Chart of the Week:  Inbound Ocean TEUs Volume Index – USA SONAR: IOTI.USA Seasonality view

So far, import demand has been a relative non-factor in the recent domestic freight market upheaval, unlike the previous cyclical tightening during the pandemic. That is not to say things won’t change, but let’s take a deeper look at how import demand has influenced surface transportation markets in recent years and consider how that applies to the rest of 2026.

The Inbound Ocean TEUs Volume Index (IOTI) is a 14-day moving average that measures the volume of requests to move twenty-foot containers to the U.S. via ocean. It hit an all-time peak of 2,692 in June 2021. Its current value of 1,715 is well below that figure — closer to multi-year lows for this time of year than highs — but that does not necessarily mean demand is unhealthy.

In 2024 and 2025, shippers were concerned about service disruptions and tariffs, leading them to order well ahead of expected fulfillment in what many supply chain professionals call a just-in-case ordering strategy.

Using the inventory level component of the Logistics Managers’ Index, which measures whether companies are growing or reducing inventory, there have been two periods of strong inventory building since 2019. In early 2022, inventory levels grew at a record pace as demand waned and shipping networks became less congested, leading to a significant drawdown in late 2022 and early 2023.

In 2024, shippers began to restock as conflict in the Middle East threatened maritime capacity and service. As that concern faded in early 2025, tariffs became an increasing worry, driving erratic ordering and inventory growth.

As tariff concerns settled in late 2025, orders fell back into a more traditional pattern and now align almost perfectly with inventory levels — a leaner model that closely resembles just-in-time practices.

Leaner warehouses associated with just-in-time practices keep inventory costs low but are less capable of absorbing demand shocks and require more consistent transportation service. This is happening just as the trucking market is emerging from one of its softest and longest downturns in years, leaving it ill-equipped to flex in response to any upswing in demand.

The SONAR Truckload Volume Index (STVI) measures electronic requests — or tenders — from shippers to carriers for truckload capacity. The STVI has reached its current level several times over the past few years, but rejection rates were far lower then. This is because capacity has been quietly bleeding out of the market for three years, a trend that added regulatory enforcement pressure appears to have accelerated.

The peak season for imports typically runs from July through August, with much of the transcontinental freight moving via intermodal. If inventory levels run too thin, intermodal loses its interchangeability with trucking as transit times lengthen.

This market has tightened without any assistance from import demand or volatility to this point — and it is fair to say that influence will only grow as the year progresses.

About the Chart of the Week

The FreightWaves Chart of the Week is a chart selection from SONAR that provides an interesting data point to describe the state of the freight markets. A chart is chosen from thousands of potential charts on SONAR to help participants visualize the freight market in real time. Each week a Market Expert will post a chart, along with commentary, live on the front page. After that, the Chart of the Week will be archived on FreightWaves.com for future reference.

SONAR aggregates data from hundreds of sources, presenting the data in charts and maps and providing commentary on what freight market experts want to know about the industry in real time.

The post Imports sitting out the freight market flip appeared first on FreightWaves.

“We had a strong first quarter and start to the year. Our network is running well, and we are delivering on commitments to our customers,” Chief Executive Jim Vena said on the railroad’s Thursday morning earnings call. “When you put it all together, we are doing what we said we would, leading the industry in safety, service, and operational excellence.”

Operating income rose 4%, to a record $2.45 billion, as revenue increased 3%, to a record $6.2 billion. Earnings per share was up 6%, or 9% when adjusted for the impact of one-time items.

The railroad’s operating ratio was 60.5%, a 0.2-point improvement compared to a year ago. The adjusted operating ratio was 59.9%.

Overall volume declined 1% for the quarter, driven by a 9% slump in premium traffic, which includes intermodal and automotive business. Domestic intermodal, however, had its third straight record quarter, said Kenny Rocker, the railroad’s executive vice president of marketing and sales.

Industrial products volume increased 4%, while bulk traffic was up 12% thanks largely to higher grain and coal shipments.

The railroad’s key operations metrics improved for the quarter, with freight car velocity, locomotive productivity, workforce productivity, and train length all at record levels. UP’s train accident and employee injury rates improved for the quarter as well.

“Freight car velocity increased 9% to 235 miles per day. This performance was driven by best-ever terminal dwell of 19.7 hours, 11% better than last year and our second quarter below 20 hours,” said Eric Gehringer, executive vice president of operations. “Every day, we continue to challenge ourselves to find new and innovative opportunities to reduce car touches, leverage existing technology in our terminals, and implement new technologies.”

UP (NYSE: UNP) was able to reduce its active locomotive fleet by 4% in the quarter despite a 4% increase in gross ton-miles.

UP now has a positive outlook for its bulk and industrial products business segments for the remainder of the year. The intermodal outlook is negative due to lower imports and international traffic, while the automotive outlook is neutral as softer vehicle sales are being offset by the railroad landing a BMW contract.

The spike in fuel prices since the Iran conflict began will put pressure on the railroad’s profit margins in the second quarter, Chief Financial Officer Jennifer Hamann said. The railroad is paying over $4 per gallon for diesel fuel this month.

Fuel surcharge revenue will eventually offset the rise in fuel prices.

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“Working together, we successfully navigated another challenging winter with weather events that affected most of our territory, putting real pressure on the network and our volumes in the month of February,” Chief Executive Mark George said on the railroad’s earnings call Friday. “But as conditions normalized and our network recovered, we were able to capture the available volume in March and exited the quarter with solid momentum, all while staying focused on what matters most, operating the railroad safely.”

Adjusted for the ongoing financial impact of the February 2023 derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, and merger-related costs, Norfolk Southern’s operating income declined 2%, to $939 million, on flat revenue of $2.99 billion. Earnings per share declined 1%, to $2.65.

The railroad’s adjusted operating ratio was 68.7%, an increase of 0.8 points from a year ago.

“On costs, we remained disciplined,” George said. “Total adjusted expenses were up just 1% year-over-year despite inflationary pressures, storm costs, and sharply higher fuel prices.”

Overall volume declined 1% for the quarter due to a 4% drop in intermodal volume. Coal traffic was up 9%, while merchandise posted a 1% gain.

The intermodal decline was primarily due to a 9% drop in international traffic compared to last year’s tariff-related volume spike, but merger-related domestic intermodal business losses also contributed, Chief Commercial Officer Ed Elkins said. Some of NS’ domestic traffic has migrated to CSX (NASDAQ: CSX) thanks to its intermodal alliance with BNSF Railway (NYSE: BRK-B).

The jump in coal volume was due to a 27% increase in domestic utility shipments as natural gas prices rose and utilities sought to rebuild depleted coal stockpiles.

“Within merchandise, volume and revenue increased 1% from a year ago, and this was driven by continued share gains in our chemicals and our automotive markets,” said Elkins.

NS (NYSE: NSC) and UP (NYSE: UNP) plan to submit their revised merger application to federal regulators as planned on April 30. The original application was rejected as incomplete in January.

“The new application is going to confirm what we said in the original application on the logic of doing this deal and the benefits that a single-line transcontinental railroad will bring to the country and to our shippers,” George said. “In fact, we’re going to have a much stronger set of data that actually makes the case stronger.”

Operational metrics held up during a quarter with harsh and widespread winter weather that tested the network, Chief Operating Officer John Orr said.

Car miles per day increased 2.5% compared to a year ago, as terminal dwell improved by 3%. The railroad’s customer service metrics for intermodal and merchandise shipments were unchanged from a year ago.

The train accident rate improved 40% compared to the year-ago quarter, while the main line accident rate improved 51%. The personal injury rate was up 10% for the quarter.

Subscribe to FreightWaves’ Rail e-newsletter and get the latest insights on rail freight right in your inbox.

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The post Norfolk Southern earnings slip as winter weather impacts rail volume appeared first on FreightWaves.

Ryder System’s stock price is up more than 80% in the last year–more than 23% in a month–for a business whose latest earnings report for 2026’s first quarter shows it has had to fight for growth.

There was nothing in the quarterly report that was particularly negative. It showed a company that is not getting that much of a lift from underlying freight market conditions, but had a solid performance on the back of its own initiatives and something it has little control over: used vehicle sales.

All that happened even as its Fleet Management Solutions (FMS) unit, its flagship leasing and rental operations, had just a 1% increase in revenue year-on-year; its contract logistics operations through Supply Chain Solutions (SCS) was up just 2% in revenue; and its Dedicated Transportation Solutions (DTS), which provides dedicated trucking, saw an 8% drop in revenue.  

But with the help of used vehicle sales, FMS was able to push out a 6% increase in earnings  before taxes.  Those used vehicle sales, which come out of FMS, were cited near the top of the company’s earnings announcement as a reason for its performance.

A different company than eight years ago

In his first earnings call as CEO since he took over Ryder (NYSE: R) from the retired Robert Sanchez, John Diez made several comparisons to where the company stood in 2018, when its vehicle leasing and sales of those vehicles was far and away the key driver of profitability at Ryder. Now, SCS and DTS supply about 60% of revenue, compared to 44% in 2018.

But while the fundamental shift has provided long-term stability to the Ryder business, the company’s earnings call with analysts Thursday kept coming back to used vehicle sales, even as Diez said the company’s strategy in recent years has been to “derisk” its fortunes by “significantly reducing our reliance on used vehicle proceeds to achieve our targeted returns.”

The used vehicle sales were featured on the call for a simple reason: Ryder said those sales were key to why the bottom line at the company was strong. Ryder posted non-GAAP earnings of $2.54 in the first quarter, compared to $2.46 a year ago. That was also a 27 cents per share “beat” over consensus forecasts, according to SeekingAlpha. 

Free cash flow rose to $273 million from $259 million, even as operating revenue was flat at $1.3 billion.

Cristina Gallo-Aquino, Ryder’s CFO, said on the call that the company expects to reap about $500 million in used vehicle sales proceeds this year, which would be in line with what it received in 2025. 

Used vehicle market likely to stay firm

But although no meaningful increase in that figure is projected, Diez talked at several times during the call as if the used vehicle market might be stronger this year.

He said Ryder expected a “modest improvement in used vehicle market conditions.”

And looking to the future, Diez said that by “the next cycle peak,” without putting a date on when that might be, Ryder expected a potential $250 million increase in annual pretax earnings, which were just under $100 million for the first quarter. One of the drivers of that increase, Diez said: used vehicle sales. 

“Our increased forecast reflects stronger-than-expected first quarter performance, a modest improvement in used vehicle market conditions and continued strong contractual performance,” Diez said on the call. . 

Ryder, in its earnings announcement, increased its forecast for 2026 financial performance. One of the reasons for that, Diez said, was a projection of higher used vehicle sales results.

But while the impact of that was a small part of the forecast, Diez said, more may come later.

Inflation in the market for new vehicles also is a factor in the company’s projections. “We do expect later on this year that we’re going to see significant increases on new equipment, which will provide support for higher used vehicle sales pricing,” he said. “We just haven’t put that into the forecast because we need to see more development on that side to kind of get confident in that activity.”

Regulatory atmosphere and its impact on vehicle sales

But there’s a potential newer area of competition in used vehicle sales: trucks put on the market where the driver lost their ability to be behind the wheel because of various regulatory crackdowns.

Diez conceded “there’s some structural changes happening in the  marketplace.”

But he added that the regulatory actions are mostly taking place in over the road driving, and that means a lot of sleeper cabs.

About 60% of Ryder’s used vehicle inventory is in trucks, like a box truck, with about 40% being tractors. It was improved tractor pricing that led to the used vehicle sales performance being higher than expected.

But Diez added that the biggest share of the tractors it owns that will be sold into the market are day cabs, “which is a different application than the over-the-road activity.”

“So I think we’re pretty well calibrated there,” Diez said. “We don’t think that’s going to be a meaningful impact even if there’s pressure on the sleeper class moving forward.”

The sales mix for Ryder was positive for the quarter compared to last year. Sales through retail outlets were 61% of the mix in the first quarter of 2026, versus 56% a year ago. Retail sales proceeds are generally better than wholesale outlets. But the retail percentage was 69% in the fourth quarter.

Ryder said retail pricing “remained stable sequentially.”

Actual vehicles sold were 4,600, which was down from a year ago but up 1,000 sequentially. 

Applause for the performance

Even though some of the standard measurements like operating income and revenue didn’t move up significantly in the quarter, and a key driver of the first quarter profit growth–used vehicle sales–is something Ryder is trying to diminish in importance, there were positive analyst statements. 

The transportation research team at Wells Fargo said the latest guidance from Ryder, up to an earnings per share target of $14.05-$14.80 from $13.45-$14.45, “feels conservative.”

Diez talked on the call about the company’s strategic plans, which includes continued focus on maintenance improvements. “Ryder expects $70m (+$1.24/share) of YoY benefits from strategic initiatives and a conservative $10m (+$0.19/share) from its cyclical businesses despite end market improvements,” Wells Fargo said.

That team also focused on sales in the Supply Chain Solutions segment, which is a contract logistics provider. Ryder, the analysts said, “inked record SCS sales activity and customers are finally signing long-term leasing contracts.”

Wells Fargo raised its price target to $260 per share from $236. 

At approximately 2:45 p.m. EDT Friday, Ryder stock was at $251.56, up $8.97 for a gain on the day of 3.70%. Two days ago, the stock closed at $227.58. 

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The post A changed company at Ryder, but used vehicle sales are still a big driver  appeared first on FreightWaves.

Penobscot Island Air resumed carrying postal shipments to Vinalhaven, North Haven and Matinicus islands on Wednesday after the Postal Service agreed to start paying overdue bills stretching back to 2023 in response to a one-day work stoppage.

“We urge you to immediately resolve the outstanding back payments and provide clarification on how these payment lapses occurred, as well as how delays can be prevented in the future,” Maine’s two House members and senators said in an April 23 letter to the postal chief. The lawmakers, including Sen. Susan Collins, urged the USPS to fully and quickly compensate the carrier.

“Penobscot Island Air is one of many contractors in the state that deliver mail to island communities by air and sea. These contractors are part of the lifeblood of Maine’s rural communities. This incident raises concerns over whether the USPS is faithfully fulfilling the terms of all these contracts,” the lawmakers wrote. “While it is promising to hear that the USPS has reached a partial payment agreement to pay Penobscot Island Air … we need greater assurance from the USPS that Maine island contractors will receive fair and prompt compensation for the services they provide.”

The air carrier, which maintains a fleet of four single-engine Cessna 206 and 207 turboprop planes, said in a Facebook post on Tuesday that the Postal Service owed it $388,000 — about 20% of its annual revenue — and that it had been paid for a single delivery in 2026. The last payment received was on March 13. A company representative told FreightWaves that the Facebook post overstated the delinquent amount and that the carrier is owed $349,000.

In a post the following day, Penobscot Island Air said the USPS promised to pay about 25% of its outstanding balance on Friday. It’s unclear how, or when, the Postal Service intends to pay the remainder of its bill. Federal contracting rules generally require the government to pay interest on late payments for properly invoiced services.

In its message, Penobscot Island Air asked residents to call the regional postal office and let officials know how the cutoff would impact them. The pressure campaign picked up steam when local media outlets began covering the news. 

“While our mission is to support the islands, PIA employees need a paycheck. We can’t operate as a business if almost a fifth of our yearly revenue is tied up in the bureaucracy of the United States government,” the company said in explaining why it originally suspended mail service. “It’s been 75 days this year alone that we have dutifully loaded up USPS mail and ferried or flown it out to the islands. It’s no secret that winter is our slow period, and without prompt payments, cash flow is bleak.”

The air carrier said it repeatedly met with the Postal Service’s financial department and the regional office in Rockport, Maine, to get necessary paperwork completed to resolve the matter. Stopping service was a last resort designed to get the Postal Service’s attention, the company said on Facebook.

“We know you rely on the mail for critical packages such as medications. We have no intention of dragging this out and will go back to work without payment if we must. What’s happening isn’t normal or okay. We’ve just run out of other avenues to show the USPS we can’t continue operating this way,” it said. 

Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Democrat, roasted the Postal Service for the delinquent payments during a House Appropriations Committee session on Wednesday.

“What the hell is going on over there? What is going wrong? And why do we have to hear these complaints so often? Why should they have to put up a Facebook page?” she said, adding she’s heard for years from USPS employees and constituents about insufficient staffing, mail not being picked up or delivered for a week at a time in rural areas.

This is “yet one more institution under this administration that’s being poorly managed, poorly run, not delivering the mail, not fulfilling the requirement they have to make sure that whatever community you live in, your mail arrives,” Pingree said.

The Postal Service said it has moved to correct the problem.

“Postal Service transportation officials have been in contact with the air contractor and are finalizing a prompt resolution of the payment issue. We regret any inconvenience resulting from this unfortunate error, and we have taken steps to ensure future payments are issued timely,” the agency said in a statement to FreightWaves.

Penobscot Island Air also provides parcel delivery service for FedEx and UPS. 

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

Contact:  ekulisch@freightwaves.com.

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The post Maine lawmakers press USPS over $350K default to rural air carrier appeared first on FreightWaves.

The Chattanooga, Tennessee-based carrier reported first-quarter earnings earlier this week that missed expectations, with net income falling to $4.4 million, or $0.17 per share, as winter weather and fuel costs weighed on results.

But CEO David Parker said conditions improved meaningfully as the quarter progressed — and are continuing into Q2.

“We believe [conditions] will continue to improve throughout the year,” Parker said, citing a strengthening pipeline of committed truckload capacity and growing customer demand.

Covenant Logistics Group (NYSE: CVLG) provides truckload, expedited, dedicated, and logistics services across the U.S.  

Capacity tightening, driver market shifting

A key theme from the call was tightening industry capacity — particularly among qualified drivers — after a prolonged downcycle.

“For the first time in 40 months drivers are starting to get tight out there,” Parker said, noting that driver pay discussions are reemerging across large customer accounts.

Executives said the combination of reduced fleet capacity and improving industrial demand is setting the stage for rate increases, though rising driver wages could offset some of that upside.

Parker added that the company is already seeing stronger engagement from shippers seeking dedicated capacity.

“We’re seeing more people want to talk about dedicated capacity almost since ’21 or ’22,” he said.

Dedicated, managed freight driving growth

Management emphasized that Covenant’s dedicated and managed freight segments are positioned to benefit first as the freight cycle turns.

Dedicated operations continue to expand, supported by specialized equipment and long-term contracts, while Managed Freight revenue surged nearly 60% year over year in Q1 following late-2025 acquisitions.

However, executives acknowledged that margin pressure remains in the near term, particularly in expedited trucking, which underperformed during the quarter due to lower utilization.

Pricing power returning — with caveats

While rate momentum is building, Parker cautioned that cost inflation — especially driver wages — will absorb part of the gains.

“Driver [costs are] 30% to 40% of total costs… what you get from the customer may not net the same as before,” he said.

That dynamic could temper margin expansion even as pricing improves, particularly if wage inflation accelerates alongside tightening labor supply.

Equipment strategy, tariffs in focus

Executives also addressed equipment costs and supply chain uncertainty, noting that pricing for new trucks remains elevated heading into 2027 due in part to regulatory and tariff-related pressures.

The company is taking a cautious approach to fleet expansion, focusing instead on optimizing utilization and shedding underperforming assets — a strategy that helped reduce net debt by $51 million during the quarter.

Parker said Covenant is actively engaging in Washington on issues including CDL standards and tort reform, both of which could impact capacity and operating costs across the trucking industry.

“We’re working on CDL schools… making sure they’re producing qualified drivers,” Parker said, adding that legal and regulatory reforms could also help address capacity constraints.

The post Covenant sees tightening capacity, rate momentum building in 2026 appeared first on FreightWaves.

The component has been delivered to the manufacturer’s final assembly line in Toulouse, France, where it will be integrated into the fuselage of the first test aircraft and undergo testing in the coming weeks, the company said in a news release on Thursday. Airbus is manufacturing two A350F aircraft for flight testing in 2026 to 2027. 

The A350F main deck cargo door is the largest in the industry. Featuring a 14.7-foot cut-out width and a 14.1-foot tall opening, it is designed to make loading and unloading operations easier, faster, and safer. Located in the rear fuselage to maintain an optimal centre of gravity during loading, the door is made from composite materials and features an electrical open/close actuation system. 

Once serial production starts, the main deck cargo door will be delivered from Illescas to Hamburg, Germany, for integration into the aft fuselage and for the installation of the actuation systems. From there, that section of the fuselage will be transported to Toulouse for final assembly.

Airbus has registered 101 orders from 14 customers for the A350. All-Boeing operator Atlas Air last month placed an order for 20 aircraft, with options for an additional 20 units.

The A350F is designed to carry a payload of up to 122 tons and fly up to 4,700 nautical miles. Powered by the latest Rolls-Royce Trent XWB-97 engines, the aircraft will reduce fuel consumption and carbon emissions of up to 40% when compared to previous generation aircraft with a similar payload-range capability, in large measure due to a high content of advanced composite materials, according to Airbus.

Airbus is shooting for first commercial delivery in late 2027. Boeing is also developing a next-generation widebody freighter, called the 777-8, to compete with the A350. Boeing has said customer deliveries will begin in 2028.

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

Write to Eric Kulisch at ekulisch@freightwaves.com.

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Everything else stays exactly where it was. Recreational marijuana remains Schedule I. Any marijuana that is neither in an FDA-approved product nor covered by a state medical marijuana license remains Schedule I. The guy smoking a joint in a state where adult use is legal is still in Schedule I territory. The driver who tested positive last week is still in the Clearinghouse. None of that changed.

What changed is the legal underpinning for DOT’s ability to require marijuana testing at all.

This is the part that most coverage of the rescheduling action either glosses over or gets wrong, and it is the part that Brandon Wiseman at Trucksafe has been raising since the Trump executive order dropped in December and has now put plainly in writing following yesterday’s order. The foundation for DOT’s mandatory testing authority flows through the Department of Health and Human Services. HHS issues the Mandatory Guidelines for Federal Workplace Drug Testing Programs. Those guidelines authorize regulated employers to test only for substances listed in Schedules I and II of the Controlled Substances Act. The Omnibus Transportation Employee Testing Act of 1991, the statute that gives DOT its testing authority in the first place, requires DOT to follow HHS scientific and technical guidelines.

If state-licensed medical marijuana is no longer a Schedule I or Schedule II substance, HHS’s statutory authority to include THC in the mandatory federal testing panel is at a minimum an open question. DOT’s 49 CFR Part 40 names marijuana specifically rather than referencing it by schedule, which some have argued insulates the testing program from a scheduling change. That argument has always been legally optimistic. If HHS cannot authorize testing for a Schedule III substance without new rulemaking, then Part 40 has to conform to that, whether it names the substance or not.

