up in it and hence the intensity of concern with what everyone else is doing.” Added another: “The industry is very closely knit and is made up of Old Boys’ Clubs which have known each other for years. Plus, there’s an incestuousness about it. It’s common for one executive to have worked for three or four different carriers during his career.” The source pointed out that many shipping service firms in the industry are family-run and keep close tabs on their clients. Everyone knows who the “slowpay” or “no-pay” carriers are, and shippers are especially careful to monitor this information.

Further, players involved in the various facets of the industry have tireless curiosity about the strategy and projects of competitors. “It’s human nature,” a third observer quipped. “People just like to scoop each other. And maybe some of them have nothing else to do but make things up.”

Fertile ground

Indisputably, rumors find their most fertile medium in places where there are heavy concentrations of people from different companies with time on their hands. The noon-time club is perhaps the best testing ground for vague theories. Not only are the opportunities for misinterpretation rife but any shipping person worth his salt will be listening three conversations away and twist a fact or two in the process.

New York offers a broad array of industry watering holes in the Whitehall Club, the Downtown Athletic Club, and the Harbor View Club. In Washington, the maritime contingent buzzes at catered lunches in the Longworth House Office Building. San Francisco chooses the World Trade Club or the Commercial Club. Every major shipping center has the equivalent where dominoes click long into the afternoon and the walls, covered with tarnished plaques, almost seem to whisper rumors past and present.

The other locales where rumors fly fast and furiously are aboard ship and along the wharves. Said one retired steamship executive, “You can hear anything you want any day on the ship. What breeds rumors is uncertainty and there’s always a lot of that.” Because seamen and longshore gangs are not attached to a particular company for very long—and so don’t develop deep loyalties—they tend to tell each other what they know. One sailor asked this reporter recently whether there was anything to the rumor that American President Lines was pulling out of the Pacific Northwest in conjunction with Sea-Land’s agreement to leave Oakland. The two lines had decided to save money by dividing up West Coast ports of call, he had heard, and wanted to know what the implications were for union men.

Three categories

Rigorous analysis of the various types of rumors to pop up in recent months reveals three basic categories: 1) Information that has been leaked by an insider but not announced through official channels. An example would be a conference’s planned rate increase that is floated to representative shippers to gauge how the general public will receive the news. 2) Reports based on a conversation that is purely speculative but is later repeated as though it had been handed down from well-placed, omniscient, anonymous sources. At this point, the rumor has taken on a life of its own and could go anywhere, like the child’s game where a phrase is whispered around a circle and finally comes out in hopelessly twisted form. 3) Malicious gossip aimed at discrediting a steamship line, a stevedore or a freight forwarder, which can start at any time, any place. This type is most often associated with a salesperson hoping to drum up new business. Frequently, it can turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. As the word spreads, more and more customers are tempted to desert a formerly solid company, which can easily lead to far graver troubles for the rumor victim.

The hand-off

Of course, people have different ways of handling a hot rumor and this depends largely on their position in the corporate hierarchy. Some toss it to everyone they talk to because they like that momentary glow of being more in-the-know than the next guy. They may label it as hearsay and provide a few reasons why it can’t possibly be true, but they’ll pass it on nonetheless. A more responsible sort will share unconfirmed reports only with trusted colleagues or well-informed sources. A decision as to its likelihood will be made on the spot and no more will be said. Still, others make it a policy never to repeat gossip that they haven’t checked first with the principals involved.

How, for example, did the rumor about the halt of United States Lines’ new building in Korea get started and what path did it follow before becoming old hat? Rumor has it that Sea-Land executives were talking with Daewoo people about plans of their own when someone asked an indirect question about progress on the USL order. What came back was a funny-sounding answer and no more was said. But the next day, a top Sea-Land man flew in from Tokyo and put the question squarely to a higher-up. His reply was “no comment,” and the cable traffic fairly hummed with the latest “news.” New York was apparently the first to be told but within a day it had spread to the West Coast (at a Port of Long Beach reception in San Francisco, it was on the tip of everyone’s tongue) and Europe heard it by that night. United States Lines, of course, loftily refused to comment and the rumor rippled on.

