Dec, 1 st READY THEN. READY NOW. RUBIA OPTIMA Our New CK-4 & FA-4 Heavy-Duty Engine Oils Questions? Call us at 1-800-463-3955. www.total-canada.ca Total Canada Energizing performance. Every day
Dispatches StatPack $200,000 FUND<strong>IN</strong>G U.S. FREIGHT VOLUMES FLAT, SPOT LOADS DOWN 12.3% Fleet managers attending the American Trucking Associations’ recent management conference heard that the U.S. trucking industry is approaching the end of an economic downturn, but it’s clearly been a rough ride. The U.S. fleets have recently seen a slowdown in freight, following a blip earlier this year that was likely linked to shifting inventory levels. “Now we’re even negative on a yearover-year basis,” said Bob Costello, the association’s chief economist. Freight volumes are flat. Bob Costello Contracted freight is steady, but year-to-date spot loads were down 12.3% as of October. Dry van volumes, which represent the largest share of truck freight, were up 1.2%, but most of that growth came earlier in the year. “This sector has really been hurt by that glut in inventory,” Costello said. In contrast, they were up 2.5% in 2014 and flat in 2015. Flatbed volumes depend on the sector a fleet serves. Those who haul steel are struggling, while construction-related business is “not too bad”, he said. That led to a 6.6% bump in flatbed volumes, while they were down 2.6% in 2015 and 3.7% in 2014. Economist Diane Swonk noted in the same presentation that the steel industry was closely tied to the oil industry, and when combined with a strong US dollar the effect was devastating. Tank truck volumes were up just 0.3% for the year in October, after a 1.1% drop last year and weak 1.9% growth in 2014. A drop in fracking activities in the oil and gas sector are to blame for some of that. Then there are the Less-than-Truckload volumes, which have been hurt by the slowdown in manufacturing. The 6.3% surge in 2014 volumes dropped to 0.9% in 2015, and volumes dropped 0.5% for 2016 at the time of the presentation. Much of the 2014 growth came as these fleets dealt with a lack of truckload capacity, Costello said. But there is good news for Less-than- Truckload operations. “This group, longer term, is going to see some decent growth,” he predicted. Year to date, truckload revenue per mile was down 3.35% in dry vans and 2.6% in flatbeds. Reefer fleets saw revenue grow 2%, and tanker fleets were flat. But spot rates have been hit hardest in this measure. Dry vans were down 13.2%, flatbeds were down 12.7%, and reefers were down 12%. New Brunswick is giving up to $200,000 to the Atlantic Provinces Trucking Association to fund an investigative committee tasked with finding solutions to the trucking industry’s labor shortage. The transportation and warehousing sector accounted for 4.8% of New Brunswick’s real Gross Domestic Product in 2014, or nearly $1.3 billion in economic activity. In 2015, about 5.5% of employed New Brunswickers, or more than 19,000 people, were employed in the sector. FUEL ECONOMY BOOST Technology that allows two trucks to travel in tight platoons promises to improve fuel economy, a report by the North American Council for Freight Efficiency and the Carbon War Room concludes. The latest Confidence Report – a research series that explores the viability of fuel-saving devices and practices – determined that setting a following distance of 40 to 50 feet can lead to average fuel savings of 4% when compared to real-world operating conditions after accounting for traffic, terrain and time when the trucks operate on their own. The gains are realized when the following distances are close enough to improve aerodynamics. NOVEMBER 2016 27
Change language