The most likely resolution is a congressional or administrative carve-out that explicitly preserves mandatory marijuana testing for safety-sensitive transportation workers regardless of scheduling status. That carve-out does not exist yet. The DEA order itself acknowledges the potential for significant economic impacts from the rescheduling action while simultaneously stating that its notice-and-comment exemption under the treaty-obligations pathway means it was not required to take public input before this went into effect. The trucking industry did not get a comment period on a rule that has direct implications for its drug testing program.

ODAPC’s most recent guidance on marijuana is dated December 19, 2025, written before rescheduling occurred, and states that marijuana remains unacceptable for safety-sensitive employees subject to DOT testing. That guidance is now technically pre-rescheduling guidance and has not been updated. The controlling practical answer for every fleet, every driver, and every MRO today is that 49 CFR Parts 40 and 382 have not changed, zero tolerance remains in effect, and a positive test still results in a driver being placed in the Clearinghouse. Do not use marijuana. That has not changed.

There is a difference between the practical answer and the structural answer, and the trucking industry needs both.

The conversation about marijuana and trucking has been almost entirely about CDL holders and the FMCSA Clearinghouse. The Clearinghouse currently shows 184,337 commercial vehicle drivers in prohibited status. Marijuana accounts for roughly 60 percent of all positive tests since the database launched. Those numbers are real and they are significant.

What the conversation has not addressed is the much larger and much murkier population of CMV operators who are not CDL holders.

Federal regulations under 49 CFR Part 391 cover drivers of commercial motor vehicles that require a CDL. But there is a separate and considerably larger population of drivers operating vehicles that qualify as CMVs under state or federal definitions without triggering CDL requirements. Straight trucks under 26,001 pounds. Cargo vans. Pickup trucks towing trailers in certain configurations. Passenger vehicles are used for-hire transportation in some jurisdictions. These operators are subject to varying levels of drug testing requirements depending on their specific regulatory classification, the state in which they operate, the type of cargo they carry, and whether they cross state lines.

For that population, the rescheduling creates genuine uncertainty about which standards apply, because their testing requirements are less uniformly codified than those in the CDL Clearinghouse framework. Some of those operators are covered by DOT-mandated testing programs with the same zero-tolerance standard as CDL holders. Others operate under state programs with different standards. A subset operates in gray zones where no one has clearly established which standard controls apply.

The rescheduling action does not change any of these standards today. But it creates a legal environment where challenges to those standards become easier to mount, particularly in states where medical marijuana is now a Schedule III substance under federal law and where a driver can argue that their prescribed use of a federally recognized Schedule III controlled substance should not disqualify them from operating commercial equipment.

That argument will lose in court today because Part 40 and Part 382 are still in effect and ODAPC guidance still says zero tolerance. But the argument becomes structurally stronger after yesterday in ways it was not before. And some of those challenges will be filed in jurisdictions where state courts are more receptive to them than federal courts, particularly in states that have been aggressive about protecting medical marijuana patients from employment discrimination.

The DEA order itself is a piece of legal engineering that warrants some respect. Acting AG Blanche used the treaty-obligations pathway under 21 U.S.C. 811(d)(1) to issue this as a final order without notice-and-comment rulemaking, bypassing the procedural pathway that got the Biden administration’s rescheduling effort killed by a D.C. Circuit stay last year. The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs obligates the United States to schedule cannabis in a manner consistent with its treaty commitments, and the OLC opinion from April 2024 concluded that Schedule III satisfies those obligations. The order simultaneously establishes a nominal-price purchase-and-resale mechanism to satisfy the Single Convention’s requirement that a government agency serve as the exclusive purchaser of government-produced cannabis. This is not a casual policy move. It is a carefully constructed legal instrument designed to survive the challenge that killed the prior attempt.

Structural durability is relevant for trucking because it means this is unlikely to be rescheduled. The Biden administration’s rescheduling was stayed by federal courts almost immediately. The Blanche order was engineered specifically to avoid that outcome. Which means the industry needs to treat the legal question about DOT testing authority as a permanent structural question requiring a permanent answer, not a transitional issue that will resolve itself when the order gets struck down.

What the industry needs from federal authorities in the next 90 days is specific and can be stated plainly. ODAPC needs to issue an updated marijuana notice that explicitly addresses the post-rescheduling landscape and confirms the legal basis for continued zero-tolerance testing under 49 CFR Part 40. Congress or DOT needs to formally preserve the mandatory testing carve-out for safety-sensitive transportation workers regardless of scheduling status. And the DEA administrative hearing process, beginning June 29, which will address rescheduling of all marijuana rather than just the state-licensed medical category addressed in yesterday’s order, needs to produce an explicit analysis of the interaction between a hypothetical broader rescheduling and DOT’s testing authority.

Until those three things happen, the industry is operating on the practical answer while the structural answer remains open.

For now, the direction is clear. Zero tolerance. No medical exemption. A positive test is a Clearinghouse entry regardless of what the driver’s dispensary card says. The DEA changed a schedule. DOT did not change 49 CFR Part 40. Those two facts can coexist for the moment. The question is how long that moment lasts before the structural gap produces a legal challenge that the industry is not prepared to defend.

The post The Feds rescheduled marijuana. What happens in trucking? appeared first on FreightWaves.

Pittsburgh-based Idelic’s platform combines monitoring, reporting and training on one system, helping fleets identify and mitigate risky behaviors. The dataset includes over 40 billion miles of driving data along with more than 400,000 accident reports.

“Built on years of machine learning applied to predictive accident models across more than 150 fleets, Idelic’s AI capabilities are field-proven in predicting driver risk and optimizing safety training interventions,” a news release stated.

The deal will expand Descartes’ (NASDAQ: DSGX) Fleet Data Intelligence platform, combining existing route planning solutions with predictive safety capabilities.

“Productivity and safety are equally critical for fleet operators,” said James Wee, general manager of fleet management at Descartes. “This acquisition adds critical data to our GLN and enhances Descartes’ final-mile footprint by adding highly advanced fleet safety capabilities and deep domain expertise.”

Descartes funded the deal with cash on hand. A performance-based earnout of up to $12 million is based on various revenue targets in the two-year period following the closing.

The acquisition marked Descartes’ 36th since 2016.

Last week, Descartes introduced its Fleet Data Intelligence platform, which uses an AI agent and machine learning to improve fleet performance and reduce cost per delivery.

More FreightWaves articles by Todd Maiden:

• Losses narrow at Heartland Express as market shifts
• Knight-Swift says shippers already seeking peak-season capacity
• Knight-Swift aims for double-digit rate hike in tight market

The post Descartes acquires fleet safety platform Idelic for $28M appeared first on FreightWaves.

After encountering issues with litigation in which we were unable to serve defendant trucking entities, we analyzed the complete BOC-3 dataset published by the FMCSA, which contains 1.69 million filing records covering every carrier, broker, and freight forwarder with active federal operating authority in America. What emerged from that analysis tells you a great deal about how the system actually functions, versus how it is supposed to. Eighty-nine unique agent entities control process agent relationships for 1.67 million American transportation companies. The top ten agents among the 89 collectively control process agent relationships for 942,962 carriers, representing 56.5 percent of the entire carrier population in the United States.

That concentration is not, in itself, evidence of fraud. National blanket agents have existed for decades and legitimate operations do serve enormous carrier books. Process Agent Service Company, based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, serves 123,594 carriers. All-American Agents of Process, also based in Sioux Falls, serves 107,623 carriers. Truck Process Agents of America, out of Fargo, North Dakota, serves 128,038 carriers. These are volume operations, they are real businesses, and they exist precisely because the BOC-3 market rewards scale. A carrier getting started needs a $19 or $20 or $35 annual BOC-3 filing and the industry has built itself around delivering that at the cheapest possible price point.

The problem starts when you look at what happens at the margins.

Federal regulations under 49 CFR Part 366 define what a process agent must be. The agent must have a physical address, not a post office box, in every state of designation. The agent must be available at that address during normal business hours. The agent must be in a position to actually receive legal documents and forward them to the carrier in a timely manner. Those are the rules. They exist because a PO box cannot accept a summons. A ghost company cannot appear in court. A discount mill with no physical office and no one answering the phone cannot provide the accountability that the regulation was designed to create.

THE TEA data shows that among the 89 agents covering 1.67 million carriers, at least two operate from PO Box 5627 in Norman, Oklahoma. Agents of Process Services and 35 Dollar Process Agent Service, Inc. share that single mailbox. Neither entity could be verified as a legally incorporated business in any state through OpenCorporates or state Secretary of State searches. Combined, they carry 1,193 carriers on their books. For context, the national carrier population averages in the upper 60s. These are carriers that rank in the bottom 15 percent of American trucking, as determined by a model that incorporates crashes, out-of-service rates, violation history, and authority stability. The discount agent and the worst carriers found each other. The result is that FMCSA is unable to enforce, and Plaintiffs and their litigation Attorneys are unable to effect proper service of process. Litigation following catastrophic claims is unsuccessful simply because the defendant, a bad actor trucking company, can’t be served. 

In Edmond, Oklahoma, 15 miles up the road, two more agents share a single address at 2524 North Broadway. Permits and Process Agents and Permits C and Process Agents LLC are nearly identical names operating from the same office with combined coverage of 6,059 carriers. The same carrier can appear under both registrations simultaneously. 

FMCSA itself acknowledged in 2019 that it was getting reports from enforcement personnel about the inability to complete service of process in cases where the contractual relationship between a carrier and its BOC-3 agent had terminated without the carrier filing a new designation. The agency issued policy MC-RS-2019-0002 specifically to address situations in which the process agent on file refused to accept service on behalf of the carrier or was otherwise no longer available. FMCSA’s own enforcement staff was telling headquarters they could not serve carriers. In 2019. That problem has not gotten smaller.

The BOC-3 filing process itself creates the vulnerability. Only a process agent, on behalf of the applicant carrier, can file Form BOC-3 with FMCSA.FMCSA The carrier does not file it themselves. The agent files it. This means the agent’s name, address, and contact information are entered into the federal database as the authoritative contact point for legal services, and the carrier has limited visibility into whether that agent can actually fulfill the obligation. When you are a new carrier paying $19 for a BOC-3 filing because someone on Facebook trucking groups said it was the cheapest option, you are not doing due diligence on whether that agent has a real office, actual staff, and a functioning process for forwarding legal documents. You are buying operating authority clearance.

The attorneys feeling this most acutely are the plaintiff lawyers chasing crash cases involving carriers from the same networks the industry has been tracking for years. The Romanian chameleon carrier networks in the Chicago suburbs, the Moldovan freight operations spinning up new DOTs out of Elgin, Illinois, the carriers formed through Wyoming shell mills at addresses like 2232 Dell Range Boulevard in Cheyenne, where 14 separate carriers share a single normalized address. Those carriers need operating authority. Operating authority requires a BOC-3. The BOC-3 is filed by whichever agent is the least expensive and least likely to ask questions. When a plaintiff’s attorney tries to serve the carrier after a fatality crash, the BOC-3 agent either does not respond, has no physical presence to serve, or simply passes a letter to a virtual mailbox that no one checks.

The Wyoming shell mill connection is worth a separate examination. THE TEA formation address analysis shows that 2232 Dell Range Boulevard in Cheyenne currently hosts 14 FMCSA-registered carriers with poor performance histories. The Sheridan, Wyoming, address for Registered Agents Inc., 30 North Gould Street, appears in the BOC-3 dataset with 10,922 carriers and 97 revoked authorities. That address is the registered agent address that appeared on the Phoenix ELD LLC filing in December 2022, the Wyoming shell entity connected through phone number forensics to Incway Corporation and its federally adjudicated RICO principal, Lawyers Limited, has been documented providing entity formation services to trucking networks in the Chicago area.

The connection between shell entity formation infrastructure and BOC-3 agent infrastructure are two components of the same system. You form the Wyoming LLC through a document mill. You get your operating authority through FMCSA using that Wyoming address. You file your BOC-3 through a $19 discount agent who operates from a PO box and does not verify anything. You are now a federally authorized motor carrier with no real address, no real agent, no accountability footprint, and a 15-point safety score. You haul freight on America’s highways until you crash something, and then you dissolve, reform under a new DOT, and do it again.

FMCSA enforcement personnel and state partners have reported an inability to complete service of process for enforcement actions in some cases where the regulated entity has not filed a new designation, but the contractual relationship with the designated process agent has been terminated. FMCSA. That is the agency’s own language. Unable to complete service of process. For enforcement actions. Against carriers operating under active federal authority.

The regulation intended to make carriers legally accessible has become the mechanism by which the worst carriers make themselves legally inaccessible. The $19 BOC-3 is a shield.

What the FMCSA could do is straightforward in concept, though the agency’s appetite for reforming the process agent has historically been limited. Requiring process agents to verify their corporate existence as a condition of FMCSA registration would eliminate ghost agents immediately. Requiring physical address verification with periodic audits would eliminate PO box operations. Requiring agents serving more than a threshold number of carriers to carry errors and omissions insurance would ensure the function is actually being performed. Suspending operating authority when a BOC-3 agent cannot be reached, rather than waiting for a carrier to file a replacement designation, would close the gap the 2019 policy sought to address.

None of those reforms requires legislation. They require rulemaking under existing authority.

Until then, 89 agents control the legal access point for 1.67 million American trucking companies. Some of those agents are legitimate national operations. Some of them are PO boxes in Norman, Oklahoma. And somewhere in a courthouse right now, a plaintiff attorney representing a family that buried someone after a truck crash is trying to serve a carrier whose BOC-3 agent does not exist, whose address is a mail drop, and whose operating authority was granted by a federal agency that never verified any of it.

The BOC-3 was supposed to be the guarantee that you could always find them. Right now, for many carriers, it is a guarantee that you cannot.

The post Ghost Agents running America’s trucking legal infrastructure appeared first on FreightWaves.

At a basic level, the approach is direct. Theft ring operatives get hired as drivers at real, fully vetted trucking companies. If they pass the hiring process, they run loads like any other driver. Nothing stands out during this stage because the goal is not to act right away. The goal is to gain access. Over time, that access puts them in position to be assigned a high-value load.

How the Trojan Driver model works

Once the right load is assigned, the process moves to the next step. According to TAPA, the driver is told to park the loaded truck at a set location during what looks like a normal break. During that stop, the driver is not present and a separate crew removes the freight. That detail is important because it makes the situation look like a routine theft, with the driver appearing to be a victim instead of part of the plan.

From there, the outcome follows a pattern. The trucking company terminates the driver for breaking protocol, which is exactly what would normally happen. In this case, that step is expected. Once removed, the operative moves on to another trucking company and repeats the process. TAPA describes this as a six-step model, which shows that this is not random. It is structured and repeatable.

TAPA outlines the Trojan Driver Scam as a six-step process:

• Theft ring operatives secure driver positions with legitimate, fully vetted trucking companies
• After passing hiring checks, they operate normally until assigned a high-target load
• On instruction, the driver parks the loaded truck at a predetermined location during a routine break
• A separate crew removes the freight while the driver is absent, making it appear opportunistic
• The trucking company terminates the driver for violating protocol, as expected
• The operative moves to another trucking company and repeats the cycle

This structure is what makes the model effective. It moves through normal operations without raising concern and resets itself after each event.

Why this is different

“This represents a dangerous evolution in cargo theft tactics,” said Scott Cornell, who first identified the scheme. “Criminal networks are no longer just creating fake companies they’re infiltrating real ones.” He explained that the strength of this approach comes from how it uses trust that already exists in the industry. A trucking company can have clean authority, strong reviews, and a good history, and still be part of a theft without knowing it because the problem is already inside the operation.

The warning comes at a time when cargo theft is already rising. Data from Verisk’s CargoNet shows 3,594 theft incidents last year, with an estimated $725 million in losses. Strategic theft methods, including double brokering and motor carrier number fraud, made up 1,839 of those incidents in 2025. TAPA noted that these numbers only reflect part of the problem because reporting is voluntary, which means the real total is likely higher.

“Cargo thieves are constantly pressure testing new methods, and we have already seen multiple instances of this tactic being deployed,” Cornell said. He added that while the industry has made progress, criminal groups are moving faster and adapting quickly. He stressed that better coordination across the industry is needed because these groups operate in organized networks.

What the industry needs to do next

Cindy Rosen said that dealing with threats like this requires a more consistent approach across the supply chain. “The industry can no longer combat sophisticated organized crime with fragmented, inconsistent approaches,” she said. She pointed to TAPA’s role in bringing different parts of the industry together and highlighted its security standards for facilities, trucking companies, and freight brokers as tools to help reduce risk.

TAPA is also recommending practical steps. One key move is for trucking companies to run thorough background checks and for brokers to work with their partners to require drivers to be with a company for six months to a year before handling high-value loads. This adds time and makes it harder for operatives to move quickly between companies.

Rosen described the warning as a reset point for how risk is viewed. “The Trojan Driver Scam is a wake-up call,” she said. “It reminds us that the industry needs to constantly reassess our assumptions about where vulnerabilities exist.” She added that supply chains are only as strong as their weakest link, which is exactly what this model is designed to target.

The key takeaway is that this approach does not break the process at the start. It moves through it. By the time the load is in motion, the conditions for theft are already in place, and the situation looks normal until the outcome is clear.

Click here for more articles on cargo theft and freight fraud by Phillip Brink.

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Leading the latest filings is Bound Logistics LLC, a New Jersey-based carrier operating 57 trucks with 57 drivers, according to federal safety data. The company filed for Chapter 11 protection in the District of New Jersey on Thursday, court records show.

Also among the largest fleets in the group is Stron Logistics Inc., an Illinois-based carrier with 9 trucks and roughly 10 drivers. The company filed for Chapter 7 liquidation in the Northern District of Illinois on April 15.

Cluster of small carriers, brokers filing across U.S.

The filings span multiple states, with a heavy concentration in Illinois — a major trucking hub — and include both asset-based carriers and logistics providers.

Among the companies filing:

• Allbound Carrier Inc. (Bolingbrook, Illinois) filed for Chapter 11 protection.
• Allstar Trailer Sales LLC (Stone Mountain, Georgia), a small carrier/dealer with two trucks and two drivers, filed for Chapter 7.
• D.A.R. Carrier Inc. (Oak Lawn, Illinois) filed for Chapter 11 as a small business debtor.
• Freight Sherpas Inc. (Chicago) filed for Chapter 11 under Subchapter V.
• Honey Bee Freight Group LLC (Norcross, Georgia) filed for Chapter 7 protection.
• K&L Trucking LLC (Temple Hills, Maryland) filed for Chapter 7 liquidation.
• MLG Freight LLC (Niles, Illinois) filed for Chapter 7.
• Rivera On-Point Logistics LLC (Chicago) filed for Chapter 7.
• Timex Freight Inc. (Waukegan, Illinois) filed for Chapter 7.
• ZD Sand LLC (Voca, Texas), a trucking-related operation, filed for Chapter 11 in the Southern District of Texas.

Asset-light and small fleets most exposed

The filings show a clear pattern: most companies are small fleets or asset-light logistics providers, many operating fewer than 10 trucks or functioning primarily as brokers.

Even larger operators in the group — such as Bound Logistics — remain relatively small by industry standards, underscoring how vulnerable smaller carriers are to prolonged freight recessions.

Many of the Chapter 11 filings are proceeding under Subchapter V, a streamlined restructuring path designed for small businesses with limited debt loads, suggesting these firms are attempting to reorganize rather than immediately liquidate.

Illinois emerges as bankruptcy hotspot

Illinois accounted for a significant share of the filings, including:

• Stron Logistics
• Freight Sherpas
• MLG Freight
• Rivera On-Point Logistics
• Timex Freight
• Allbound Carrier
• D.A.R. Carrier

The concentration reflects the state’s role as a major freight and brokerage hub, particularly in the Chicago market, where competition among small carriers and intermediaries is intense.

The latest wave of bankruptcies comes amid a prolonged freight downturn marked by:

• Weak spot rates and excess capacity
• Rising insurance and equipment costs
• Tighter credit conditions for small operators
• Increased competition from non-asset and digital brokerage models

Key takeaways

• Scale matters: Only one fleet exceeded 50 trucks (Bound Logistics).
• Liquidations dominate: Majority of filings are Chapter 7, signaling closures rather than restructurings.
• Chicago cluster: Illinois continues to be a pressure point for small carriers and brokers.
• Broker exposure: Several logistics firms (non-asset or hybrid) also filed, pointing to margin compression beyond asset-based carriers.

Company breakdown

The post Small fleets, brokers drive new wave of trucking bankruptcies appeared first on FreightWaves.

The corporate earnings of Marten Transport released Thursday do not show a company that has benefitted yet from a stronger freight market, year-on-year or sequentially.

For example, its company-wide operating ratio (OR) net of fuel was 99.1%. That showed a deterioration from 97.5% in the fourth quarter of 2025 and was worse sequentially than 97% in the first quarter of 2025.

The company’s operating income was $1.6 million in the first three months of this year. A year ago, it was $5.9 million. Fourth quarter 2025 operating income was $4.6 million. 

For Marten’s (NASDAQ: MRTN) truckload segment, the OR net of fuel in the first quarter of 2026 was 101.1%. A year ago it was 100.3%; in the fourth quarter of 2025 it was 99.1%.

The dedicated segment’s OR net of fuel of 96.9% was 470 basis points worse than the 92.2% recorded a year ago. It was also a sequential deterioration from the 94.6% recorded in the final three months of 2025. 

There were some positive numbers. The average revenue net of fuel per tractor per week in the Truckload segment was $4,425 compared to $4,196 a year ago . It was also improved sequentially from $4,200 in the fourth quarter of 2025. 

A similar story played out in the dedicated segment, where the weekly figure of $3,909 was stronger than $3,846 a year earlier, and better than the $3,870 recorded in 2025’s fourth quarter.

Chairman and CEO Randolph Marten cited those figures as a positive in his prepared comments released in conjunction with the earnings. 

“Our people drove sequential increases in our revenue per tractor within our truckload and dedicated operations each of the last two quarters,” he said.

But Marten said the impact from the higher revenue per truck “was more than offset by the prolonged severe winter storms.”

Diesel prices cited

But unusual in trucking recent earnings reports, where fuel surcharges do a strong job of shifting fuel prices to shippers and away from carriers and are rarely mentioned in earnings statements and calls, Marten also said the performance was negatively impacted by “the sharp spike in diesel prices in the first quarter.”

The brokerage segment turned in a weaker performance than a year ago as measured by OR. The first quarter of 2026 for brokerage reported an OR of 97.4% versus 93.5% a year ago. Brokerage in the first quarter of 2026 did outperform the fourth quarter of 2025, when its OR was 98%.