Helpful warnings

Shippers tend to take the grapevine very seriously, especially where the financial status of a steamship line is concerned. “I try not to repeat these kinds of rumors. If I hear something that sounds strange, I go right to the top and ask them straight up. Most turn out to be fractionally true. … It’s wishful thinking by their competitors,” said one traffic manager. Carriers are constantly having to vouch for their solvency. Because there are built-in incentives to fall behind on payments for certain services, “slowpay” companies are not unusual but they do bear the cost of rumors from their stevedores, tug operators, other suppliers of service.

A case in point is the rumored demise of Seatrain that cropped up regularly for more than a decade before the steamship line finally bit the dust. Yet when Sea-Land withdrew from the Transpacific Freight Conference of Japan/Korea several years ago, a Japanese shipping newspaper reported that the line was teetering and called the move its “death knell.” A Denver-based shipper said, “There are no major changes that we haven’t gotten some kind of rumor of ahead of schedule. It may not have been completely accurate but we believe where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And that helps us plan.” This is particularly true with conference rate increases, he said. Several times he successfully staved off a hike by making vigorous protests in advance of the formal announcement.

Fast, accurate

A chemical shipper noted, “There are no secrets in this industry longer than 48 hours. We live and die on getting pieces of information and getting them promptly. Tell me something and I can verify it within two hours no matter what it is.” Accuracy and speed of information exchange are particularly vital in the charter market. Fully half of all transactions are made with the understanding that terms and rates remain confidential. This inevitably leads to a lot of loose talk that is difficult to verify and the average broker spends hours separating grain from chaff. The greatest volume of gossip emerges from the Baltic Exchange in London where shipowners and brokers swap juicy rumors the way kids do baseball cards. Instant communications have simplified the process of pinning down the facts. Those seasoned in chartering make a habit of talking to major centers of activity worldwide several times a day in addition to exchanging dozens of cables.

But if you don’t have widely scattered sources you can trust, there’s not much you can do. Said one well-connected broker, “Salesmen for brokers need to know a lot more than salesmen for liner companies or agents. There’s not much knowledge required to sell container space and that lack of knowledge leads to a lot of rumor mongering.”

Truth quotient

Exactly how many rumors turn out to be true is a matter of opinion. Estimates range from one in a million to roughly 50% but the median hovered around one in four. Most agreed that more often than not there is an element of truth in all but the tallest of tales. Interestingly, people seemed to have forgotten rumors that were more than a few months old. No one contacted by American Shipper could even suggest a candidate for “the biggest whopper that didn’t come true.” Asked to reel off the five latest rumors, however, sources offered a wealth of material that took this reporter hours of overtime and a fat phone bill to get to the bottom of. “The art in this industry is being able to sort them all out,” summed up one oracle. “I watch them carefully. I’ve learned not to become overheated but many times there’s something there. It’s an ingredient that those who are successful in this industry have to pay attention to. They have to because of the very nature of the industry.”

FreightWaves Classics articles look at various aspects of the transportation industry’s history. Subscribe to our newsletter!

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Parallel Systems tests autonomous rail vehicle technology

Autonomous rail vehicle company Parallel Systems says it has publicly demonstrated how its rail vehicles connect with each other via bumper to bumper at its test track in Southern California.

This connection is the one of the first steps toward putting multiple rail vehicles together and creating platoons of up to 50 rail vehicles. Each rail vehicle functions like a rail car: A container sits on two robotlike vehicles with train wheels. Parallel Systems has said the technology would enable rail to compete with trucks.

Instead of coupling rail cars with each other and connecting their air brake lines, the bumpers of each vehicle maintain contact via controlling tractive effort, according to the Los Angeles-based company. There is a small air gap between the containers, and the pushing action through the rail vehicle bumpers reduces the average aerodynamic drag of the platoon.

“Our platoon testing began in October 2023, and the performance has been consistent with our modeling and simulations, which is exciting right out of the gate,” Parallel Systems co-founder and CEO Matt Soule said in a Wednesday news release. FreightWaves reported in September that the company would be conducting test runs this fall.