Similar performance at other truckload carriers

The decline in OR year-on-year was not unique for a truckload carrier in the first quarter. Knight Swift (NYSE: KNX), for example, reported an adjusted OR of 97% in the quarter, compared to 94.7% a year earlier. At Covenant Logistics (NYSE: CVLG), the OR came in at 98.0% compared to 97.2% a year ago.

But Heartland Express (NASDAQ: HTLD) saw its adjusted OR improve to 101.3% from 107.1% a year ago. 

Marten does not hold an earnings call with analysts. In the prepared statement released in conjunction with the earnings, Marten chairman and CEO Randolph Marten signaled better days may be ahead.

“We believe that the freight market is in the early stages of recovery fueled by the current administration’s accelerating immigration enforcement clampdowns on multiple fronts — including noncompliant state licensing practices for non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses, or CDL’s, English Language Proficiency enforcement, electronic logging device fraud, CDL mills and chameleon carriers,” he said. “These measures are structural changes to the freight market that have been and are expected to continue contracting capacity by removing noncompliant and unqualified drivers who never should have been driving in the first place.”

His other comments were not that much different than he and other freight executives could have said at any time during the past few years.

“Our earnings have been heavily pressured by the historic duration and depth of the freight market recession’s oversupply and weak demand, and the cumulative impact of inflationary operating costs, freight rate reductions and freight network disruptions,” Marten said.

Net income of 2 cents per share was down from 5 cents per share a year earlier. The fourth quarter of 2025 also saw a 5 cents per share net income.

SeekingAlpha reported that 2 cents per share recorded by Marten was in line with consensus forecasts.

Marten’s stock performance is higher across the board in three key measurements. For the 52 weeks, it’s up 13.3%, per Barchart. Over three months, the gain is 17.1%. And in the last month, Marten is up 16.4%.

But its closing price Thursday of $14.83 is well below prices that exceeded $23/share in late July 2023.

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The post Signs of a Marten turnaround, but trucker’s numbers mostly lower appeared first on FreightWaves.

The Chattanooga, Tennessee-based truckload and logistics provider posted net income of $4.4 million, or 17 cents per diluted share, down from $6.6 million, or 24 cents per share, a year earlier. 

Adjusted earnings per share came in at $0.26, compared to $0.32 in the prior-year period.

CEO David Parker said the quarter “fell short of expectations,” citing January and February disruptions, but noted improving freight volumes and pricing toward the end of the quarter.

“Our positive operating performance and the momentum we carried into the second quarter” includes a growing pipeline of new customers and rate increases with select shippers, Parker said in a news release.

The company revenue beat first quarter revenue estimates at $307.2 million, but earnings per share of $0.26 missed the $0.30 forecast.

Covenant Logistics Group (NYSE: CVLG) reported first quarter results after the market closed on Thursday. The carrier will hold a conference call to discuss results with analysts at 10 a.m. Friday. Covenant provides truckload, expedited, dedicated, and logistics services across the U.S. 

Revenue rises, margins compress

Total revenue increased 14% year over year to $307.2 million, driven by a 15.9% rise in freight revenue, excluding fuel surcharges.

Despite top-line growth, profitability weakened. Operating income declined to $6.3 million from $7.6 million, while the operating ratio deteriorated to 98.0% from 97.2%, reflecting higher costs.

Fuel expenses, inflationary pressures and higher purchased transportation costs weighed on margins, alongside weather-related disruptions early in the quarter.

Segment performance mixed

Covenant’s business segments showed divergent trends:

• Dedicated truckload was a bright spot, with revenue rising 10.9% to $91.1 million and operating income more than doubling, supported by improved fleet productivity.
• Expedited truckload revenue fell 10.3% to $71.9 million as tractor count declined and miles per unit dropped.
• Managed Freight surged 59.6% to $90.7 million, largely due to acquisitions completed in late 2025, though margins compressed due to higher capacity costs.
• Warehousing revenue increased 14.6% to $27.6 million, driven by new customer onboarding, but startup costs limited profit growth.

Overall truckload revenue was essentially flat year over year at $188.1 million.

Rates improve, capacity tightens

Operationally, Covenant saw improving pricing metrics despite softer utilization:

• Average freight revenue per total mile rose 9.1% to $2.76
• Revenue per loaded mile increased 12.1%
• Miles per tractor declined 5.7%

These trends reflect tightening capacity and stronger pricing power, even as fleet size contracted modestly.

Management also pointed to industrywide driver shortages and improving demand as tailwinds heading into the second quarter.

Covenant reduced net debt by $51 million during the quarter to $245.3 million, lowering its leverage ratio and improving liquidity.

The company expects 2026 capital expenditures of $40 million to $50 million, significantly below 2025 levels, as it focuses on improving returns and reallocating assets.

Outlook: Sequential improvement expected

Executives said demand is strengthening, with contract freight and committed capacity agreements supporting a gradual recovery.

“Solid economic demand and shrinking industry-wide driver capacity are creating a favorable environment for improving yield and revenue per tractor,” Parker said.

Covenant expects expedited and managed freight segments to benefit first from the improving market, with sequential gains anticipated through the remainder of 2026.

The post First look: Covenant flags March rebound after soft Q1 earnings appeared first on FreightWaves.

The membership retail club began offering ultra-fast delivery from its 600-plus stores on April 2 after an initial trial run in select markets and has fulfilled nearly 65,000 deliveries so far, according to a news release on Thursday. The average express order is being delivered in just 55 minutes. The 10 fastest deliveries were completed in less than 12 minutes.

A significant share of the orders includes everyday essentials such as bottled water, produce, rotisserie chicken and paper goods, not just convenience add-ons or urgent needs. The Walmart (NASDAQ: WMT) division said the shopping habits indicate super fast delivery is moving from novelty to the norm.

Members can now choose between two express delivery options: an enhanced one-hour or less service at a flat $10 for Plus members / $22 for Club members, or the traditional three hours-or- less service at a reduced $5 for Plus members / $17 for Club members on eligible items. Standard delivery, shipping, and curbside pickup are also available.

“Members love our three hours-or-less express delivery, but they told us they wanted an even faster option — so, we delivered,” said Greg Pulsifer, senior vice president, eCommerce at Sam’s Club.

Sam’s Club is leveraging in-house Walmart technology for real-time inventory visibility and fulfilment optimization.

Sam’s Club and Walmart crowd source drivers through the Spark app. Drivers select orders they want to deliver with their own vehicles and pick them up at Walmart stores. 

E-commerce as a share of Walmart’s total sales reached a record 23% in the fourth quarter, up from 11.4% in early 2022, after growing 27% year over year. For the full year, e-commerce sales exceeded $150 billion for the first time, up 5.5% from two years ago.  The number of orders delivered in under three hours increased more than 60% in 2025, management said during the company’s earnings presentation in February. At Walmart U.S., 35% of store-fulfilled orders were delivered in under three hours in the fourth quarter. 

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) remains the dominant e-commerce seller in the United States, capturing about 56% of all digital retail sales but Walmart’s rate of growth in e-commerce sales is higher. Since the start of 2022, Walmart’s e-commerce sales have increased by 115.6%, compared to 63.2% for Amazon, according to PYMNTS Intelligence.

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

Write to Eric Kulisch at ekulisch@freightwaves.com.

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The post Sam’s Club rolls out 1-hour express delivery option appeared first on FreightWaves.

The Department of Labor’s (DOL) proposed rule on joint employer status, released Thursday into the Federal Register, revives an effort hanging over from the first Trump administration to create a framework for when a worker can be seen as effectively having two employers.

Given the level of subcontracting that goes on in trucking, it’s a proposal that has the potential to become an issue when a driver-related issue becomes the subject of an enforcement action of DOL, such as by the Wage & Hour division.

The proposed rule looks at both vertical joint employer relationships–which would involve subcontracting, like what goes on in trucking–or a horizontal employer relationship. It is open for comment 

A horizontal employment relationship, according to the DOL’s post about the rule in the Federal Register, is one “where an employee works separate hours for two (or more) employers in the same workweek that are sufficiently associated with each other with respect to the employment of the employee.”

Soon after the notice was posted, the trucking-focused Scopelitis law firm put out an email message to its clients, noting the proposed rule’s structure and how it would impact trucking companies. 

Vertical vs. horizontal; the former matters for trucking

“For many clients, the proposed rule’s test for vertical joint employment—where, for example, a motor carrier contracts with a fleet contractor with employee drivers and the issue is whether the motor carrier is the joint employer of those drivers—is of most relevance,” the law firm said. 

A Wage & Hour division rule on joint employer status at the Department of Labor was  implemented in the first Trump administration. But it ultimately was tossed out by a court.

And what happens if a company is found to be a joint employer with another that it thought it was just contracting with? 

As the Shipman & Goodman law firm said in an online commentary, “Joint employer status carries real consequences. If two businesses are found to be joint employers under the Fair Labor Standards Act, they are jointly and severally liable for wages, overtime, damages,

and penalties owed to the employees.”

Expanding on that, the Shipman firm said such a finding would mean that “an employee’s total hours worked each week for all joint employers must be aggregated to determine overtime eligibility. Under the FMLA, both joint employers must count the employee for purposes of employer coverage and employee eligibility.”

Four key points

Scopelitis said the latest test of whether there is a vertical joint employer relationship has been modified somewhat from the first Trump rule. But it it similar in that it calls for four factors to be considered by regulators seeking to determine the nature of the employers’ structure. (Other online commentary from various law firms noted, as did Scopelitis, that most of the proposed rule is identical to the blocked rule from the first Trump administration).

The four tests , Scopelitis said, look to see whether the potential joint employer:

• Can hire or fire the employee in question
• ”Supervises and controls the employee’s work schedule or conditions of employment to a substantial degree.”
• “Determines the employee’s rate and method of payment.”
• “Maintains the employee’s employment records.”

None of the four are dispositive, viewed as carrying more weight than the others, the firm said. But they are more important than any other considerations that might come into play. 

“The proposal allows for wider consideration of other factors but emphasizes that if the four delineated factors point in the same direction, the additional factors are highly unlikely to outweigh that result,” Scopelitis said. 

The Scopelitis email noted another aspect of the proposed rule that also drew commentary from other law firms posting their analysis online: the question of control.

“The test will consider a potential joint employer’s power or reserved right to act in relation to the employee, but considers actual exercise of control more relevant,” the firm said. 

But it added that the wording on control is not identical to what was in the Trump rule in 2020. The latest proposal “also notably provides that compliance with and monitoring of general (as opposed to specific as in the 2020 regulation) legal obligations or health and safety standards does not weigh in favor of or against joint employment,” Scopelitis said.

In its commentary, the Shipman firm said of that same provision that it would have the DOL “examine whether the potential joint employer acts ‘directly or indirectly’ with respect to each factor, meaning that reserved or indirect authority over workers may be sufficient even if the potential joint employer is not exercising that authority day to day.”

Rule wouldn’t be the ultimate word

As the various commentaries said, a DOL guidance is not the final legal authority on various questions. For example, it has been noted that the back-and-forth Wage & Hour Division rules on independent contractor status, actual or proposed, would go into the pool of dozens of legal precedents in courts and state regulations and that court cases are far more important in setting legal precedents. The DOL’s standard on joint employer status could be similar. 

Or as Scopelitis said, “Recognizing that there are a variety of tests utilized for determining joint employment, DOL intends the proposal to provide clarity and a level of uniformity.”

Regardless of how much clout the rule if adopted ultimately will have, the Shipman commentary recommended an employer determine how its policies line up against it.

“If you use staffing agencies, subcontractors, franchise arrangements, or any other business model in which another entity’s employees perform work that benefits your business, now is the time to review those relationships,” the law firm said. “Look at how much control you actually exercise over the workers, whether you maintain any of their employment records,and whether you have any role in setting their schedules or pay.” 

Part of that, the firm said, involves reviewing contracts to determine the issue of control.

Joint employer battle at NLRB

The proposed DOL rule on joint employer status follows by several weeks a reinstatement of a joint employer rule at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). That rule will govern the issue in that venue. 

Like the latest DOL proposal on the issue, the NLRB rule traces back to the first Trump administration. But that rule was not thrown out by court. Rather, it was superseded by a Biden-era rule; that one was tossed out by a federal judge in Texas. 

The proposed rule at the DOL comes as the Teamsters are pursuing a joint employer declaration by the NLRB for Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and its direct service providers. But earlier success in its efforts may be thwarted by a recent NLRB-Amazon deal that the Teamsters is challenging. 

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The Chattanooga-based company’s growth is parabolic. Founded in November 2022, it took 366 days to reach its first 100 locations. The jump from 4,000 locations to 5,000 took just 81 days. This is part of an ambitious plan to double its network to more than 10,000 locations by the end of 2026, requiring around 580 new locations each month or about 19 per day.

The company was recently ranked No. 24 on the FreightWaves FreightTech 25 list for 2026.

One secret behind the success is the business model. The largest network of truck parking in the country doesn’t come from building new locations. Rather, it’s through creating new parking locations in spots that were otherwise unavailable.

“We’ve created a new way to add truck parking capacity at scale and at speed, without waiting on construction, leasing, or new infrastructure dollars,” said Evan Shelley, founder and CEO of Truck Parking Club. “Hundreds of thousands of drivers have already parked with us, and we’re actively partnering with everyone from the largest fleets to independent owner-operators to help them use Truck Parking Club to improve efficiency and deliver real value to both drivers and carriers.”

Drivers from 93 of the top 100 fleets have parked at Truck Parking Club locations, the company said. The network now offers more than 80,000 reservable spaces across 49 states.

Truck Parking Shortage: A Physical and Safety Crisis

Unlike the widely debated truck driver shortage, there is an acute lack of parking spaces for the millions of truckers navigating the highways each day. Limited supply and regulatory barriers are two key factors. Truck Parking Club estimates traditional construction costs at $100,000 to $200,000 per space.

For context, building the equivalent of Truck Parking Club’s current capacity through traditional methods would cost approximately $8 billion.

The safety issue is equally alarming. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration data shows 457 fatal crashes and more than 41,000 total crashes annually involving large trucks on highway ramps and shoulders, according to the agency’s Large Truck and Bus Crash Facts 2020 report. Drivers park there because they have no alternative.

To tackle this, Truck Parking Club has expanded the realm of potential places to park by activating unused space on private property. These locations include warehouses, trucking terminals, self-storage facilities, truck repair shops and more.

The network’s 5,000-plus locations are owned and operated by small businesses in every corner of the American economy: trucking companies, warehouses, repair shops, tow yards, self-storage operators, CDL schools, hotels, stadiums, and more. Behind the growth numbers lies a business model that is less a tech platform and more a stewardship of small-business communities.

When a driver books a spot through Truck Parking Club, the majority of every transaction goes directly to the property owner — whether that’s a family-owned repair shop in Akron, Ohio, or a regional trucking company with extra pavement.

The company acts as gatekeeper, handling onboarding, customer service and quality control. But the core is an ecosystem where hosts and drivers transact directly, with built-in incentives to keep standards high.

Looking ahead, the long-term vision extends beyond parking reservations. Each location added can serve as a “node” around which useful services for truckers can aggregate: food, repairs, potentially even electric-vehicle charging — whatever the market demands.

The post Truck Parking Club surpasses 5,000 locations nationwide appeared first on FreightWaves.

The North Liberty, Iowa-based company reported a net loss of $4.8 million, or 6 cents per share. A 101.3% adjusted operating ratio (inverse of operating margin) was 580 basis points better year over year, and 30 bps better than the seasonally stronger fourth quarter. Heartland (NASDAQ: HTLD) has reported sequential OR improvement in each of the past four quarters.

Revenue of $176 million was down 20% y/y. The quarter benefitted from $7.3 million in gains on equipment sales, a 5-cent-per-share y/y tailwind at a normalized tax rate.

“We have begun to see some encouraging signs related to market capacity reductions and freight demand improvements,” said CEO Mike Gerdin in a news release. “We believe that meaningful improvements in freight demand and freight pricing have started, but may not fully materialize until later in 2026.”

He said “significant negative weather events” were a drag on January and February results, but that the company saw “improved freight volumes and driver utilization” during March. However, a quick runup in diesel fuel prices limited the upside in March.

(Heartland does not host a quarterly call, nor does it provide operating metrics for utilization and pricing.)

Operating cash flows totaled $23 million in the quarter, slightly off from $26 million in the year-ago quarter.

Heartland reduced net debt by $36 million in the period to $105 million outstanding. It ended the quarter with $89 million available on an untapped revolving credit facility and was in compliance with financial covenants.

An average tractor age of 2.6 years has not changed over the past year. The company forecast net capex of $10 million to $20 million in 2026, with gains on equipment sales totaling $25 million to $35 million.

Shares of HTLD were up 4.5% at 12:27 p.m. EDT on Thursday compared to the S&P 500, which was off 0.1%.

More FreightWaves articles by Todd Maiden:

• Knight-Swift says shippers already seeking peak-season capacity
• Knight-Swift aims for double-digit rate hike in tight market
• Werner doubling intermodal fleet in Mexico

The post Losses narrow at Heartland Express as market shifts appeared first on FreightWaves.

The cross-border freight market between the United States and Mexico is entering a new chapter, and Werner is positioning itself at the center of it. The Omaha-based carrier is scaling an asset-based intermodal service into Mexico, deploying Werner-owned containers and leveraging nearly three decades of cross-border operational expertise to meet what its leadership sees as a structural shift in North American supply chains.

In a recent interview, FreightWaves’ Thomas Wasson sat down with Werner’s Nate Browne, SVP of Intermodal, and Lance Dixon, SVP of Mexico, Canada and Temperature Controlled Operations. They outlined the carrier’s strategy for expanding intermodal service into Mexico, the role nearshoring is playing in reshaping cross-border demand, and why the timing is right for shippers to rethink how freight moves between the two countries.

Werner’s Cross-Border Expertise in Mexico

Werner’s cross-border operations aren’t new. The company launched its Mexico service in 1999, and Dixon, who has been with Werner for 34 years, was one of the people who built it from the ground up.

“We’re no longer testing things or trying things,” Dixon said. “We know what we’re doing. The team is very tenured.”

That institutional knowledge spans 12 border crossing ports, more than 100 associates in Mexico, and a customer base that reads like a who’s who of global manufacturing and consumer brands. Werner’s Mexico operations support dry van, temperature-controlled, logistics and intermodal services. 

The intermodal piece, Dixon explained, is a natural extension that rounds out Werner’s portfolio of services for customers in Mexico.

A Closer Look at Cross-Border Intermodal 

The mechanics of cross-border intermodal aren’t dramatically different from domestic operations, but border crossings add layers of complexity that require deep expertise. Browne explained that Werner’s intermodal service can function like a traditional over-the-road crossing, e.g, running a train from Chicago to Laredo and then clearing customs at the border. But the real advantage, he said, comes from a different approach.

“Where we’ve seen advantages for intermodal versus over the road is the Mexico Direct solution,” Browne said. “That means clearing customs at origin, whether you’re going north or south, and bypassing some of the border congestion that can delay processes at the border.”

Werner’s C-TPAT (Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism) protocols underpin the entire operation. With teams on both sides of the border working in close coordination, the carrier has built a system designed to catch problems before they become disruptions.

“As long as those [procedures] get followed, rarely do we ever see an issue that we can’t solve before it becomes a problem,” Dixon said.

Protecting Your Cargo

Security is a persistent concern in cross-border freight, and Werner is investing in both technology and people to address it. Browne described a multilayered approach that goes beyond basic GPS tracking on assets.

“We use cargo cameras as well,” Browne said. “It’s an extra layer of theft deterrent and gives us a good line of sight into when equipment is being loaded or unloaded.”

Technology alone isn’t the differentiator, according to Browne. Having Werner associates physically present at border crossings and inside Mexico grants the kind of institutional knowledge and responsiveness that remote operations can’t replicate.

Scaling Capacity to Meet Demand

The scale of Werner’s intermodal investment is tangible. Dixon said the company currently operates around 400 Werner-owned containers, with plans to double that fleet to approximately 800 by the end of the year.

“This becomes just another way for our customers to rely on Werner to serve them in a slightly different way,” Dixon said.

Shippers Shift to Mode-Agnostic Thinking

There’s a meaningful shift in how Mexican shippers view intermodal. A decade ago, according to Dixon, the conversations simply weren’t happening, but in the last few years, that’s completely changed.

Large multinational shippers are becoming increasingly mode-agnostic. They want capacity and on-time delivery, and they’re less concerned about whether the freight moves on a truck or a train.

“[Shippers] don’t really care how their product moves, just that it moves safely and it meets on-time delivery at the other end,” Dixon said. “We can do that in just about every single case.”

Breaking Down the Barriers to Entry

One of the barriers to intermodal adoption has always been the perceived complexity of switching from over-the-road. 

“Often, the customers that we look at are shipping that same product over the road,” Browne said. “We bring a consultative approach to make sure our customers are clearing with their customs brokers. If you’re going to clear at origin, oftentimes you can deal with the same broker,” he said.

The goal is to make the transition seamless rather than requiring shippers to overhaul their customs processes before they can even get started.

Closing the Gap with Truckload 

Browne characterized the Mexican intermodal market as being several years behind the U.S. in terms of adoption, but said the fundamental value proposition is converging. The traditional objections (cost, transit time, service reliability) are falling away.

“Cost really isn’t a huge obstacle,” Browne said. “The railroads have worked very hard with us to make that not a limiting factor in a lot of lanes. Transit is what I would say has changed the most. When you think about going from central Mexico to Chicago, it’s truck-like transit today, whereas 10 years ago, that was not the case.”

He credited significant railroad infrastructure investment for improving service levels across the board, calling current conditions the best he has seen in his career.

“The railroad service is right now the best it’s been in my 14 years of intermodal,” Browne said. “Let alone sustainability. When it comes up in a board meeting or when it comes up in a discussion for a customer thinking about making a change, that’s just another feather in the cap.”

Sustainability Moves to the Forefront

The sustainability angle carries real weight in conversations with large enterprise shippers. Werner’s scale on the truckload side, where the company is testing battery-powered and hydrogen-powered tractors, pairs with intermodal’s inherent emissions advantages to create a compelling story for customers with aggressive sustainability targets.

“We often talk to customers about what a potential carbon emission looks like on a central Mexico to Chicago over-the-road lane and then compare it to that same volume moving intermodal,” Browne said. “We can show shippers the facts that they can take to their board of directors or their supply chain team to make decisions. It’s pretty powerful.”

It’s a topic, he noted, that has gone from an afterthought to a front-and-center discussion in customer conversations over the past decade.

The Long Tail of Nearshoring

The wave of foreign direct investment flowing into Mexico is the clearest signal that cross-border freight volumes are only headed in one direction, according to Dixon. The nearshoring trend, he argued, has a long tail, but the capital is already committed.

“If you look at foreign direct investment in Mexico over the last two or three years, it’s set a record every year,” Dixon said. “By the time a customer decides to build a second plant or third plant in Mexico, they have to secure a site, and they have to pull in some infrastructure — think water, sewer, data lines, electricity, etc. Then they have to prop a building up… they’ve got to get machinery in it, then they’ve got to train their folks. All that takes a couple of years, best-case scenario.”

The manufacturing capacity being built in Mexico today will generate freight demand for years to come, and truckload capacity alone won’t be able to absorb it.

Why Intermodal Becomes Essential

“Truckload capacity can be constrained already today. With border delays, that’s going to get worse,” Dixon said. 

Werner’s intermodal expansion into Mexico is a calculated response to structural forces reshaping North American supply chains. With record foreign direct investment fueling new manufacturing in Mexico, border congestion intensifying, and large shippers demanding flexible capacity solutions, the carrier is leveraging 27 years of cross-border expertise and a growing fleet of owned containers to meet the moment. The freight is coming, but thankfully, the intermodal infrastructure to move it is already in place.

Click here to learn more about Werner Enterprises.

The post Werner doubles down on Mexico with asset-based intermodal expansion appeared first on FreightWaves.

The Phoenix-based company’s CEO, Adam Miller, told analysts on a Wednesday quarterly call that mini-bid activity is increasing as shipper routing guides fail. He said some carriers are no longer honoring rates negotiated just one or two months ago and that some of its customers are already looking to lock up peak-season capacity. After capturing mid-single-digit contractual rate increases in its truckload business to start the year, the company is now eyeing high-single- to low-double-digit increases on the remaining 70% of its book.

“I don’t think we’ve ever really seen the pressure on capacity … coming from regulatory forces versus just normal economics,” Miller said. “I think we could see more capacity coming out of the network than we typically would see in a cycle, and I feel like that could be a catalyst to really drive a strong bid season this year [and] also into next year.”

Knight-Swift (NYSE: KNX) reported a headline net loss of $1.3 million, or 1 cent per share, for the first quarter. Adjusted earnings per share of 9 cents were in line with the negative earnings revision the company provided last week. Analysts were expecting adjusted EPS of 25 cents heading into earnings season.

Adjusted EPS included several nonrecurring items. Headwinds included: 8 cents per share from a negative less-than-truckload claim development, 5 to 6 cents per share from weather and fuel headwinds, and 2 cents per share from an adverse value-added-tax ruling in its Mexico business. A roughly $8 million decline in net interest expense largely offset a similar decline in gains on equipment sales during the period.

The company reiterated its second-quarter adjusted EPS guidance range of 45 to 49 cents, which it also provided last week.

U.S. Xpress fleet appears to be right-sized

Truckload revenue was flat y/y at $1.05 billion, excluding fuel surcharges. A 4% increase in revenue per tractor offset a 4% decline in average tractors in service. The company has culled the fleet count over the past several quarters to improve asset utilization. Loaded miles per tractor improved 2.3% in the period, with revenue per loaded mile (excluding fuel) increasing 1.6%.

The segment booked a 96.3% adjusted operating ratio (inverse of operating margin), which was 70 basis points worse y/y. Inclement weather and surging fuel costs were among the headwinds.

The bulk of the tractor drawdown occurred at the U.S. Xpress fleet, which Knight-Swift acquired in 2023. Total annual revenue at U.S. Xpress is roughly $1.7 billion currently, down from $2.2 billion in 2022, which had the benefit of the tail-end of the upcycle. The actions were taken to improve freight mix and margins. U.S. Xpress is closing the gap to the legacy Knight and Swift fleets, operating at a margin that lagged by 300 bps in the quarter.

The TL unit typically operates at a mid-80s OR in a normal market. Roughly 70% of its assets are currently operating in one-way and over-the-road configurations, which Miller said are the most levered to an upcycle. True spot exposure in the business has increased a couple of percentage points to a low- to mid-teens range. The midpoint of management’s second-quarter guidance implies a 93.1% adjusted OR.

LTL could get back to double-digit margins by year-end

Costs associated with acquisition integrations and rapid organic terminal growth have weighed on LTL margins. The segment reported a 99.6% adjusted OR in the quarter, which was 540 bps worse y/y. However, the adverse claim development was a 570-bp headwind. Guidance calls for a low-90s OR in the second quarter, with the potential for sub-90% later this year.

The freight mix is improving. Weight per shipment was up 5% y/y to the highest level since 2021, when Knight-Swift entered the business. Also, variable wage per shipment (notably dock wages) and other variable costs are declining, and the aforementioned growth-oriented expenses are largely in the rearview. However, Knight-Swift still needs to acquire a Northeast carrier to complete its national terminal network.

Revenue increased 3% y/y to $313 million as a 1% decline in daily shipments was more than offset by a 4% increase in revenue per shipment (excluding fuel). Tonnage accelerated throughout the quarter—up 1.6% y/y in January, up 2.6% in February and 6.9% higher in March. Management said rate renewals continue to increase by a mid-single-digit percentage.

Other Q1 takeaways

Brokerage load count was down 19% y/y as the company continued to screen against non-compliant carriers and mitigate cargo theft risks across the platform. A 10% increase in revenue per load helped limit the segment’s revenue decline to 10%. A 96.2% adjusted OR was 70 bps worse y/y as a spike in purchased transportation costs compressed gross margin by 150 bps to 16.6%.

The company expects improving brokerage results as it reprices its contractual book of business throughout bid season.

The intermodal unit booked another operating loss. A 101.5% adjusted OR was 140 bps worse sequentially but 50 bps better y/y. Revenue increased 3% as load count and revenue per load “improved progressively throughout the quarter.”

Intermodal load count is expected to be up y/y by a high-single- to low-double-digit percentage in the second quarter, with the unit likely seeing breakeven or better operating results (OR to improve 150 to 250 bps sequentially).

All other segments, which include revenue from support services to third parties, combined for a $7.1 million operating loss in the quarter. A change in accounts receivable financing was a $5.2-million headwind. The unit also had startup costs from new warehousing contracts, and some warehousing project activity was pushed into the second and third quarters.

All other segments are forecast to generate $14 million to $18 million in adjusted operating income in the second quarter.

Shares of KNX were up 3.9% at 11:46 a.m. EDT on Thursday compared to the S&P 500, which was flat.

More FreightWaves articles by Todd Maiden:

• Werner doubling intermodal fleet in Mexico
• Knight-Swift cuts Q1 guide; remains upbeat on TL fundamentals
• J.B. Hunt says TL inflection ‘structural,’ not temporary

The post Knight-Swift says shippers already seeking peak-season capacity appeared first on FreightWaves.

United Cargo (NASDAQ: UAL) last week notified shippers of the pending surcharge, saying it covers the increased cost of doing business globally. The fee will vary by region and customers were advised to contact their United sales representative for applicable rates for specific trade lanes.

The price of jet fuel, typically the second largest expense for an airline after labor, has nearly doubled since the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. Many transportation companies have increased their fuel surcharges in recent weeks, but the United fee encompasses a variety of cost inputs. It is similar to the approach taken by the U.S. Postal Service, which will impose an 8% surcharge starting Sunday on parcel products to cover a range of soaring transportation costs.

“United Cargo is experiencing rising costs imposed on us by suppliers, partners, and by broader market conditions. The fee reflects a combination of external pressures across the air cargo ecosystem, including impacts imposed by our suppliers, partners, and by broader market conditions. It is not tied to a single factor, but rather a combination of multiple elements,” said United Cargo spokeswoman Stephanie Robbe Kramer, in a message to FreightWaves.

The airline has not indicated a specific duration for the disruption fee, only saying it will “evaluate conditions closely and communicate any adjustments to this fee as conditions evolve.”

United Airlines cargo revenue was $422 million during the first quarter, a 1.6% decline year over year, the company reported Tuesday afternoon. The sales shrink was a surprise considering the global air cargo market grew about 6.5% in the first two months of the year, compared to 2024, and spot-market shipping rates have jumped 25% to 40% since March 1 as demand grows amid reduced industry capacity because of Middle East flight restrictions related to the war. Delta Airlines posted a 9% gain in first-quarter cargo revenue to $226 million, while rival American Airlines on Thursday said cargo revenue increased 12.9% to $219 million.

Robbe Kramer declined to provide an explanation for the cargo revenue contraction.

Overall, United Airlines reported pre-tax earnings of $900 million or adjusted earnings per share of $1.19, surpassing analysts estimates, with operating revenue up 10.6%. It plans to cut 5% of its capacity the rest of the year to help contain costs during a volatile period. 

Amsterdam Schiphol response

In related news, Amsterdam Schiphol airport on Thursday announced a temporary discount of more than 10% on airport charges to help airlines cope with the sharp rise in jet fuel prices caused by the Iran war and ensure carriers maintain service to The Netherlands as many are reducing capacity to reduce costs. The discounts will be in effect from April 27 to March 31, 2027. 

Lufthansa Group this week said it would cut 20,000 flights at its European hubs over the next six months to save on fuel.

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

Contact:  ekulisch@freightwaves.com.

(Correction: An earlier version of this story had a typo that omitted Iran as the country attacked by the U.S. and Israel.)

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The post United Airlines to impose ‘market disruption’ surcharge on cargo appeared first on FreightWaves.

The round was led by Eclipse, with additional participation by Energy Impact Partners and others.

Humble’s universal platform is designed to adapt to the cargo type and the logistics environment. The first cabless vehicle, called the Humble Hauler, is designed for shipping containers and is much lighter than a traditional Class 8 tractor and trailer combo.

The design uses lidar, radar and cameras to provide 360-degree coverage of its surroundings. The vehicle is planned for dock-to-dock operations, a challenge for robots, namely the lack of hands to attach things like air lines.

Humble’s Humble Hauler is driven by what is called a vision-language-action, or VLA, model. It allows the truck to reason about the world, then act in scenarios it may not have experienced before. This dramatically improves safety and shortens the time to market.

These hockey-puck-on-wheels chassis are also battery-electric, with some advantages in maintenance costs compared to their internal-combustion competitors. Namely, they have fewer moving parts to break, and they provide a boon from a sustainability standpoint.

“I have dedicated my career to building electric and autonomous vehicle technology,” said Eyal Cohen, Humble’s founder and CEO. “For the first time, freight can be fully automated all the way to the loading dock. We are making freight sustainable, safe and efficient in a way no one thought was possible. And we’re doing it with an exceptional team of industry veterans and AV experts — our first vehicle was completed in just six months.”

Before founding Humble, Cohen worked in autonomy and electric vehicles at Apple, Uber and Waabi. Humble’s founding team brings talent from Tesla, Waymo, Cruise and others.

It took less than six months for Humble to complete its first prototype. The company notes it is partnering with logistics and supply chain market leaders to begin autonomous testing and commercialization pilots.

“Humble is operating at an unprecedented pace,” said Jiten Behl, partner at Eclipse and a Humble board member. “They understand that autonomous trucking isn’t just a software problem — it requires a full-stack rethink across hardware, AI and electrification. That integration is what unlocks speed to scale and a step-change reduction in the cost of moving freight.”

The post Humble Robotics raises $24M for cabless hauler appeared first on FreightWaves.

Market Monitor was built on a simple observation: not every freight professional has an analyst bench. Carriers, brokers, shippers, executives, and the financial professionals who cover transportation all need to read the market every day, but most do not need a custom-configured enterprise platform to do it. They need a clear, fast, single-screen view of what is happening across pricing, capacity, demand, and fuel, and they need to know what those numbers mean.

“SONAR has always had the data,” said Craig Fuller, Founder and CEO, FreightWaves and SONAR. “Market Monitor is a concise, comprehensive snapshot of what’s happening today in freight, built for executives and decision-makers who don’t have all day. Every transportation executive should have Market Monitor on their desk.”

Five tools. One daily read.

Market Monitor pulls together the core SONAR data signals freight desks already trade on, including NTI, OTVI, OTRI, DOE, and more, then adds the interpretive layer that turns numbers into decisions:

• Live SONAR Indices. Tender volumes, rejection rates, spot rates, fuel, and more than 20 additional indices, refreshed daily, sourced from the freight industry’s most trusted data platform.
• AI Interpretations. Plain-English reads of every move. Know what a number means without chasing charts or waiting on an analyst, refined by real user feedback.
• The Daily. A curated briefing of FreightWaves’ top stories and what to watch, delivered directly to the dashboard.
• Custom Chart Builder. Stack any combination of SONAR indices in a single chart. Save the views. Compare year-over-year trends with one click. Spot divergence early.
• Shareable Snapshots. Capture any index and share a branded snapshot card with chart, signal, and social preview, ready to drop into a deck, a board email, or a team channel.

Built for speed: 90 seconds from signup to dashboard

Market Monitor is fully self-serve. Users can sign up with an email, choose a plan, and be inside the dashboard in roughly 90 seconds, with no demo, no procurement cycle, and no sales conversation required. The product is licensed per single user and can be cancelled anytime.

How it fits with SONAR

Market Monitor is powered by SONAR data and is designed for the broad base of freight and freight-adjacent professionals who need a daily read on the market: carriers, brokers, shipper operations and finance teams, executives, and the analysts and investors covering transportation.

For enterprise customers who need lane-level granularity, API access, historical depth, custom dashboards, or the full SONAR suite including SCI, TRAC, and Container Atlas, SONAR remains the enterprise platform of record. If you would like multiple logins for your team to Market Monitor insights, the SONAR sales team can assist.

Pricing and availability

Market Monitor is available now at getfreightdata.com. The product is offered as a single-user license:

• Annual: $1,999 per year, ~20% off monthly billing
• Monthly: $199 per month

Market Monitor subscribers will soon be able to add FreightWaves Research, a separate product featuring topical reports, SONAR Sitreps, and recurring market analysis from FreightWaves & SONAR Market Experts, for a bundled rate of $299 per month or $2,999 per year, a 25% discount versus buying the products separately.

About FreightWaves

FreightWaves is the leading provider of freight market intelligence and media. Its proprietary high-frequency data platform, SONAR, provides carriers, brokers, shippers, and financial professionals with the industry’s most comprehensive price, demand, and capacity data. FreightWaves’ editorial, events, and research properties reach freight industry decision-makers every day.

The post FreightWaves launches Market Monitor appeared first on FreightWaves.

While Ryder management has been trying to restructure the company for years–successfully–so it was not as dependent upon vehicle leases and rentals, as well as the used vehicle sales that accompany that, the first thing management pointed to in its earnings report for the first quarter was the strength in the secondary market as a reason for a reasonably healthy performance.

In its earnings statement, Ryder said year-on-year sales of tractors was up 6% from the first quarter of 2025. That was enough to declare a strong quarter even as truck pricing was down 5%. Sequentially, the market wasn’t stronger; used tractor and truck pricing were down 3% and 4%, respectively. In its prepared release, Ryder said sequential pricing from the fourth quarter of 2025 to the first quarter of 2026 was mostly stable, but the company had a “lower retail sales mix,” accounting for the sequential decline in sales revenue.

Ryder doesn’t break out an average sales price, so the fact that tractor sales were up 6% and offset negative truck sales enough that used vehicle sales were considered a key driver of improved profitability reflects how important those tractor sales are in the company’s used vehicle mix.

The improvement in used vehicle sales did not come because of any large volumetric increase in sales. Sales were 9,500 vehicles in the first quarter of 2026 and 2025, boosting the idea that the tractor sales were so strong that it lifted the total performance that was otherwise steady to lower.

According to SeekingAlpha, Ryder’s non-GAAP EPS of $2.54 for continuing operations was 27 cents/share above consensus forecasts. Revenue of $3.13 billion was $10 million short of consensus forecasts.

Besides used vehicle sales, the company also cited stock buybacks as a reason for the improved earnings per share performance.

Ryder’s overall business was flat to slightly higher in some cases, lower in other areas. Its bottom line was GAAP net earnings of $2.33 per share compared to $2.27 a year earlier. Free cash flow rose to $273 million from $259 million. Total revenue of $3.13 billion was flat compared to a year earlier. So was operating revenue of $2.6 billion. 

Individual segments were mixed. Fleet Management Solutions, the rental and leasing unit that is the public face of Ryder (NYSE: R) , had a 1% increase in revenue to $1.46 billion with a 6% increase in earnings before income taxes. Supply Chain Systems, its contract logistics arm, had a 2% increase in revenue to $1.36 billion but a 17% decline in earnings before income taxes. Dedicated Transportation Services saw an 8% decline in revenue to $553 million and a 5% decline in earnings before taxes.

The outlook for 2026 is strong enough that Ryder increased a key forecast for the year. In the latest forecast, Ryder said its projected non-GAAP EPS would be $14.05-$14.80. The earlier forecast was $13.45-$14.45.  

Ryder’s earnings call is Thursday at 11 a.m. EDT.

More articles by John Kingston

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The post Ryder first look: strong quarter in used tractor sales appeared first on FreightWaves.

In the announcement, PlusAI was optimistic, noting that it continues to show significant commercial momentum and is positioned for long-term growth. Existing PlusAI investors continue to support the company’s growth and commercialization plans, the announcement added.

“Our business has significant momentum. With strong expected revenue in 2026 and continued growth on the horizon in 2027, we are executing on our strategy and delivering real value to our customers. SuperDrive is proving itself in commercial operations today and HyperFoundry is picking up momentum. The trajectory ahead gives us tremendous confidence in where PlusAI is headed. The support from our existing investors on our next capital raise is a direct reflection of their conviction in our business fundamentals and our technology,” said David Liu, CEO and co-founder of PlusAI.

The move comes as the company recently unveiled major updates to its SuperDrive 6.0 autonomous trucking platform in March. PlusAI operates an autonomous trucking trial in Texas with International and Ryder.

PlusAI’s partner ecosystem spans global manufacturing OEMs including TRATON GROUP’s Scania, MAN and International brands, Hyundai Motor Co. and Iveco Group, alongside technology and logistics partners NVIDIA, Bosch, DSV and Goodyear.

Existing investors — including Sequoia Capital China, FountainVest Partners, ClearVue Partners, Amazon, Mayfield and others — continue to back the company’s growth plans.

The post PlusAI terminates SPAC deal with Churchill Capital IX appeared first on FreightWaves.

Jorge Gonzalez Henrichsen, co-CEO of The Nearshore Co., said the narrative that China is using Mexico as a “backdoor” into the U.S. market is both accurate and oversimplified.

“The answer to the question is yes and no… things are for real, and you see it in the numbers… but the word ‘backdoor’ has a negative connotation,” Henrichsen told FreightWaves.

Chinese companies have significantly expanded their presence in Mexico in recent years, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted global supply chains. Henrichsen said the shift has been driven in large part by U.S. companies seeking to reduce tariff exposure and geopolitical risk tied to China.

“There has been a spike, probably since COVID, both in manufacturing facilities… and EVs is a big, big, big… something that’s notorious,” he said.

From tariffs to nearshoring — and adaptation

Rather than exiting the U.S. market, many Chinese suppliers have adapted by relocating production to Mexico, setting up local entities and hiring Mexican labor to qualify for preferential trade treatment under USMCA.

Henrichsen described one common scenario: U.S. buyers cutting ties with China-based suppliers, only to see those same suppliers reemerge in Mexico.

“The Chinese company would say… ‘I’ll go to Mexico. I’ll become a Mexican company,’” he said.

While some critics argue that minimal processing or relabeling could be used to circumvent tariffs, Henrichsen said most activity falls into a legal gray area — or is fully compliant — as companies work to meet rules-of-origin thresholds.

China expands investments in Mexico

Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) in Mexico has accelerated significantly since 2017, particularly following the U.S.-China trade war and the implementation of the USMCA in 2020, which helped drive a new wave of manufacturing-focused investment, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

Official data show Mexico received about $2.3 billion in net Chinese FDI from 2017 to 2024, though private estimates suggest the true figure could be several times higher, reflecting investments routed through offshore entities and greenfield projects.

One of the largest single investments was a $5 billion factory from the China-based Lingong Machinery Group that was announced in October 2023 in the Mexican city of Monterrey.

Despite rapid growth, Chinese investment still lags far behind U.S. and other G7 countries, accounting for only a small share of total FDI into Mexico even as Chinese firms play an increasingly visible role in nearshoring supply chains.

Economic upside — and growing tension

The influx of Chinese firms has fueled industrial growth across northern Mexico, boosting employment, manufacturing capacity and supplier development.

“I think that type of arrangement is very positive for Mexico… they are bringing… know-how in manufacturing… and that is very positive for the ecosystem,” Henrichsen said.

Still, the trend is creating friction. Mexican companies face new competition, while policymakers in both Mexico and the U.S. are under pressure to address concerns about Chinese overcapacity and supply chain dependence.

Recent discussions between U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Mexican officials have focused on tightening rules of origin, strengthening economic security measures and aligning tariff policies ahead of the USMCA review.

At the same time, U.S. officials have signaled that tariffs — particularly on autos and steel — are likely to remain in place even after renegotiation.

USMCA review: Tweaks, not overhaul

Henrichsen expects the agreement to survive the 2026 review but with meaningful adjustments, particularly around rules of origin and enforcement.

“My forecast is that the USMCA will continue to exist… but it will be tweaked… both to appease some of the U.S. forces… and also to see genuine improvements,” he said.

Rules of origin are likely to be a central battleground, as U.S. policymakers look to limit Chinese content in North American goods while preserving integrated regional supply chains.

Analysts say changes could include stricter content thresholds, enhanced enforcement mechanisms and greater coordination on tariffs and investment screening targeting China-linked activity.

Investment slows amid uncertainty

Despite strong interest in nearshoring, companies are taking a wait-and-see approach as negotiations unfold, delaying major capital commitments.

“A lot of the companies… are saying, ‘you know what, let’s wait a couple of months’… the suspense around the USMCA is making them wait,” Henrichsen said.

Still, he emphasized that for many manufacturers — particularly those serving the U.S. market — the long-term case for Mexico remains intact regardless of policy changes.

“For some companies… don’t wait… there’s nothing that’s going to happen that’s going to change the structure… just move fast and nearshore,” he said.

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“Our safety, service, and operating momentum continued in the first quarter as we further challenged ‘what’s possible’ from our great railroad,” said Jim Vena, Union Pacific (NYSE: UNP) chief executive, in a statement.”We grew reported net income 5%, increased earnings per share 6%, and improved our operating ratio. As we advance through the regulatory process to create America’s first transcontinental railroad, we have a solid foundation for another year of industry-leading results.”

UP reaffirmed high-single to low-double digit earnings growth through 2027. Its shares were up 1.54% to $253.00 in pre-market trading.

The positive results were more positive news for the rail sector, after CSX (NASDAQ: CSX) on Wednesday reported earnings growth.