“The vehicles have remained connected according to plan, allowing us to plan expanded platoon testing with increased speeds, greater number of vehicles, and braking,” Soule said.

Individual rail vehicles will have the ability to separate from the platoon, and those rail vehicles can bypass classification yards and independently proceed to varied destinations, according to Parallel Systems, or they may split from the platoon in order to keep rail crossings clear. As a result of this technology, railroads may also be able to reduce their reliance on classification yards or even eliminate them and repurpose the land, the company said.

Each rail vehicle will have self-contained brake systems and so they do not need connecting air lines, the company said.

“Introducing platooning will help the rail industry address a range of critical challenges, including sorting and routing freight more quickly and keeping railroad crossings open for roadway and pedestrian traffic,” Soule said.

Earlier this month, Parallel Systems said it was working with Australian company and rail freight network manager Arc Infrastructure to develop a working prototype of an autonomous rail container wagon. The technology would be used for future container transportation in Perth, Australia.

And in August, FreightWaves reported that two subsidiaries of short-line operator Genesee & Wyoming were seeking a permit from the Federal Railroad Administration to test Parallel Systems’ technology on portions of track in Georgia.

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C.H. Robinson chief sees no truckload pivot until second half of 2024

The president and CEO of brokerage and third-party logistics provider C.H. Robinson Worldwide Inc. said he doesn’t see any meaningful pivot in the fortunes of the North American trucking market before the second half of 2024, noting that customer caution about ordering and still-bloated wholesaler inventory levels will mute activity through the first six months of the year.

In an interview with FreightWaves this week, David Bozeman said that in his first six months at the helm of Robinson (NASDAQ: CHRW) he has been struck by the “continued degradation” of the current downcycle, especially in truckload. The amount of oversupply of truck capacity this late in the cycle has not been what he expected.

“It’s a deep freight recession,” he said.

Customers of the Eden Prairie, Minnesota-based company remain cautious about demand and inventory replenishment. Though much of the retailer destocking is behind the industry, red stocking efforts have yet to begin in earnest, Bozeman said. At the same time, wholesalers are more top heavy with product than he would like them to be.

Spot, or noncontract, truckload rates continue to bump along the bottom, curbed by the unfavorable supply-demand climate for providers, Bozeman said, noting that Robinson is in a strong financial position, though a “lot of our competitors remain in survival mode.”

In theory, the struggling brokerage market might be ripe for the M&A picking for a big player like Robinson. However, Bozeman said M&A is not a top priority and noted that acquisitions and subsequent integrations can be heavy drains on time, financial and human resources.

Well before Bozeman’s arrival at the end of June, there was talk that Robinson might be looking to sell its global forwarding operation, which could command premium prices in the wake of the post-pandemic period. As markets and prices cooled, however, the unit began to struggle and the notion of commanding a high sale price evaporated.

Bozeman said he “feels good” about Global Forwarding’s competitive position, noting that it is deeply involved in the big-ticket global trade lanes. He added, however, that if a prospective buyer offered to write a massive check for the unit, he would be obligated to have a conversation.

Bozeman said he will push to develop synergies between North American Surface Transportation (NAST) and Global Forwarding, Robinson’s two largest units, to drive integrated solutions and value propositions for customers. He is also targeting a 15% improvement in productivity metrics for 2024. Without elaborating, Bozeman said he felt “pretty good” about Robinson’s portfolio of tech solutions.

Bozeman is far from the only executive to wax downbeat about the truckload sector in the near term. The consensus among a recent gathering of representatives of privately held companies sponsored by investment firm Cowen & Co. was that truckload market weakness has persisted through the fourth quarter and would likely continue into the first quarter.

The over-the-road market continues to be “a mess,” one participant was quoted as saying in a note published by transportation analyst Jason H. Seidl, with rates looking similar to what pricing was in the trucking market 20 years ago.

Freight conditions worsened after Thanksgiving following a very modest seasonal uplift through November,” according to the consensus at the gathering. Digital brokers continue to bid down freight, and one participant said that freight capacity and pricing will be influenced by the fate of these brokers, many of which are facing tough times. One of the panelists — identified as a transportation attorney — said there will be many more bankruptcies to come in 2024.