The Omaha-based company expects to file an updated merger application with federal regulators in conjunction with its acquisition of Norfolk Southern (NYSE: NSC) on April 30. Merger costs totaled $31 million in the recent quarter.

Operating revenue came to $6.2 billion, better by 3% on core pricing gains, fuel surcharge revenue, and business mix partially offset by carload freight that was 1% lower year-on-year despite a muted economic forecast.

Freight revenue increased 4% and freight revenue excluding fuel surcharge grew 3%. 

The operating ratio, a key indicator of efficiency, improved by 20 basis points to 60.5%. Adjusted operating ratio was 59.9%, better by 80 basis points.

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Read more articles by Stuart Chirls here.

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The post First look: Union Pacific Q1 earnings appeared first on FreightWaves.

One of the clearest takeaways from the conversation is how much the problem has shifted. Traditional theft still exists, especially when loads are left unattended, but that is no longer the only risk. More of what the industry is dealing with today is happening inside normal operations. Freight is not always being taken by force. In many cases, it is being redirected through manipulated information and broken communication without anyone realizing it in the moment.

where control is lost

That shift changes how risk needs to be understood. These situations do not always start with something obvious. The process can look normal, and the information can appear to check out. The issue is not always a lack of data. It is the assumption that the data is correct. By the time something feels off, the load may already be moving in the wrong direction or sitting somewhere it should not be. One of the most common breakdowns happens at pickup, when the carrier that shows up is not the one originally booked, even though everything appears to line up on the surface.

Timing still plays a major role, but not in the way many expect. In straight theft scenarios, speed matters because the freight is physically moving and being offloaded. In strategic theft, the challenge is recognizing the problem early enough to act. Delays often come from missed signals, gaps in communication, or assumptions that everything is progressing as expected. The bigger issue is not always response time. It is recognizing that something is wrong in the first place.

what determines the outcome

Another issue that continues to hold the industry back is underreporting. There is no consistent way to classify cargo theft across jurisdictions, and many incidents are never reported at all. Some are coded incorrectly, while others are handled internally and never make it into any dataset. The result is a gap between what is happening in real time and what the industry believes is happening based on reported numbers.

When it comes to recovery, the answer is straightforward. The cases that have a chance are the ones where information is available and communication happens quickly. The more details that can be gathered early, and the more willing parties are to work together, the better the outcome. In many cases, the difference comes down to basic details. Who picked up the load, what equipment they were in, when they arrived, and how communication took place all become critical once an investigation starts. When information is missing or delayed, the process slows down and the likelihood of recovery drops.

The takeaway from this conversation is simple. This is not just a theft problem. It is a control problem. The industry has more tools than ever, but tools alone do not solve it. Awareness, process, and communication are what determine whether a shipment stays on track or disappears without warning.

Click here for more articles on cargo theft and freight fraud by Phillip Brink.

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“I’m pleased with the strong start to the year that our railroaders have delivered. We made great strides in safety and managed through weather challenges,” Chief Executive Steve Angel said on the railroad’s earnings call Wednesday. “And we advanced our efforts to improve efficiency and streamline our cost structure. The progress we’ve made can be seen clearly in our quarterly results.”

Quarterly operating income surged 20%, to $1.2 billion, as revenue increased 2%, to $3.48 billion. Expenses fell 6%, to $2.2 billion, due to a combination of efficiency savings and favorable comparisons to congestion-related costs a year ago. Earnings per share increased 26%, to 43 cents.

The railroad’s operating ratio was 64%, a 5.6-point improvement compared to a year ago.

CSX raised its revenue outlook for the year, to mid-single-digit growth, up from low single-digits. “The change to our top-line outlook is largely driven by higher-than-expected energy prices, particularly diesel, which will begin to lift fuel related revenue starting in the second quarter,” Angel said.

Overall economic conditions remain uncertain, however. “Conflict in the Middle East and rising energy prices are creating opportunities for some of our customers, but this has also added to broader concerns about inflationary pressure and potential effects on consumer sentiment,” Angel said.

The railroad’s volume was up 3% for the quarter, with intermodal up 6%, merchandise flat, and coal down 1%.

The intermodal gain was primarily due to domestic shipments and short-haul international intermodal moves to inland port terminals, Chief Commercial Officer Maryclare Kenney said.

“One emerging positive here is that shippers are looking more to rail conversion as they weigh the impacts of higher fuel and trucking costs,” said Kenney.

Also expected to give intermodal volume a boost: The planned completion of the Howard Street Tunnel clearance project, which will shave a day off east-west transit times between Chicago and Baltimore and open up new service between the Southeast and Northeast. The final bridge clearance project in Baltimore is expected to be finished next week.

New and expanded manufacturing facilities will continue to boost merchandise volume, Kenney said.

“Our pipeline of approximately 600 active projects remains strong. Twenty-one projects went into service over the first quarter alone, which should contribute an estimated 33,000 annual carloads at full ramp.”

By the end of the year the railroad expects 100 new or expanded customer facilities to be open. 

“These 100 projects are expected to contribute roughly 50% more volume at full ramp than last year’s 85 projects combined,” Kenney said.

The railroad’s key operating metrics — train speed, terminal dwell, and the number of cars online — all improved during the quarter. The railroad was congested during last year’s first quarter due to the impact of winter storms and the Blue Ridge Subdivision and Howard Street Tunnel shutdowns, which required lengthy detours.

“Performance at our intermodal terminals has been very good even as we’ve absorbed substantial new volume,” Chief Operating Officer Mike Cory said. “For example, the team at Fairburn in Atlanta handled a 15% increase in intermodal lifts with our expanded domestic business in the Southeast while maintaining service our customers can count on.”

Cory said that scaling back operations at Barr Yard in Chicago enables the railroad to move interchange freight faster through the railroad capital. CSX last week began relying more heavily on the Belt Railway of Chicago and Indiana Harbor Belt to classify its Chicago traffic. It also began running road freights directly to Canadian National’s Kirk Yard in Gary, Ind., bypassing switching at Barr Yard.

“We’re just streamlining our service by really running direct from origin points on CSX to our connecting carriers and belt lines for processing to other carriers,” Cory said. “We’ve always used belt carriers to forward traffic, and now we’re combining all the traffic that comes from outside of Chicago to Chicago with a belt carrier. It just reduces the handling, reduces time on all the traffic.”

The railroad’s safety performance also improved during the quarter, with the personal injury rate down 13% and train accident rate declining by 31%.

Subscribe to FreightWaves’ Rail e-newsletter and get the latest insights on rail freight right in your inbox.

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Intermodal rebounds in latest rail data

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The post CSX sees stronger first-quarter earnings as costs fall, volume rises appeared first on FreightWaves.

Total carloads came 230,749, up 3%, while intermodal volume was 277,554 containers and trailers, up 2.2% percent compared to the same week in 2025.

Eight of 10 carload commodity groups gained, posted an increase compared with the same week in 2025. Grain led gainers, up 22.9%, while petroleum and petroleum products were ahead 15.5% as the Iran war whipsawed global prices. 

Miscellaneous carloads dropped 10.1%, and coal fell 4.7%.

For the first 15 weeks of 2026, U.S. railroads reported cumulative volume of 3,372,766 carloads, better by 3.9%, and 4,132,416 intermodal units, a decline of 0.1% y/y. Total combined traffic was 7,505,182 carloads and intermodal units, ahead by 1.6%.

Weekly North American volume on 9 reporting U.S., Canadian and Mexican railroads totaled 339,795 carloads, up 4.7% from a year ago, and 364,495 intermodal units, an improvement of 2.9%. Total combined traffic was 704,290 carloads and intermodal units, up 3.8 percent. Year-to-date volume was 10,336,147 carloads and intermodal units, an increase of 1.9% from 2025.

Subscribe to FreightWaves’ Rail e-newsletter and get the latest insights on rail freight right in your inbox.

Read more articles by Stuart Chirls here.

Related coverage:

CSX curtails operations at its major yard in Chicago

Application process opens for federal CRISI rail grants
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The post Intermodal rebounds in latest rail data appeared first on FreightWaves.

Manhattan Associates, a leading supply chain software provider, signaled that its fortunes may have reversed in disclosing a strong first quarter financial performance. 

The company’s revenue for the first quarter was $282.2 million, up from $262.8 million in the first quarter of 2025. Bottom line earnings were improved slightly, coming in at $1.24 per share on a non-GAAP basis, compared to $1.19 a year ago. 

Manhattan’s stock price climbed Wednesday on the earnings report, rising 5.92%, or $7.99, to $142.88. The earnings were released Tuesday.

What appeared to give the company’s stock price a boost was Manhattan’s projections for its 2026 performance, which were higher than the forecast it released when its fourth quarter earnings were published at the end of January.

Manhattan’s latest forecast calls for an adjusted full-year EPS of $5.29 to $5.37 per share. The prior forecast was for a range of $5.04 to $5.20. Full-year 2025 non-GAAP earnings per share was $5.06.

Its revenue forecast rose to a range of $1.147 billion to $1.157 billion, up from $1.133 billion to $1.153 billion. For full year 2025, revenue was $1.081 billion.

Still down from 52-week and all-time peaks

Even after the increase in its stock price Wednesday, Manhattan Associates (NASDAQ: MANH) was down 11.8% for the 12 months and a little less than 16% for the most recent three months. Its recent stock price is well under the 52-week high recorded July 23 of $247.22 and far less than the few days in early December 2024 when it crossed the $300 mark. 

In its earnings call, President and CEO Erick Clark said the company is “off to a strong start to 2026.” 

Manhattan’s revenue for its cloud-based product was up 24.2% year-on-year. The company’s remaining performance obligations (RPO), which represents revenue that has been contracted for but not yet booked, was up 24% year on year in the quarter to $2.35 billion. 

Shifting to the cloud

Clark said new customer bookings were also solid, with 55% of new revenue for its cloud-based service coming from new logos, companies that had not been a Manhattan customer previously.

“Throughout 2025, we spoke about the strategic investments that we’re making to improve our go-to-market effectiveness and accelerate our selling velocity,” Clark said. “And while results from these initiatives will certainly not be linear, these investments have started to pay off in the first quarter.”

Clark ticked off other accomplishments, saying Manhattan had “notable deal volume improvements across all deal types” and “strong bookings from all regions.”

“Our win rate metric continues to be consistently above 70%, and our renewal performance was solid and supportive of the plan that we highlighted last quarter,” Clark said. 

Clark, during the question and answer session with analysts, said Manhattan has been “really strong in the past five quarters of bringing in new logos. And we continue to see a great pipeline, and we continue to have great win rates against our competitors.”

Although the growth in cloud services was strong, Clark said the company “still has a large installed base (not running in the cloud) and a large opportunity to go do additional conversions” to a customer now using installed software and shifting them to the cloud.

Clark also boasted that “some of our competitors in the industry…haven’t made the investments in cloud and haven’t made the investments in a unified platform. We continue to have just kind of off-the-chart win rates when we compete for their incumbents, and we’re taking a lot of business from our competitors.”

Agentic AI

Part of Manhattan’s customer base is working on pilot programs driven by agentic AI. Clark spoke at length about the functions the agents can perform and that there have been customers who quickly went from pilot to subscribing to these agents. 

“There have been customers that have justified the entire ROI just by reduction in overtime,” Clark said. “So when they look at all the different ways they can get value out of these AI agents, we aren’t seeing customers have a problem justifying the ROI of what they’re getting.”

The expectations for the financial effect of agentic AI on Manhattan’s finances in 2026 is conservative, Clark said, but that he expected a “meaningful” impact in 2027.

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The post Improved forecast for Manhattan Associates in 2026 helps lift battered stock price appeared first on FreightWaves.

Speaking during Tesla’s Q1 earnings call, Musk said the company will “begin production of our semi-truck soon,” cautioning that output will ramp slowly at first before accelerating later in the year and into 2027.

The company reiterated in its shareholder update that both the Tesla Semi and its Cybercab robotaxi platform are “on schedule for volume production starting in 2026,” as Tesla expands manufacturing capacity and supply chains to support new products.

Austin, Texas-based Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) released its first-quarter earnings Wednesday and held a conference call with analysts after the market closed.

Financials beat on revenue growth, margins improve

Tesla reported Q1 revenue of $22.4 billion, up 16% year over year, driven by higher vehicle deliveries, stronger services revenue and improved pricing.

• Net income (GAAP): $477 million
• Operating income: $941 million
• Free cash flow: $1.4 billion

Operating margin came in at 4.2%, while adjusted EBITDA reached $3.7 billion, reflecting continued investment in AI, robotics and manufacturing capacity.

Tesla said profitability was boosted by higher vehicle pricing, lower material costs and growth in software-related revenue such as Full Self-Driving (FSD), though partially offset by rising operating expenses tied to AI development and new product launches.

Semi production tied to supply chain buildout

Tesla has been preparing its Nevada facility for Semi production while expanding battery, cathode and lithium supply chains—areas executives repeatedly flagged as critical constraints.

Musk emphasized that new products like the Semi will follow a typical “S-curve” ramp, with early production limited by supply chain complexity before scaling rapidly.

The company also highlighted deployment of Megachargers and heavy-duty charging infrastructure alongside the Semi rollout, signaling a broader push into commercial freight electrification.

Bigger bet on AI, autonomy and robotics

Beyond trucking, Tesla is doubling down on AI-driven revenue streams, including robotaxis and humanoid robots (Optimus), while expanding its training compute and chip design capabilities.

The company launched unsupervised robotaxi rides in Dallas and Houston in April and continues to scale its autonomous fleet, though executives said meaningful revenue contribution is more likely in 2027.

Tesla expects capital expenditures to surge to support six factories, AI infrastructure and new product lines, positioning the company for what Musk described as a “very significant increase in future revenue.”

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Einride filed the registration statement with special purpose acquisition company Legato Merger Corp. III on Wednesday. This filing marks the next regulatory step toward a public listing that values the Swedish company at $1.35 billion. At the same time, Einride announced Tuesday a major expansion of its Amazon partnership. The company will deploy 75 electric heavy-duty trucks across five U.S. locations.

The proposed business combination, announced last November, will list Einride on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “ENRD.” The listing is expected around the second quarter of 2026, subject to customary closing conditions.

The transaction should deliver approximately $333 million in gross proceeds. This total includes:

• $113 million from an oversubscribed Private Investment in Public Equity (PIPE) capital raise announced Feb. 26.
• Up to $220 million from Legato’s cash-in-trust before accounting for potential redemptions and transaction expenses.

“This filing marks a significant step as we advance toward becoming a publicly listed company and continue scaling our platform globally,” said Roozbeh Charli, chief executive officer of Einride. “Over the past year, we have expanded our commercial operations, deepened partnerships with leading global shippers, and continued to deploy electric and autonomous freight solutions in real-world environments.”

Commercial Traction and Financial Performance

Einride’s audited 2025 financial results appear in the registration statement. Revenue reached SEK 457.8 million. That figure is up from SEK 388.4 million in fiscal 2024 — or about $49.7 million and $42.2 million, respectively. The company now serves more than 30 enterprise customers across seven countries in North America, Europe and the Middle East.

Einride reports approximately $92 million in expected annual recurring revenue (ARR) from signed customer contracts. It also sees more than $800 million in potential long-term ARR through joint business plans with blue-chip customers.

“We are proud to partner with Einride at this important stage in its journey to the public markets,” said Eric Rosenfeld, chief SPAC officer of Legato. “Einride has built a differentiated platform at the intersection of electrification, autonomy and digitalization, three forces reshaping global logistics. We believe the company is well positioned to execute on its strategy and deliver long-term value as it continues to scale its operations.”

Amazon Deployment Scales Electric Middle Mile

Following a successful initial trial, Einride announced via LinkedIn that it will deploy 75 manually operated electric heavy-duty trucks. The company will also provide supporting charging infrastructure across five U.S. locations. These trucks will support Amazon’s middle-mile network, powered by Amazon Relay. They are projected to drive up to 3 million electric transport miles annually with zero tailpipe emissions.

Einride’s proprietary optimization software, Saga AI, manages electric vehicle execution for select Amazon loads. This includes charging planning.

“Working with Amazon is yet another powerful validation of Einride’s technology and strategic vision,” Charli said. “By deploying our intelligent platform within one of the world’s most sophisticated logistics networks, we are accelerating growth while continuing to build industry-leading operational expertise.”

Platform Capabilities and Licensing Strategy

Einride’s Freight-Capacity-as-a-Service platform integrates autonomous and electric trucks. It also combines AI optimization software and charging infrastructure into one unified solution. The platform optimizes freight operations. Einride operates one of the world’s largest electric heavy-duty fleets.

Beyond core freight operations, Einride focuses on licensing its autonomous driving stack, the Einride Driver. It also licenses the Saga AI fleet management software to third-party operators and original equipment manufacturers.

Founded in 2016, Einride recently raised $113 million in an oversubscribed PIPE ahead of its SPAC merger. The company showcased its proprietary technology and large-scale commercialization strategy at an analyst and investor day in Austin, Texas. Austin is home to Einride’s U.S. headquarters.

Legato Merger Corp. III is a blank-check company. It was organized for the purpose of effecting a merger, capital stock exchange, asset acquisition or similar business combination.

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Knight-Swift (NYSE: KNX) reported a headline net loss of $1.3 million for the first quarter on Wednesday after the market closed. Adjusted earnings per share of 9 cents were in line with the negative preannouncement last week, which was well below the consensus estimate of 25 cents at the time.

The result included several items that are not expected to recur. The quarter included 8 cents per share in negative claims development in its less-than-truckload unit, 5 to 6 cents per share from weather and fuel headwinds, and 2 cents per share from an adverse value-added tax ruling in its Mexico business.

Click for full story – “Knight-Swift says shippers already seeking peak-season capacity”

“The first quarter had its challenges, but these were largely transitory and even bring some upside as the weather disruption exposed market tightness that has served to accelerate the pricing environment, and the spike in fuel prices adds one more headwind to truckload capacity,” said Knight-Swift CEO Adam Miller in a news release.

Miller said the TL market is continuing to tighten as heightened regulation and surging fuel costs are forcing capacity to the sidelines. The carrier is now targeting high-single- to low-double-digit rate increases during bid season versus its expectation for low- to mid-single-digit increases at the beginning of the year.

“While the pricing environment is improving, we are still seeing carrier failures, as the damage done over a prolonged downcycle is not quickly recovered, especially with the cash flow crunch brought on by the recent fuel spike,” Miller said.

The company reiterated second-quarter adjusted EPS guidance of 45 to 49 cents. That outlook was also issued last week and bracketed the consensus estimate at the time.

First-quarter consolidated revenue of $1.85 billion was 1% higher year over year.

Revenue in the TL unit was in line with the prior year at $1.05 billion. Average tractors in service declined 4%, which was offset by a 4% increase in revenue per tractor, excluding fuel surcharges. The increase in revenue per tractor was driven by a 2.3% increase in loaded miles per tractor and a 1.6% increase in revenue per loaded mile (excluding fuel).

The TL unit reported a 96.3% adjusted operating ratio (3.7% operating margin), which was 70 basis points worse y/y. Fuel and weather, among other headwinds, negatively impacted the period.

The LTL unit reported a 3% y/y revenue increase to $313 million. A 1% decline in daily shipments was offset by a 4% increase in revenue per shipment (excluding fuel). Weight per shipment reached the highest level recorded since 2021, and rate renewals continued to come in higher by a mid-single-digit percentage.

The segment booked a 99.6% adjusted OR in the quarter; however, the adverse claim development was a 570-bp headwind.

Knight-Swift will host a call at 5:30 p.m. EDT on Wednesday to discuss first-quarter results.

Click for full story – “Knight-Swift says shippers already seeking peak-season capacity”

More FreightWaves articles by Todd Maiden:

• Werner doubling intermodal fleet in Mexico
• Knight-Swift cuts Q1 guide; remains upbeat on TL fundamentals
• J.B. Hunt says TL inflection ‘structural,’ not temporary

The post Knight-Swift aims for double-digit rate hike in tight market appeared first on FreightWaves.

A parts supplier outside Detroit runs its production line around the clock. Orders feed in through a cloud-based ERP system, shipping commitments sync with carrier TMS platforms in real time, and quality data streams from sensors embedded in the assembly equipment. All of it depends on a network connection that many people take for granted.

When that network connection drops, though, the math gets ugly fast.

According to a 2024 Siemens report, unscheduled downtime now drains roughly 11% of annual revenues from the world’s 500 largest companies. That adds up to a collective hit of $1.4 trillion, up sharply from $864 billion just five years earlier. In the automotive sector alone, the per-hour cost of a production stoppage runs $2.3 million. That’s $600 every second a line sits idle.

For the contract producers, component fabricators, and the packagers and assemblers that make up the backbone of American freight, those numbers take a proportionally steep toll. The average cost of unplanned downtime for a manufacturing facility is roughly $260,000 per hour, and many plants log more than 800 hours of downtime annually across planned and unplanned events. 

Swiss electrical equipment manufacturer ABB surveyed more than 3,200 plant maintenance leaders globally and found that two-thirds of companies dealt with unplanned downtime at least once a month, at a reported cost of $125,000 per hour.

Keep in mind, those are just the direct costs attributed to things like idle labor and raw materials sitting in queue. The downstream consequences are where network failures inflict the deepest damage.

The ripple effect moves quickly when a network outage takes down production. Modern manufacturing operates inside a web of contractual shipping commitments and just-in-time delivery windows. Decades of this kind of operation have left customer expectations with zero tolerance for delays. 

If a cloud-based production scheduling system goes dark, work orders freeze and operators on the floor lose visibility into what to run next. Likewise, automated, API-connected TMS platforms can stall carrier dispatching. The resulting cascade impacts millions of people yearly, even those who aren’t aware of why. 

In February 2022, Toyota suspended operations across all 28 production lines at 14 manufacturing plants in Japan for a full day after a system failure at a key supplier severed network communications with Toyota’s production monitoring systems. The ripple effect extended across numerous partner companies. At Toyota’s production volumes, those 14 plants accounted for roughly a third of its global output.

When AT&T’s mobile network went offline nationwide for more than 12 hours in February 2024, the disruption blocked an estimated 92 million calls, took down mobile payment systems at countless businesses, and knocked out real-time tracking for logistics providers who depended on cellular connectivity for fleet visibility. 

Trucking technology platforms reliant on AT&T’s network were directly impacted, too. Because our supply chain is increasingly dependent on real-time data flows, many operations lost track of where freight was going during the network outage.

Network-driven production delays translate directly to financial penalties, especially for those manufacturers that ship under contract. Late delivery clauses are a standard feature in supply agreements, and they carry teeth. Typical contract language stipulates penalties of 0.5% to 1% of order value per week of delay, with caps often set at 5% to 10% of the total contract value. In some industries, buyers can charge back the cost of expedited freight when a supplier misses its window.

Retail programs routinely issue chargebacks for late or incomplete shipments. In grocery and consumer goods, a missed delivery window can mean lost shelf space, promotional markdowns funded by the shipper, or even termination of a supplier relationship.

According to ABB, 46% of companies that experienced unplanned downtime reported that they couldn’t deliver services to customers as a result of that downtime. 29% were left completely unable to service or support specific equipment. That quickly becomes a customer relationship problem with long-term commercial consequences.

When a manufacturer misses a shipping commitment because its systems went dark, the customer doesn’t file the incident under “network outage.” They file it under “unreliable supplier.” Because supply chain procurement teams often maintain approved vendor lists and regularly benchmark supplier performance scorecards, one missed delivery window can trigger a review that leads to reduced allocation, a shift to a backup supplier, or an outright loss of the account.

What Always-On Connectivity Makes Possible

The cost of network failure is one side of the ledger. The other is the opportunity that manufacturers leave on the table when connectivity is merely adequate rather than engineered for performance.

The same network infrastructure that prevents a catastrophic production stoppage can also enable real-time quality monitoring, where sensors on the line detect defects at the point of assembly rather than at end-of-line inspection. It can power dynamic production scheduling that adjusts work orders on the fly based on inbound material availability and outbound shipping windows. Likewise, it can support dense, low-latency automation, such as autonomous guided vehicles coordinating with robotic arms. In other words, reliable connectivity is the foundation for future investments in smart manufacturing, AI, and robotics.

Investing in Prevention

Given the scale of exposure, the investment case for network reliability is not particularly close. Industry analysts note that proactive monitoring and redundancy systems typically cost 10% to 20% of a manufacturer’s total annual downtime risk exposure. The break-even on that investment often occurs after preventing a single incident.

One automotive parts manufacturer with 75 employees and just-in-time delivery commitments invested in comprehensive network monitoring and redundancy after experiencing two to three system outages per month, each lasting two to four hours. Unplanned downtime fell by 89%, customer complaints related to delivery delays dropped to zero, and the company saved an estimated $180,000 annually in avoided downtime costs.

If the cost of a single hour of production downtime exceeds $50,000 (which is a threshold most mid-size manufacturers easily clear), the math heavily favors redundancy and proactive monitoring.

How T-Mobile Advanced Network Solutions Bring It Together

T-Mobile for Business believes that the network connecting your factory floor, your warehouse, your fleet, and your customer should be as engineered and as redundant as the production line itself. That’s the thinking behind the company’s Advanced Network Solutions (ANS) portfolio, a set of integrated capabilities designed to not only prevent downtime, but also to power connected, intelligent manufacturing.

The foundation is T-Mobile’s standalone 5G network, a fully independent architecture that doesn’t rely on legacy 4G infrastructure. T-Mobile operates America’s largest and fastest 5G network, named Best Mobile Network in the U.S. by Ookla Speedtest in 2025.¹ 

Standalone 5G enables the capabilities that matter most to manufacturers: network slicing for guaranteed performance on mission-critical operations, ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC) for time-sensitive automation, and support for the massive IoT device density that smart factory environments demand.

What makes the ANS approach different is how those capabilities come together on the plant floor and across the supply chain.

On-site, T-Mobile’s Edge Control service enables cellular traffic to exit locally and flow directly into an enterprise’s edge computing environment, rather than routing through centralized data centers or the public internet. For a manufacturer running IoT sensors, quality inspection cameras, and autonomous guided vehicles, that means fewer network hops, lower latency, and the kind of deterministic performance that real-time automation requires. Edge Control is hyperscaler-agnostic, supporting integration with AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, and it can be paired with private or hybrid 5G deployments that deliver dedicated, interference-resistant connectivity on factory floors where heavy equipment, metal structures, and dense device environments challenge conventional Wi-Fi.

From there, T-Mobile’s network slicing allows manufacturers to carve out a prioritized slice of network capacity for the operations that absolutely cannot tolerate degradation (such as ERP systems, production scheduling, carrier dispatching, and first responder communications), ensuring guaranteed bandwidth and low latency even when the broader network is under load.

Tying it all together is T-Platform, T-Mobile’s unified management portal, which gives manufacturers a single interface to monitor and manage everything from 5G Business Internet to IoT device fleets to Edge Control deployments. 

Beyond the factory walls, T-Mobile’s IoT platform and Control Center extend real-time asset tracking across the full supply chain, covering inbound raw materials and outbound finished goods with device lifecycle management, SIM management, and dynamic cost controls.

The cumulative effect is a connectivity layer that enables manufacturers to operate the way the industry is heading: continuous, data-driven, and increasingly autonomous.

Where Manufacturing Goes From Here

The factories leading the next wave of American manufacturing will be connected and intelligent. AI-driven predictive maintenance that flags equipment failures before they happen. Digital twins that model entire production lines in real time, letting managers test operational changes before committing resources. Fully autonomous material handling systems that coordinate across facilities without human intervention. These capabilities are already in deployment at the industry’s leading edge, and every one of them depends on a connectivity layer that is fast, reliable, and built for density.

The ROI conversation is less about whether to invest and more about how quickly the investment pays for itself. The manufacturers that have already done the painful post-mortem on network failures can tell you that the answer is usually “before the next one happens.” The right network protects today’s production and enables tomorrow’s.

The freight that moves through America’s supply chain starts at the production line. When that line goes down because the network did, every truck, every shipper, and every customer feels the impact. When the network is engineered to make the entire operation smarter, the upside can be even more impactful than the downside it prevents.

Click here to learn more about T-Mobile for Business.

1. America’s Best Network: Best based on analysis by Ookla of Speedtest Intelligence® data 2H 2025. Ookla trademarks used under license and reprinted with permission.  T-Mobile is America’s Largest and Fastest 5G Network:  Based on analysis by Ookla® of Speedtest Intelligence® data of national Speed Score results incorporating 5G download and upload speeds for 2H 2025. See 5G device, coverage,& access details at T-Mobile.com ︎

The post What Network Downtime Really Costs Manufacturers appeared first on FreightWaves.

Efforts by the Teamsters to advance organizing efforts at various targets, but with special aim at Amazon, have received two significant developments in recent days, one looking like a clear setback and the other more ambiguous.

Where the Teamsters had a negative outcome is in a case before the National Labor Relations Board, where the union is objecting to a settlement between Amazon and the NLRB’s General Counsel. That case, which came out of the Los Angeles district, so far had been successful in advancing the union’s argument that Amazon was effectively a joint employer with its direct service providers (DSPs). 

It’s the DSPs which handle the job of actually delivering goods to homes and businesses throughout the country. Although they may be decked out in Amazon-labeled uniforms and drive a truck emblazoned with the Amazon log, when their workers get their W-2 forms every year, it is the name of the DSP, not Amazon, that is listed as their employer.

In the second legal action this week, a federal circuit court decision could be seen on a microeconomic basis as a victory. But the win didn’t do anything to push back against a decision last month that undercut the so-called Cemex precedent, an NLRB decision from the Biden administration that on the surface should make organizing easier, not just for the Teamsters but for all unions, now in danger of disappearing.

An ‘ambush’

In the case involving the question of Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) being a joint employer, lawyers for the Teamsters filed a letter with the agency objecting to a reported agreement between the NLRB’s General Counsel and Amazon that would end the process involving a former West Coast DSP called Battle Tested Strategies (BTS). 

BTS is the only known DSP that after being confronted with a successful Teamsters organizing drive among its workers chose to recognize the union. BTS lost its contract to deliver parcels and products out of Amazon’s Palmdale, California warehouse in Los Angeles county soon after the recognition. The company has said the ending of BTS’ contract was not related to the union recognition decision.

Preliminary findings by judges in the complicated NLRB pathway to the full board found that Amazon was a joint employer, a conclusion that if upheld could have major ramifications on the model that governs relations between Amazon and the DSPs. And the case had been going the Teamsters’ direction in other ways; an attempt by Amazon to stop the proceedings before a Los Angeles administrative law judge was rejected late last year. 

Oral arguments in that case were heard back in September. 

In a filing earlier this week with the NLRB, Teamsters attorneys described the deal between the counsel and Amazon as an “ambush settlement agreement,” dropped to the Teamsters on April 10 and then modified on April 12. 

While the specifics of the deal are not spelled out in the Teamsters’ brief, and there are no other documents in the docket that elaborate on the agreement, a Bloomberg article from April 13 first reported its existence.

“The federal government is moving to settle a yearlong case of Amazon’s treatment of a group of delivery drivers, averting what could have been a landmark ruling establishing the company as the boss of some of the workers it has long insisted aren’t its employees,” Bloomberg reported.

Two weeks pay for about 80 workers

Under the terms of the deal, according to Bloomberg, the workers at BTS, which could total as many as 84, would receive two weeks pay “without admitting wrongdoing or being found liable as a joint employer.”

If the case ends with the settlement, the earlier regional NLRB finding that Amazon is a joint employer–a clear victory for the union but one that was relatively early in the NLRB process–would have little to no lasting impact.

A spokeswoman for the Teamsters said the union would not comment on the case at this time. An Amazon representative had not returned an email by publication time.

The Teamsters’ filing with the NLRB cites a long list of actions involving Amazon at NLRB that the union says “illustrate Amazon’s contempt for the (National Labor Relations) Act, its determination to escape its legal obligations and its recidivist nature. This is the exact type of employer who requires a formal settlement to ensure compliance and further the Act’s purposes.”

The settlement between the General Counsel and Amazon, the Teamsters brief says, “completely lets Amazon off the hook on the joint employer issue.”

A win, but not with legs

Meanwhile, the action out of the Ninth Circuit was, in the short term, a victory for the Teamsters attempting to organize drivers with Cemex Construction Materials Pacific.  

The Ninth Circuit upheld an earlier NLRB decision that ordered Cemex to bargain with the union. The Teamsters had not won a traditional election at Cemex. Instead, it had used the submission of a majority of cards declaring employee support for the union as its path to recognition, a process often referred to as “card check.” 

In finding that Cemex committed a series of unfair labor practices, the NLRB in 2023 handed down remedies that also included provisions giving more weight to card check as a way to be granted company recognition of a bargaining unit.

But those provisions took a significant blow last month in the Sixth Circuit, when an appellate court ruled the NLRB had exceeded its authority in establishing the Cemex precedent.

The Cemex case before the Ninth Circuit was a victory for the Teamsters in that the court upheld the NLRB decision and affirmed that Cemex’ anti-union activities constituted unfair labor practices.

But in a blog posting by labor-focused law firm CDF, which specializes in California issues, the firm said the decision was “impactful, but notably unfinished.”

“What is notable is what the court didn’t do,” CDF said. “It declined to address the board’s new Cemex framework altogether.”

The earlier order by the NLRB directed against Cemex was made under a precedent known as Gissel. Doing so was easy, CDF said, because Cemex’ violations of its employee rights were so egregious. Gissel allows the NLRB to order several remediation steps when an employer is found to have committed unfair labor practices.

Two circuits might have been in conflict

But the Ninth Circuit in the Cemex case didn’t take up the precedent set in March by the Sixth Circuit. “The court sidestepped the issue entirely and affirmed the bargaining order under the Gissel standard alone,” the law firm said. “This is a classic appellate move: decide the case on narrower, settled grounds and avoid stepping into a doctrinal fight.”

In the long term, CDF said, “the issue is likely heading toward a circuit split showdown and will likely result in Supreme Court involvement.”

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The company said it’s focused on adding assets in Monterrey and Silao to start, with additions slated for Mexico City in the back half of the year.

“We want Mexican businesses to know there is a local, asset-based solution ready for them,” said Bernardo Alexander, Werner’s commercial vice president of Mexico. “With our long, trusted history in Mexico since 1999, we have the expertise to simplify cross-border shipping.”

Werner’s (NASDAQ: WERN) intermodal revenue increased 16% last year to approximately $129 million (15% of the company’s total logistics revenue of $857 million). Intermodal loads were up 17%, while revenue per load was flat.

Its container fleet has GPS location sensors and cargo cameras. It only uses C-TPAT certified carriers for cross-border shipments.

The company is using the cycle inflection to expand its presence in Mexico. Nearshoring prospects across the country have garnered incremental foreign direct investment. Further, industrywide intermodal conversion opportunities are popping up as fuel prices and truckload rates have surged.

“By combining our advanced tracking technology with 24/7 bilingual support, we are removing the friction from cross-border trade and making the process more efficient than ever,” Alexander said.

Werner will report first-quarter results after the market closes on Tuesday.

More FreightWaves articles by Todd Maiden:

• Knight-Swift cuts Q1 guide; remains upbeat on TL fundamentals
• J.B. Hunt says TL inflection ‘structural,’ not temporary
• Yield discipline, fuel price surge driving LTL rates to new highs in Q2

The post Werner doubling intermodal fleet in Mexico appeared first on FreightWaves.

The deal merges CLI, DQS and McLaren Transport, which DQS acquired last year, under parent company Axvor. Each company will continue to operate under its current banner.

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The acquisition provides Dearborn, Michigan-based DQS with infrastructure and scale. Bonita Springs, Florida based CLI operates over 20 facilities spanning 17 states, totaling more than 5 million square feet of warehouse space. It also gives DQS control of CLI’s proprietary warehouse management system, which oversees inventory, sequencing and manufacturing logistics.

“Having previously served as the Plant Manager of the CLI Dearborn Plant as well as on the CLI Leadership Team, I witnessed firsthand the company’s tremendous potential,” said DQS CEO Joshua Morris in a Wednesday news release. “Our goal is to build on CLI’s strong foundation while investing in the people, facilities, and expanded services our clients need.”

The CLI acquisition is part of a multi-year pivot for DQS. DQS was originally launched as Detroit Quality Staffing, an employment agency focused on manufacturing workforce solutions. However, over the past few years it began layering in security, transportation and warehousing services.

The April 2025 acquisition of Detroit-based McLaren onboarded trucking assets and a 75,000-square-foot cold storage facility, along with two decades of automotive supply chain leadership experience. With these acquisitions, DQS now offers complex cross-border and inbound-to-manufacturing logistics.

“CLI has always been execution-driven and customer-focused,” said Brad Constantini, chairman and owner of CLI. “Joining DQS under the leadership of CEO Joshua Morris is a strategic step that expands our capabilities and reach while preserving the discipline and culture that define CLI.”

More FreightWaves articles by Todd Maiden:

• Knight-Swift cuts Q1 guide; remains upbeat on TL fundamentals
• J.B. Hunt says TL inflection ‘structural,’ not temporary
• Yield discipline, fuel price surge driving LTL rates to new highs in Q2

The post DQS nets contract logistics provider in latest acquisition appeared first on FreightWaves.

Alaska Airlines (NYSE: ALK) operates 10 Airbus A330-300 converted freighter aircraft for the retail and logistics behemoth, shuttling e-commerce packages between nodes in its U.S. air distribution network. Alaska inherited the Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) flying contract when it acquired Hawaiian Airlines 18 months ago. Under the transport agreement, Amazon supplies the aircraft and Alaska Airlines provides crews, maintenance and insurance to operate them.

“We’ve restructured the Amazon deal from losses to not having losses, and we’ve got a little more work to do there as well,” said Alaska Air CEO Ben Minicucci during a call with analysts after the company reported first-quarter earnings.

The first public sign that Alaska Air was unhappy with its Amazon partnership came in December when Chief Financial Officer Shane Tackett said the airline wasn’t making money from it.

People familiar with Amazon’s culture say the company typically forces vendors to accept very small profit margins. A contract that was marginally profitable at the start could have turned negative with the transition to a new airline, which has different crew bases and other operating needs, and compensates pilots differently.  

Both companies are headquartered in Seattle.

“We’ve really enjoyed getting to work more closely with the folks at Amazon. We know them because they’re neighbors of ours. We have folks who used to work in Alaska over there. We’ve worked on deepening the partnership, and I think it’s going well,” a less-than-enthusiastic Minicucci said. “The partnership is getting better. It’s getting healthier. We’re continuing to talk about how we can deepen it further, in a way that’s mutually beneficial to each other. We had a nice sort of update to the agreement that’s in force today that helps us on the economic side, and we’re hopeful that we can expand that through more partnership over time.” 

Hawaiian agreed to become an Amazon contractor in 2022 as a way to diversify revenue when it was losing money following the Covid crisis. Amazon had leased the Airbus A330 passenger-to-freighter aircraft and was looking for an operator because it isn’t a licensed airline. Hawaiian was one of only two A330 operators in the United States.

Alaska Air, the parent of Alaska Airlines and regional carrier Horizon Air, has not disclosed specific concerns with the Amazon contract. But an aviation professional told FreightWaves in December that Amazon drove a hard bargain, leaving Hawaiian with an uneconomical fixed-fee deal with little room to decrease costs and enhance margins. 

Another logistics expert, speaking on condition of anonymity at the time, speculated that the lack of coordinated passenger and cargo crew bases could be a challenge for Alaska Airlines. Periodic changes to Amazon’s route structure, or the number of flight hours required each month, could conflict with Hawaiian’s original pricing assumptions on pilot staffing levels and expenditures, or make it more difficult to rotate crews to passenger flying.  

“I won’t share where the specific economics on the freighters were. But, if we’re going to put time into flying aircraft around, we feel like we need to earn a reasonable margin — not a break-even margin. That’s not really our philosophy in terms of investment,” Tackett said on Tuesday. “We’ll be focused on generating decent returns on this flying.”

Q1 results

Cargo revenue, most of which comes from shipments carried on Alaska Airlines passenger aircraft and five Boeing 737-700 and 737-800 converted freighters, increased 23% year over year to $150 million in the first quarter. 

“Over the next year or two, we’re excited regardless of the freighter contract, about the opportunities with belly cargo on the widebodies, the opportunities to continue to grow our own freight market share up in the state of Alaska and along the West Coast,” Tackett said.

Alaska Airlines, traditionally a narrowbody carrier, began operating from its Seattle hub to Tokyo and Seoul, South Korea, last year using Airbus A330-200 passenger jets from Hawaiian’s fleet. In January, the carrier switched to Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners on the Tokyo route, increasing passenger and cargo capacity.  Alaska begins daily 787-9 passenger service to Rome next Tuesday and to London Heathrow airport on May 21. 

Chief Operating Officer Jason Berry noted that the cargo division’s quarterly performance was aided by the integration of Hawaiian and Alaska Airlines cargo systems, with combined booking systems and a unified sales approach allowing the carrier to leverage wider network connectivity. 

Overall, Alaska Air posted a net loss of $193 million as the carrier felt the brunt of surging jet fuel prices and revenue pressure because of heavy flooding in Hawaii and drug cartel violence in Mexico, two of its key leisure markets. The airline pulled its full-year guidance, warning of a profit cut due to rising fuel costs. 

Management said it expects fuel expenses to jump by about $600 million as it pays about $4.50 per gallon this quarter. Minicucci last month said the carrier has been tankering fuel from Singapore to Seattle because West Coast refinery margins are extremely high. 

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

Write to Eric Kulisch at ekulisch@freightwaves.com.

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The company’s 2026 Tariff Impact Report shows a sharp shift from cautious observation to active mitigation, with companies diversifying suppliers, extending planning horizons and leaning more heavily on data tools to navigate what executives describe as “structured volatility.”

“Last year was largely a kind of wait-and-see, and this year … 97% are deploying at least one active mitigation strategy,” said Jefferson Barr, Netstock’s chief marketing officer, in an interview with FreightWaves. “They can no longer kind of take a wait-and-see approach.”

Supplier diversification accelerates, but challenges remain

Netstock, which provides demand planning and inventory optimization software for SMBs, said one of the clearest signals from the report is a shift in sourcing strategy. 

About 35% of SMBs changed suppliers in the past year, while nearly half now source from multiple regions, reflecting growing exposure to tariff impacts across geographies.

China remains the most impacted sourcing region, cited by 74% of respondents, but companies are increasingly branching into Europe, Southeast Asia and Mexico as they look to reduce risk.

Still, diversification is easier said than done for smaller companies.

“I was interested to see that a third of them had changed suppliers,” Barr said. “But … it’s hard to find a supplier. If you’re sourcing from China, it’s hard to find another location that can do the same production.”

The result is a hybrid approach, with many SMBs maintaining legacy suppliers while adding secondary sources — a shift that could fragment freight flows and alter traditional shipping lanes.

Longer planning horizons reshape inventory cycles

Tariff uncertainty is also pushing businesses to rethink how far ahead they plan. Nearly three-quarters of SMBs said they have extended their inventory planning horizons, according to the survey.

That shift reflects a need to anticipate cost swings, longer lead times and potential policy changes, but it also introduces new risks around inventory management.

“Three-quarters said the tariff uncertainty has pushed them to extend their planning horizons,” Barr said. “If you don’t have the right visibility tools, it’s kind of hard to make those decisions.”

The report notes that many SMBs were already struggling with inefficient inventory positioning last year, raising questions about whether longer planning cycles will improve outcomes — or simply push risk further down the line.

Pricing pressure builds as cost absorption fades

After initially absorbing tariff-related costs to maintain customer relationships, SMBs are increasingly passing those costs downstream.

The survey found that 82% of companies are now raising prices in response to tariffs, up sharply from the prior year.

“That was one of my biggest takeaways,” Barr said. “It’s kind of pushed past the point of them being able to bear it.”

The shift could have broader implications for demand, as higher prices ripple through supply chains and potentially dampen order volumes later in the year.

Analytics adoption emerges as key differentiator

As complexity increases, SMBs are turning to data and automation tools to guide decision-making. The report found that heavy use of analytics more than doubled year over year, while adoption of AI-driven inventory tools continues to rise.

Barr said the move toward analytics is becoming essential for navigating uncertainty.

“The spreadsheet’s not going to cut it,” he said. “They’re going to have to rely on … inventory optimization solutions to help give them that visibility.”

Freight market implications: volatility likely to persist

Taken together, the shifts outlined in the report suggest continued volatility in freight demand patterns.

Supplier diversification and multi-region sourcing could lead to more fragmented shipping networks, while extended planning horizons may drive earlier ordering cycles. At the same time, rising prices and inventory risks could create periods of softer demand if consumption slows.

For SMBs, the challenge is balancing resilience with efficiency in an environment where policy shifts remain unpredictable.

“They can’t control global volatility,” Barr said. “But they can control … inventory levels and supplier mix.”

The post SMBs ditch ‘wait-and-see’ as tariffs force supply chain overhaul appeared first on FreightWaves.

The demonstration brought together Shell engineers, fleet efficiency experts and Penske Entertainment sustainability leaders to discuss the practical realities of reducing emissions in long-haul freight. The sector faces mandates to reduce its emissions and chart a path toward achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.

“It’s part of a varied portfolio of solutions,” said Ryan Manthiri, project leader for innovation at Shell Global Solutions and engineering manager for the Starship program. Manthiri stressed that there is no one-size-fits-all solution.

Starship’s Evolution from Diesel to Natural Gas

Shell launched the Starship initiative in 2015 as a material demonstration program focused on reducing emissions and energy usage in commercial road transport. The first truck debuted in 2018 with a diesel powertrain, reflecting diesel’s dominance at the time.

The program has since evolved through three iterations, each designed around the sector’s energy transition at that snapshot in time. Starship 3.0 pivoted to natural gas to align with low-carbon fuel standards and the push toward renewable natural gas. RNG is derived from landfills, dairy farms and other waste streams.

Demonstrations prove concepts, but ensuring the technology works in practice is essential. “We found, regardless of whatever sector we were in, whether it’s mining, manufacturing, transport or marine, the best way to do this is through material demonstrations,” Manthiri said.

The latest chapter includes Starship China, a diesel-electric hybrid featuring a 30-kilowatt lithium-ion battery paired with a 270-kilowatt electric motor. The configuration suits the stop-and-go logistics operations common in the Chinese market.

Engineering the ‘Lab on Wheels’

The Starship 3.0’s most noticeable feature is its fully carbon-fiber cab with a sloping hood and rounded bumper. However, despite its custom exterior, Shell engineers emphasize that many efficiency gains come from components available to any fleet today.

The truck achieves a drag coefficient of 0.25 — roughly half that of a standard Class 8 tractor at 0.6. An automatic gap sealer closes the space between tractor and trailer, while an automated boat tail reduces the low-pressure wake at the rear.

“A lot of times when we talk to people who see the truck, they kind of look at it and they kind of like, ‘Oh, well, I don’t know how realistic it is,’” said Scott Burian, global communications manager for Shell Lubricants. “But there’s so many things on this truck that you can implement and make immediate impacts to your fleet.”

Burian pointed to engine oil as a prime example. The Starship runs 5W-30 natural gas full synthetic oil.

“A lot of truckers today still use 15W-40, and if you go down even from 15W-40 to a 10W-30 Shell Rotella T5 or T4 product, you’re going to get up to 2% fuel economy savings,” Burian said. “If you go down to a 5W-30, you’re up to 3.3% fuel economy savings compared to that conventional 15W-40.”

Other off-the-shelf components include the Eaton Endurant transmission and Meritor fuel-light axle.

Natural Gas Performance Surprises

Converting the truck from its original 15-liter diesel to a 15-liter natural gas engine proved more straightforward than expected, Manthiri said. The engine footprints are nearly identical, and the natural gas unit delivers comparable performance with simplified after-treatment systems.

“You have very little NOx, very little volatile organic compounds coming off — near zero to near zero NOx coming off actually,” Manthiri said. “The after-treatment systems that are required here are way, way smaller than what you would expect in diesel, which makes maintenance a whole lot easier.”

The truck also runs quieter than diesel equivalents. Shell tested it at 80,000 pounds gross vehicle weight in 2023 and covered just shy of 5,000 miles at 73,000 pounds last year.

Technology Creating Real-World Takeaways

Mike Roeth, executive director of the North American Council for Freight Efficiency (NACFE), which has validated Starship data through real-world demonstration runs, emphasized that efficiency gains remain available across existing diesel and natural gas fleets.

“We saw 11.5 miles per gallon by two trucks in Run on Less. And that shocks a lot of people when the national average is under 7,” Roeth said. “Right now it’s $6 a gallon diesel. Now we’re talking about hundreds of percent, not just tens of a percent.”

The Starship 3.0 achieved 204 ton-miles per gallon compared to roughly 80 for a standard Class 8 tractor — a two-and-a-half times improvement in freight efficiency.

Shell has integrated the truck into IndyCar logistics, hauling the technical inspection and administrative trailers for the 2025 and 2026 seasons as part of Penske Entertainment’s “Racing Toward Zero” initiative targeting a 50% reduction in operational emissions by 2030.

The post Shell Starship 3.0 showcased at US Eco-Marathon appeared first on FreightWaves.

The company announced Wednesday that Gary M. Adams, who spent more than three decades at Walmart including 18 years as a company officer, has joined its board of directors. Adams most recently served as head of global logistics, a role that capped a career spanning international expansion and major domestic operations.

He led logistics for Walmart’s International Division for eight years during a stretch of rapid global growth, then returned stateside to run supply chain for the West Business Unit, Sam’s Club and global logistics. Under his leadership, Walmart modernized supplier integration and logistics operations, turning what had been a cost center into a technology-driven advantage.

“Gary helped build and operate one of the most sophisticated supply chain organizations in the world,” said Austin McCombs, Gnosis CEO and co-founder. “He understands the complexity of managing global networks across markets, partners and regulatory environments — and the enterprise consequences when execution breaks down. Our customers operate at that same scale, where timing directly influences revenue, margin and customer commitments. Gary’s experience strengthens our ability to deliver consistent, measurable results for the world’s most demanding supply chain operators with our AI-native technology.”

The timing of the appointment isn’t accidental. Global trade continues to wrestle with geopolitical volatility and operational complexity, forcing shippers and logistics providers to take a hard look at the systems that actually move freight day to day.

Adams didn’t mince words about the core challenge.

“The gap between when execution data becomes available and when decisions need to be made has been one of the hardest problems in global logistics,” he said. “Gnosis has built the AI-native solutions that turn real-time freight data into actionable intelligence before costs lock in. I look forward to supporting the team as they scale this platform for enterprise supply chains.”

Adams’ seat on the board was sourced through Vista Equity Partners’ external board program. The private equity firm, which invests in Gnosis, launched the initiative in 2017 to identify, train and place qualified directors at its portfolio companies using its broader ecosystem and resources.

Gnosis Freight, based in Charleston, develops an AI-native global freight operating system centered on its Container Lifecycle Management platform. The company sits between traditional planning tools and physical execution. It aims to give cargo owners, ocean carriers, forwarders, truckers and 3PLs a single source of trusted, real-time execution data across commercial boundaries.

The post Gnosis Freight adds Walmart veteran Gary Adams to its board appeared first on FreightWaves.

To put the sheer scale of this into perspective: The Interstate Highway System –widely considered the most transformative infrastructure project in U.S. history– took 35 years to build at an average of $18.8 billion per year. 

The AI data center build-out is currently spending that same amount every five weeks on construction and power infrastructure alone. When you factor in the massive compute hardware required, the sector is deploying the equivalent of the entire annual Interstate construction budget every week and a half.

For the freight industry, this translates to an estimated 18.9 million incremental truckloads of construction materials and equipment required between 2026 and 2031. It is the equivalent of dropping an entirely new major freight market onto the national network. 

Concrete and structural steel are moving in massive volumes, pushing flatbed rejection rates to multi-year highs, while van and reefer capacities are being stretched by deliveries of sensitive semiconductors, batteries and precision cooling equipment. 

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Total U.S. data center investment is on track to exceed $500 billion annually by 2027, yielding a massive $4.16 trillion six-year total. 

To help transportation and logistics professionals navigate this unprecedented surge, FreightWaves has compiled a comprehensive SONAR Sitrep detailing the ground-level logistics impact of the AI build-out. 

Read the full report to discover:

• Granular Freight Breakdown: A deep dive into demand by data center type, material category, and specific freight mode.
• Mode-Specific Pressures: Why approximately 70% of this demand involves truckload moves, and how the massive influx of generators, transformers, and transmission equipment is squeezing flatbed capacity.
  • Investment Timelines & Trajectories: Year-by-year projections detailing exactly where the $4.16 trillion will be deployed across construction, power, and IT hardware through 2030.
• The “Hidden” Infrastructure Surge: An analysis of the $460 billion in utility-side transmission and grid infrastructure required outside the data center fence line.

Don’t get caught off guard by the biggest freight story of the decade. Read the full report and other sitreps on SONAR or request a demo here.

Sign up for SONAR today to access the full Freight Intelligence Report and keep your supply chain ahead of the curve.

The post SONAR Sitrep: AI data center build-out fuels US freight surge appeared first on FreightWaves.

“The message that I try to reinforce is that [shipping revitalization is] going to last many administrations past this one,’ Federal Maritime Commission Chair Laura DiBella said. “I hope that the support and the resources will follow it with bipartisan support. I mean, bringing an industry back — and putting my economic development hat on, because that’s my past life — reshoring industry takes decades.

“It’s going to take a very long time and a concerted, long-term effort, economic development does not happen quickly. So I try with that in mind to manage expectations and don’t start to be critical.” 

DiBella operated her own real estate business, served as Florida’s Secretary of Commerce and led Enterprise Florida, a public-private development office.

As head of the maritime competition regulator, DiBella is chiefly concerned with the strategic implications of the American maritime system. And, there’s work to be done, she said in an interview at the FMC’s headquarters.

“Not throwing the [U.S.] Army Corps [of Engineers] under the bus here, but permitting is always a problem,” DiBella said. “A big problem that slows down everything. You can have as much money on the planet as you want, but sometimes a better incentive is speed to market. Port Everglades has been waiting for a [dredging] permit 10-plus years. People just say, you know, if the Corps could only move quicker…”

[The USACE this month withdrew its state Water Quality Certification permit application for the Port Everglades dredging project amid environmental concerns. The project to deepen and widen channels was authorized in 2016.]

“I don’t want to say money is the easy part,” DiBella said. “But there’s plenty of private investment out there that can support or assist with these projects, if they had a better idea of timing.”

Port efficiency and automation

DiBella said that automation needs to be brought into U.S. ports, to improve cargo handling.

“We are grossly inefficient here in the United States, period, end. I’m I’m very sensitive to protecting jobs, it was my [past] job to retain and create jobs. However, I do believe that automation needs to be brought in and can coexist very nicely with current labor arrangements where nobody loses their job. I understand that opening up to that could be perceived as a slippery slope. But, there’s too much technology out there that could make us produce so much more throughput.”

What looks to be a gradual process of force multipliers to make ports more efficient should “alleviate any concerns and embracing the  technological environment that this world is,” she said, “you know, everything is connected these days, and our ports need to be connected, as well. We shouldn’t be afraid of having the discussion, it should be exactly that — a bigger discussion and collaboration with everyone that is involved and potentially affected by it.” 

There are jobs to be created within the new era of industrialization, said DiBella, who doesn’t believe that jobs are going to be largely eliminated by automation. 

Transcontinental rail merger

DiBella said that East Coast ports “are not speaking up enough” about the possible effects on their businesses from the proposed merger of western rail giant Union Pacific (NYSE: UNP) and eastern network Norfolk Southern (NYSE: NSC). She said that the FMC has started to receive feedback on the historic transcontinental tie-up.

If the merger goes through, the “Port of Baltimore stands to lose, [CSX (NASDAQ: CXS)] just invested in doublestack [clearances in the city’s Howard Street Tunnel], which was designed entirely to get [Baltimore container traffic] into Chicago. I was in Mobile, Alabama, two weeks ago, and they had expressed their concern to me about the merger, saying that Gulf Coast ports and the Gulf Coast in general has been largely ignored as far as impacts are concerned. There’s uncertainty around there. Mobile just dredged to 50 feet, to be globally competitive in shipping.” 

The commission likely will collaborate with the Surface Transportation Board, she said, as to the impacts to ports.

“We all operate in our own lanes, I say, ‘Not my lane, not my lane,’ but in a way everything kind of bleeds into your lane in this space because we are all impacted by it. The silo approach that has been an existence for forever, that model cannot cannot exist moving forward. We absolutely positively need to be in better conversation with our partners at the STB, which we have great a relationship with.” 

The Maritime Focus Problem

The problem, said DiBella, is that the U.S. over the past decades has lost its maritime focus.

“Others will not like this answer, that aren’t the maritime space, but maritime should be the beginning of the discussion and shouldn’t be the afterthought,” DiBella said. “What happens at the waterfront will have every impact on what happens inland so therefore the system needs to be addressed, maritime needs to be at the heart of the system. And we’ve lost that, I think, and that has led to the supply chain challenges that we have. Communities grew around ports.”

DiBella said that the while the U.S. can’t change the current structure of global shipping including mergers involving terminal operators and liners based outside the U.S., it can build up its own flag business. “They serve their purpose, and we need them. We need them as much as they need us. So it’s a copacetic relationship.

“Hindsight being 20-20, should some of the should some of these consolidations been allowed to happen. No, but we are where we are. All we can do is help build the reasoning around the U.S. flag model and create more competition in that space.”

Opportunity — and threat — in the Northern Sea Route

The FMC is conducting a chokepoint study that could help guide future maritime planning and investment. Chinese ships recently raised the tantalizing possibility of time-definite ocean shipments, completing Asia-Europe voyages on the Northern Sea Route through the Arctic in 18 days, compared with 30-40 days on trans-Pacific routes.

That’s important, DiBella said, because the risks and opportunities could position Alaska seaports for funding to build out infrastructure, to support the new route.

“Where are we in this infrastructure game,” she asked, “to capture what is a budding sea lane? What’s the saying — ‘If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu’? So yeah, I think it should encourage us to definitely be more proactive.” 

Worryingly, China and Russia have taken steps to explore the Arctic route.

“In my mind and I think everybody’s mind, that’s pretty dangerous. It definitely speaks to defense and security, and supply chain is all about financial security. So, yes, we need to be on top of that situation.” 

This is Part 2 of a two-part interview.

Read more articles by Stuart Chirls here.

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The post Why ‘grossly inefficient’ U.S. ports need automation, and the danger in a new Arctic sea route appeared first on FreightWaves.

“CSX is reducing operations at Barr Yard as part of the company’s ongoing effort to improve how we operate across the network,” railroad spokesman Austin Staton tells Trains. “We’re shifting certain traffic flows to reduce redundant processing in Chicago and leveraging established partner switching capacity, like the BRC and IHB, to create a more direct network flow. The goal is to improve efficiency, reduce transit times, and provide more reliable service.”

Barr Yard, which has been one of CSX’s top 10 terminals by volume, typically had a daily inventory of between 1,400 and 1,800 cars this year, according to data reported by the Chicago Transportation Coordination Office.

As of last week an average of 1,113 cars were in the yard. Today only 228 cars were in the yard’s inventory, a figure that included 118 empty petcoke cars in storage, according to a CSX (NASDAQ: CSX) source.

Barr’s switching work is now being handled by BRC’s Clearing Yard and IHB’s Blue Island Yard. CSX also eliminated a daily transfer job between Barr Yard and Canadian National’s Kirk Yard in Gary, Ind. Road freights are now taking those cars to and from Kirk Yard and bypassing switching at Barr in the process.

In addition, CSX has dropped merchandise train pair M326/M327 that ran between Barr Yard and Grand Rapids, Mich. Traffic those trains handled is now being routed around the horn via Garrett, Ind.; Toledo, Ohio; and Detroit, according to union officials.

“We are closely monitoring performance as these changes are implemented to ensure minimal disruption and deliver maximum benefits to our customers and the communities we serve,” Staton says. “CSX remains committed to transparent communication with employees, customers, and other stakeholders as we evaluate the success of this transition and consider any future adjustments.”

Joe Ciemny, the chairman of SMART-TD union local 1534, says a dozen two-person yard jobs were eliminated over the weekend as part of the changes at Barr.

“We’re fighting this,” he says. “We feel this is unfair labor practices on their behalf.”

Under the B&OCT contract, the union’s members have the right to perform all of the railroad’s switching in the Chicago terminal, Ciemny says. Farming it out to other railroads violates the collective bargaining agreement, he says.

Several yard and local jobs remain based at Barr to serve area customers.

Subscribe to FreightWaves’ Rail e-newsletter and get the latest insights on rail freight right in your inbox.

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The post CSX curtails operations at its major yard in Chicago appeared first on FreightWaves.

The quarterly letter to investors penned by CEO Aaron Graft for the first quarter sets new metrics for the trucking-focused financial services company, as well as praising the group’s factoring division.

The letter, and Triumph Financial’s (NASDAQ: TFIN) first quarter earnings, were released Tuesday after the market close. The company’s earnings call is Wednesday.

Graft’s letter, several pages of detail that is unique in the industry, has in the past been more likely to focus on Triumph Financial’s Payments segment than Factoring, which is a long-held business. Payments, with its open-loop auditing and payment network, is the more disruptive offering at Triumph Financial and is targeted to be an increasing percentage of the company’s profitability. 

But the most praise from Graft this quarter was targeted at Factoring, though results in Payments were strong as well.

Graft’s praise for Factoring came in the fact that it increased its total purchased volume of invoices by 20.5% from a year ago, and 4.6% increase sequentially, even though the first quarter tends to be soft. “That is robust growth for a mature business,” Graft said. “I am also impressed with how our team outperformed seasonality in the first quarter.” 

Factoring invoice volumes declined 3.5% while Payments dropped 9.2%, another point of praise from Graft for the Factoring segment relative to its corporate peer. 

In discussing the new metrics, which Graft described as Triumph Financial’s “North Star,” the CEO said they are the numbers “that matter most.”

The new benchmarks are total revenue growth in Transportation, which includes both Factoring and Payments but not banking; the operating margin in Factoring; and the EBITDA margin in the Payments segment, excluding the relatively new LoadPay product, a wallet-like offering that  is targeted directly at the finances of individual drivers.

It also includes the gross margin for the company’s relatively new Intelligence unit, which based on past performance is projected to have annual recurring revenue of $8.4 million.

Still looking at growth, but focus on new KPIs

“We used to talk about logos, density, and product roadmap; we now talk about revenue growth and margin,” Graft said of the new North Star goals. “This does not mean we have stopped innovating or pursuing growth — it means we expect those efforts to show up in our numbers. We will continue putting forth the KPIs that we believe are the best signal of achieving long-term value creation. Investors will be able to judge both the merit of our recommended KPIs and our performance against them.”

As for those goals in the quarter, transportation revenue growth compared to the first quarter of 2025 was up 23.5%; the long-term target is greater than 15%.

Less than target but well above last year

Factoring’s long-term operating margin target is more than 40%; it was 34.7% in the quarter. The Payments EBITDA margin target, excluding LoadPay, is greater than 50%; for the first quarter, it came in at 34%.  A year ago it was less than 6%.

That 40% target for Factoring, Graft said, “is rare air in commercial finance. To consistently achieve that margin usually requires proprietary data embedded distribution and network effects.” 

Graft noted that the Factoring segment does have “add-on” services, including its Factoring as a Service offering, LoadPay and the Intelligence segment.

In the letter’s first mention of AI, Graft said personnel numbers are declining in the Factoring segment and attributed part of that to AI.

The Graft letter said the volume of invoices processed in Factoring for the first quarter of 2025 was 1.498 million, with 266 employees in the segment. Factoring volume of 1.683 million invoices in the first quarter of 2026 and was handled by 235 employees.

“While several initiatives remain in progress, early results are translating into improved throughput and workflow efficiency, supporting continued increases in invoices processed per employee,” Graft said in his letter. “These efforts are strengthening the scalability of our operating model, enabling us to support growth without proportional cost expansion, with the benefits reflected in our expense outlook.”

In discussing the performance of Payments, Graft noted that repricing of existing contracts was “the largest growth driver in the quarter, but we also brought on and ramped up several new relationships while deepening relationships with others throughout cross-selling efforts.”

The Graft letter also noted that Payments customers generally are charged on a per invoice basis, not as a function of the size of the invoice as is done in Factoring. “So invoice counts are a better gauge of revenue growth than Payments volumes,” he said. Invoice volume in Payments was up about 14.5% year-on-year. 

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The post Triumph Financial sets new metrics, has strong quarter in factoring appeared first on FreightWaves.

That unpaid balance is not just an accounting line. It is the reason a carrier turns down a good load because they cannot front the expenses to run it. It is the reason a truck sits when it should be rolling. It is the reason decisions about hiring, equipment, and growth get made based on what is in the checking account today rather than what the business has actually earned.

Understanding how to manage that gap — and which tools cost you the least to close it — is one of the most important financial decisions a small carrier makes. Most carriers are making it poorly.

The Problem With Doing Nothing

The default setting for most small carriers is to invoice and wait. The broker pays in 30 days, or 45, or whenever they get around to it — and the carrier floats the cost of operations in the meantime on whatever cash is in the account. When the account runs thin, they take whatever load pays fastest instead of whatever load pays best.

That last sentence is where the money goes. A carrier who is cash-strapped takes a $2.20 per mile load from a broker who will pay in a week instead of a $2.60 per mile load from a shipper who pays in 45 days. Over a year, across dozens of those decisions, the difference between running tight and running with working capital is not just the float cost. It is the quality of the freight the carrier can afford to book.

Doing nothing about the payment gap is not a neutral choice. It is a choice to let the cash constraint drive your load selection — and load selection driven by cash desperation consistently produces worse revenue per mile than load selection driven by what the market will actually bear.

Quick Pay: What It Is and What It Actually Costs

Quick pay is the most common first step carriers take when they realize waiting on invoices is costing them money. Almost every major broker offers it. The concept is simple: instead of waiting 30 days, you get paid in two to five business days — and the broker takes a percentage off the top for the privilege.

That percentage ranges from 1% to 5% depending on the broker, the load, and what they feel like charging that day. There is no standardization. The fee on a $2,000 load at a 2% quick pay rate is $40. At 4%, it is $80. At 5%, it is $100. Per load, those numbers sound manageable. Run the math across a full year and the picture changes.

A carrier generating $20,000 per month in gross revenue and using quick pay at an average of 3% is paying $600 per month — $7,200 per year — to access money they have already earned. That is not a financing cost. That is a penalty for doing business with brokers who built their payment terms around their own cash flow management, not yours.

There are three other problems with quick pay beyond the fee.

First, it only works for brokers who offer it. Smaller brokers, regional brokers, and direct shippers often do not have quick pay programs. If your quick pay broker does not have the load you need, you cannot take the load and get paid fast. Your cash flow tool is also a load selection restriction.

Second, it is slower than it sounds. Quick pay typically processes in two to five business days after you submit complete paperwork — BOL, signed POD, rate confirmation, invoice, all of it. Submit on Friday, you may not see money until Wednesday or Thursday of the following week. During peak holiday periods or when broker back-office teams are backed up, that window stretches.

Third, the fees are inconsistent and hard to budget around. A 2% quick pay from one broker and a 4% from another on consecutive loads creates an accounting variable that compounds into real money over time and makes it nearly impossible to accurately project monthly cash flow.

Factoring: What It Actually Is

Freight factoring is frequently described in terms that make it sound more complicated than it is. Strip it down: you deliver a load, you send your invoice to a factoring company instead of waiting for the broker to pay, and the factoring company sends you 90% to 97% of the invoice value — usually within 24 hours, sometimes same day. The factoring company then collects from the broker directly when the invoice comes due.

You got paid. The factoring company gets their fee when the broker eventually pays. The broker relationship stays intact. The only change is that payment collection has been outsourced to someone whose entire business model is built around doing it efficiently.

The fee structure is different from quick pay in one important way: it is consistent. A factoring company charges the same percentage on every invoice — typically 1.5% to 4% in 2026 — regardless of which broker the load came from or what day of the week you submit. That consistency makes it possible to actually budget your cash flow, which is something that quick pay’s variable fee structure makes nearly impossible.

The practical advantages over doing nothing or relying on quick pay are significant. Factoring works with any approved broker or shipper — not just the ones offering a quick pay program. It pays in 24 hours rather than two to five business days. And for carriers without established credit history, factoring approval is based on the creditworthiness of the brokers and shippers you are hauling for, not your personal credit score. A carrier three months into their own authority who cannot get a business line of credit can get factoring based on the payment history of the brokers in their lane.

The factoring company also runs credit checks on brokers before they purchase your invoice. That last part matters in a market where broker failures are not rare. A factoring company that declines to purchase an invoice from a specific broker is telling you something about that broker’s financial health that you otherwise would not know until the check stopped clearing.

The Factoring Contract Traps to Avoid

Factoring has a well-documented reputation for predatory contract terms that carriers sign without reading closely enough. The fee percentage is usually the honest part of the arrangement. The traps tend to be everywhere else.

Watch for these specifically.

Long-term contracts with early termination fees. Some factoring agreements lock you in for 12 to 24 months with termination penalties that can run into thousands of dollars if you want to switch providers or stop factoring. Month-to-month arrangements cost slightly more per invoice but preserve your ability to exit without penalty. If a factoring company is pushing hard for a long-term commitment, ask why their service is not worth staying for voluntarily.

Monthly minimums. Some contracts require you to factor a minimum dollar amount of invoices per month — and charge you the fee on that minimum whether you factor that volume or not. A carrier who has a slow month or takes a direct shipper load outside the factoring relationship may owe fees on volume they never factored. Read this clause carefully before signing anything.

Recourse versus non-recourse — and what non-recourse actually means. Non-recourse factoring means the factoring company assumes the risk if a broker does not pay. That sounds like full protection, but many non-recourse agreements only cover broker bankruptcy or business closure — not a broker who disputes the invoice, claims a short delivery, or simply refuses to pay. True non-recourse, which covers any non-payment regardless of reason, costs more but provides the actual protection the term implies. Ask specifically: “If the broker refuses to pay and does not go bankrupt, who is responsible for the invoice?” The answer to that question tells you what you are actually buying.

ACH fees, wire fees, same-day funding fees. A factoring company advertising 2% rates and then charging $15 per ACH and $35 per wire on every transaction is not offering 2% factoring. They are offering 2% plus a per-transaction fee that compounds across every invoice you submit. Get the total cost of the arrangement in writing, including every fee, before comparing providers.

The Math on Quick Pay Versus Factoring

For a carrier running $20,000 per month in gross revenue across roughly 15 to 20 loads, the comparison looks like this.

Quick pay at an average of 3% across all loads: $600 per month, with two to five day payment speed, limited to brokers who offer it, with variable fees that make monthly cash flow projection unreliable.

Factoring at 2.5% across all loads: $500 per month, with 24-hour payment speed, available for any approved broker or shipper, with consistent fees that make monthly cash flow projectable.

The factoring option in this scenario is both cheaper and faster. But the real advantage is not the $100 per month in fee savings. It is load selection freedom. A carrier with factoring in place can book the best-paying load in their lane regardless of which broker is posting it, because their cash flow is not dependent on that broker’s quick pay program. A carrier dependent on quick pay can only run fast money from brokers who offer it — which is a load selection constraint that costs far more than $100 per month in lost revenue per mile over a full year.

What to Do With the Cash Once You Have It

Most discussions about cash flow management in trucking stop at how to get the money faster. The less-discussed question is what to do with it once you have it — because having working capital and deploying it productively are two different skills.

The carriers running healthy small businesses in 2026 are treating cash flow as a planning tool, not just a survival mechanism. When invoices are turning over in 24 hours instead of 45 days, the math changes on what decisions you can afford to make. You can be selective about loads without the anxiety of wondering if the checking account will cover Friday’s payroll. You can negotiate better rates because you are not desperate. You can hold a load position for a day to find better backhaul instead of taking whatever is leaving the market.

The goal of getting paid faster is not just to have more money in the account. It is to stop making the financial decisions that a cash-strapped carrier makes and start making the ones that a well-capitalized carrier makes. Those two operators are running in the same market. The difference in their outcomes is not luck — it is whether the payment structure they set up is working for their business or against it.

The post You Delivered That Load Three Weeks Ago. Here Is Why You Still Do Not Have the Money — and What to Do About It. appeared first on FreightWaves.

The five-year trend is the number that matters. Since early 2020, combined parts and labor costs for heavy-duty trucks have risen 27.4%. Parts specifically are up 23.8%. Labor is up 33.5%. To translate that into operational terms: if your shop costs were running $1,000 per month per truck in 2020, the same maintenance workload now runs approximately $1,274. And that is before the tariff environment adds its next layer.

What the Tariffs Are Actually Doing to Equipment Costs

The Section 232 tariff on imported medium and heavy-duty trucks — 25% on Class 3 through 8 vehicles and many truck parts, effective November 1, 2025 — is the most significant structural cost change in the equipment market in years. The American Trucking Associations estimated the tariff adds up to $35,000 to the delivered price of an imported Class 8, bringing total new truck acquisition cost to approximately $238,000 including federal excise tax.

That headline number matters for the purchase decision. What matters more for day-to-day operations is what the tariff does to parts prices. Hardin acknowledged that raw material costs — steel and aluminum specifically — began increasing around the time tariffs were introduced, and that these increases are showing up in component prices even before direct tariff impact can be isolated in the data. The Richmond Fed’s CFO Survey found that firms attribute close to 40% of total unit cost growth in 2025 and 2026 to tariffs and tariff-related uncertainty.

The mechanism matters: supply chain anxiety pricing. When distributors and parts manufacturers believe tariff-driven supply disruptions are coming, they adjust pricing preemptively — before any physical shortage materializes. Hardin was specific about this: “Typically what I’ve seen is it gets priced into the supply chain regardless of whether there’s a physical impact or not.” For an owner-operator buying a water pump, a set of injectors, or a turbocharger, the distinction between actual tariff impact and preemptive pricing adjustment is irrelevant. The invoice is higher either way.

Parts costs rose in 19 of the 25 VMRS vehicle systems tracked in the Decisiv benchmark, and year over year showed increases in 16 of those systems. The shift from labor-driven to parts-driven maintenance inflation is not a technicality — it changes where cost management attention should be focused. In the previous cycle, negotiating better labor rates with your shop or optimizing your PM intervals to reduce labor time was the lever. In the current environment, parts sourcing strategy — who you buy from, what quality tier, and at what price point — is increasingly where the real money is.

The Age of Your Fleet Is Now a Bigger Variable Than It Used to Be

The most consequential equipment decision a small carrier makes right now is not whether to buy a new truck. It is how aggressively to maintain the trucks already on the road.

Fleetio’s analysis of 1.2 million commercial vehicles released in February 2026 found that older assets drive outsized service spend — a finding that is intuitive but whose magnitude matters for planning purposes. A truck with 600,000 miles in the current parts cost environment is a materially different maintenance liability than the same truck was two years ago. The components that wear at high mileage — injectors, turbochargers, EGR systems, DPF systems, transmissions — are now 20% to 30% more expensive to replace than they were when you bought that truck. The economic calculus on keeping an aging asset running versus replacing it has shifted, and not in the direction that favors running it longer.

The counter-argument is that new truck acquisition costs have also shifted significantly upward — up to $35,000 per unit in tariff impact on imported Class 8 trucks, with used truck prices still elevated and financing rates not having returned to pre-2022 levels. So the choice is not between cheap maintenance and cheap acquisition. It is between expensive maintenance and expensive acquisition, and the right answer depends on specific mileage, condition, and freight type for each unit in your fleet.

What this environment does argue for clearly is a condition-based assessment of every truck in your fleet before the freight market recovery drives utilization back up. When trucks are running harder — more miles, more hours, more heat cycles through the engine — deferred maintenance items that were manageable at lower utilization become breakdowns. A breakdown at current parts prices, with current shop wait times, is more expensive than it was in 2022 and takes longer to resolve. Scheduling a comprehensive condition review now — before Q2 and Q3 freight demand pushes utilization higher — is the most cost-effective maintenance investment most small fleets can make in April 2026.

The Technology Layer That Has Become Mandatory

Telematics and in-cab technology are no longer optional for small carriers operating in 2026 — not because of regulatory mandate, but because the cost consequences of operating without them have exceeded the cost of adoption.

On the insurance side, the dynamic is now explicit: multiple insurers are refusing to quote carriers who do not have telematics and camera systems installed. That market reality means the technology is no longer a choice between having it and not having it — it is a choice between having it and being uninsurable in preferred markets. At current insurance cost levels, the premium differential between preferred and non-preferred market access exceeds the cost of camera and telematics installation on most fleets within 12 months.

On the maintenance side, the value of predictive data has shifted as parts costs have risen. A fault code that generates a service alert before it becomes a breakdown was worth addressing at $400 in parts and labor when that was the repair cost. At $500 to $600 in the current parts environment, the same repair is more expensive — but the alternative, a roadside breakdown with a tow and an emergency shop visit, now runs $2,000 to $4,000 or more. The math on proactive fault code response has improved dramatically as breakdown costs have escalated.

The new PC-12 heavy-duty engine oil category that is approaching finalization — with rollout expected ahead of 2027 — is a relevant maintenance planning item for fleets managing engine longevity on aging equipment. The category is designed to provide improved protection for modern emissions-equipped engines and extended drain intervals. Fleets that plan their PM schedules around the transition will be better positioned than those who are still on PC-11 oil when PC-12 becomes widely available. Ask your dealer or fleet service provider where the transition timeline falls for your equipment profile.

What to Do Before Freight Volumes Increase

The window between now and the freight market recovery that most analysts are projecting for Q2 and Q3 is the operational window to address equipment condition proactively. Once utilization goes back up and trucks are running hard, deferred maintenance becomes emergency maintenance — at current prices and with current shop availability.

Four specific actions matter before that window closes.

Pull your Fleetio or TMS data on unscheduled repair frequency by unit. The trucks generating the most unscheduled events are not just costing you more in parts and labor — they are costing you in utilization loss when they are in the shop instead of on the road. A truck that generates $8,000 per year in maintenance spend with four days of downtime is a different cost profile than a truck that generates $6,000 per year with twelve days of downtime. The frequency and duration of downtime matter as much as the repair invoice.

Schedule a DPF inspection and cleaning on any diesel truck with more than 300,000 miles and no documented DPF service in the past 18 months (assume it hasn’t been done if you purchase used). DPF-related failures are one of the highest-cost unscheduled repair categories in the Decisiv data, and preventive cleaning at $400 to $600 is the most cost-effective way to avoid a DPF replacement at $3,000 to $5,000. In the current tariff environment, DPF component costs have been among the categories showing year-over-year increases.

Review your parts sourcing relationships and price agreements. If you are buying parts at the counter of a dealer or distributor without a fleet account or volume pricing, you are paying retail for components that your maintenance spend volume likely qualifies you for a discount on. A fleet running five trucks and $30,000 per year in parts spend has enough volume to negotiate a fleet account discount at most regional suppliers. That conversation has not happened for most small carriers, and the parts inflation environment makes it more valuable now than it has been at any prior point.

Document everything your trucks generate — fault codes, inspection results, service events, driver vehicle inspection reports. In the nuclear verdict environment, maintenance records are not just an operational tool. They are a legal defense. A documented maintenance history that demonstrates proactive care for the vehicle reduces the narrative space available to a plaintiff attorney arguing systemic safety neglect.

The post Your Truck Is Getting More Expensive to Fix. Here Is the Data on Why — and What to Do Before It Gets Worse. appeared first on FreightWaves.

Something has shifted. You are feeling it. The board is busier. Brokers are calling instead of waiting for you to call them. Rates are up — meaningfully up. And there is a voice in the back of your head saying: now is the time to add another truck.

Why Rates Are Up Right Now

The spot rate per mile on a national basis is sitting at $3.09 as of this week. The six-month average has been $2.59. That $0.50 difference tells you how fast rates have moved. To put it in context: during the worst of the freight recession, rates were running around $2.10. You have come up nearly a dollar per mile from the floor.

Here is the thing: rates are not up because shippers are suddenly moving a lot more freight. They are up because there are significantly fewer trucks available to move the freight that exists.

Carriers have been leaving the market for three years. Some filed bankruptcy. Some parked their trucks and gave back their authority when the math stopped working. Others lost operating authority through regulatory enforcement. The result is a market where the trucks that are left have more leverage than they have had since 2021 — not because the economy is booming, but because there are fewer competitors for every load.

That is a real and meaningful improvement. But it is a different kind of improvement than 2021. In 2021, freight was everywhere and rates went up because shippers needed trucks desperately. Today, freight is not everywhere — and that difference matters for what you do next.

The Number That Should Give You Pause

Right now, the data that measures how much freight is actually being tendered — load requests sent from shippers to carriers before freight moves — is declining. Week-over-week, it is down 1.1%. Over the past month, it is down 1.78%.

In plain English: there are fewer loads entering the market than there were a month ago. At the same time, there are fewer trucks. Rates are up because trucks are scarce, not because freight is abundant.

Why is freight volume declining right now? The short answer is tariff uncertainty. Shippers who are not sure what imports are going to cost, or what their customers are going to buy, are slowing down how much they ship. They are sitting on inventory and waiting. That behavior pulls freight out of the market even when the underlying economy is not collapsing.

JB Hunt’s CEO said on their earnings call this week that the freight environment “felt meaningfully different” than recent years — and their numbers backed it up. But their CFO was careful to describe the recovery as “predominantly supply-driven” with only “early signs” of demand improvement. That is the same story the data is telling: supply tight, demand uncertain.

What This Means If You Run the Load Board

If you are a load board operator — one truck or a handful of trucks, finding your freight on DAT or Truckstop — here is what the current market means for you in practical terms.

Right now is the best time in three years to hold your rate. When brokers are scrambling to cover loads because contract carriers are turning them down, they need you. You have leverage you did not have in 2023 or 2024. Use it. If a broker offers you a rate that does not work, say no and mean it. The next broker will call.

Right now may not necessarily be the best time to add a truck (every case is different), because adding a truck means finding two trucks worth of loads instead of one — and the supply of available loads is declining month over month even as rates are elevated. A tight market with fewer loads is great for the truck you already have running selectively. It is riskier for a truck that needs to run consistently to make its payment.

Here is the scenario you want to avoid: you buy a truck in April because rates are at $3.09. In June, tariff uncertainty creates a demand slowdown — fewer loads in the market. Rates dip back toward $2.75 or $2.80 because the volume of available loads has shrunk. Now you have two trucks competing for the same load board in a softer environment, with a truck payment that does not care what happened to rates.

That scenario is not guaranteed to happen. But the declining load volume data says it is possible, and you need to have a plan for it before you commit to new equipment.

The Sign to Watch For

There is a signal that will tell you when expanding makes sense — and you do not need a data subscription to see it.

Watch the load board in your primary operating markets for three things: how many loads are posted on your lanes, how long they sit before disappearing, and how quickly brokers respond when you decline a rate. When all three of those move in a positive direction simultaneously and hold that way for four to six consecutive weeks — loads increasing, moving faster, and brokers countering instead of walking — that is demand coming back to match the tight supply. That is the setup where adding a truck is backed by the data, not just the feeling.

Right now, supply is tight. That part is confirmed. Demand is still uncertain. When demand confirms, you will feel it on the board before any report tells you about it. That is your signal to move.

The Four Questions Before You Sign Anything

If you are seriously considering adding a truck, answer these four questions honestly before you do anything else.

Where is the freight coming from for that truck? Not in general — specifically. If your answer is “the load board will have something,” that is not an answer. The load board has something today. It may have less of something in sixty days if freight volume keeps declining. Before you add equipment, know which shipper, which lane, or which broker relationship is going to keep that truck moving. If you cannot name it, the truck is not ready to be added.

Can you cover that truck’s fixed costs for 90 days without touching your operational cash? A truck payment, insurance, and fixed overhead run whether the truck is moving or not. If the market softens for six weeks while you are trying to get the new truck producing, those bills still hit. If you do not have that cushion in cash, you are betting everything on the load board staying exactly where it is. That is not a business decision. That is a gamble.

Is your current truck generating real margin right now — not just covering costs? If you are at $3.09 per mile and still running thin because fuel, insurance, and maintenance have all gone up, expanding does not fix that. It compounds it. Make sure the truck you have is genuinely profitable before you add the overhead of a second one.

What happens to your operation if rates go back to $2.60 next quarter? That is the six-month average. It is not an extreme scenario. It is where rates have spent most of the past six months. If your expansion plan does not survive a return to $2.60, the plan is built on today’s spike, not the real market.

What the Right Move Looks Like Today

The current freight market is the best environment for a load board operator since before the recession. Rates at $3.09, a market where saying no to a bad load actually works — that is real, and it is yours to use right now.

The right move is to extract every dollar of that advantage from your current operation. Hold your rate. Run fewer miles at better pay. Decline the loads that do not cover your full cost. The tight supply market gives you permission to be selective in a way you have not had for three years. Take it.

Build your cash reserves with what the current market is generating. Watch whether the number of available loads on your primary lanes starts growing or keeps shrinking over the next four to six weeks. If loads come back and rates hold, you will know it — and you will have the cash cushion to act on it confidently.

The expansion conversation is not off the table. It is on the right side of a confirmation that the data has not yet fully provided. When it does, you will have the reserves to move fast. That is the position you want to be in — ready to expand from strength, not forced to because you already signed the paperwork.

The post Every Recovery Looks Like the Right Time to Add a Truck. Here Is How to Tell If It Actually Is. appeared first on FreightWaves.

Commercial auto liability insurance has been unprofitable for insurers for 14 consecutive years according to Reliance Partners EVP Jackson Alexander. That is not a down cycle. That is a structural reality that has produced consistent, sustained premium increases across the entire market, for carriers who have had zero claims as well as carriers who have had several. The math for insurance companies does not work anymore at historical premium levels, and they are correcting that through premium increases, underwriting restrictions, and in some cases, exiting the trucking market entirely.

The American Transportation Research Institute’s 2025 Operational Costs of Trucking report put insurance cost at a record $0.102 per mile in 2024 — a number that followed a 12.5% spike in 2023 and an additional 3% increase in 2024. For a truck running 120,000 miles per year, that is $12,240 in annual insurance cost per truck. Five trucks. Sixty thousand dollars per year in insurance before a single claim is filed. And the trend line points higher.

What Is Actually Driving the Increases

The nuclear verdict numbers are the headline, but understanding what is behind them matters for how you respond operationally.

In 2024, there were 135 nuclear verdicts against corporations exceeding $10 million — a 52% increase over 2023 — totaling $31.3 billion, a 116% increase from the prior year according to Marathon Strategies. The median nuclear verdict climbed to $51 million, up from $44 million in 2023. Trucking is one of the hardest-hit industries in that data set. A St. Louis jury in 2024 delivered a $462 million verdict in a trucking accident case. A Florida case produced a $125 million verdict against a small carrier — with no fatalities.

These verdicts do not come from accidents alone. They come from the combination of accidents and the litigation strategy that plaintiff attorneys have refined specifically for trucking cases. That strategy works in three phases: establishing that the carrier violated a regulation — any regulation, even a minor one — presenting that violation as evidence of systemic disregard for safety, and then framing the damage award as a punishment the jury needs to deliver to change industry behavior. Anti-trucking messaging in media and entertainment has built the context that makes juries receptive to that framing. As Lockton’s Matthew Payne noted, “Even if you’re operating perfectly, you’re going to have increasing insurance rates. It’s punishing everybody because the insurance carriers spread the risk across all their insureds.“

The excess and surplus lines market — where carriers go when they cannot get coverage in the standard market — has contracted sharply. TrueNorth’s Dan Cook reports carriers “offering $1 million primary limits after giving as much as $10 million eight to nine years ago.” Some fleets are discovering they cannot get coverage at any price. That is not a negotiation outcome. It is a market exit.

What Underwriters Are Looking For Right Now

The underwriting criteria for preferred market access have tightened to the point where missing any one element can disqualify a carrier from competitive quoting. Jackson Alexander of Reliance Partners was specific: carriers must have profitable loss history, a preferred driver pool, good CSA scores, quality safety practices in place, and documented use of technology. “Even not hitting one of these marks could completely rule a motor carrier out from being able to get a quote from a preferred market.”

That last item — technology — has moved from a differentiator to a table stake in a remarkably short period. Insurers who historically never factored telematics into underwriting are now offering discounts for carriers who share telematics data and install cameras. More importantly, insurers who have been in the trucking space for the past 18 months have begun mandating cameras and collision avoidance systems as a condition of coverage. “Fleets that are refusing to do this cannot receive insurance quotes from many insurance companies,” Alexander said.

For a small carrier trying to manage costs, the calculus on camera systems has changed. A forward-facing and driver-facing camera system that costs $800 to $1,500 per truck to install now provides something more valuable than footage — it provides underwriting access. Carriers with documented camera programs and telematics data are getting into preferred market tiers that carriers without them cannot access. The premium differential between those tiers, at current rates, exceeds the cost of the camera system within months.

CSA scores matter more than they ever have. A carrier with poor BASIC scores is not just a safety concern — they are an underwriting liability. Insurers are using CSA data directly in their pricing models. A carrier who has let their vehicle maintenance BASIC or hours-of-service BASIC deteriorate is paying for that in premium dollars, not just in inspection risk. Cleaning up a CSA score takes time — it requires resolved violations and clean inspection records accumulating over 24 months. The carriers who are proactively managing their scores now will have underwriting leverage at their next renewal. The ones who are not will be explaining their scores to every underwriter they approach.

The Claims Response That Many Small Carriers Get Wrong

How a carrier responds in the first 24 hours after an accident has more influence on the eventual claim outcome than almost any other factor in the litigation process. Most small carriers do not have a protocol for those 24 hours. That absence is expensive.

The documentation that protects a carrier in court — dashcam footage, driver logs, pre-trip inspection records, maintenance records, drug and alcohol test results — must be preserved immediately after an accident. Footage that is overwritten, records that are not pulled, or documentation that is incomplete before litigation begins becomes a gap that plaintiff attorneys use to establish systemic failures. A gap in the documentation is not neutral evidence. It is used as affirmative evidence of the failure the plaintiff is alleging.

Rapid claims reporting to your insurer matters. The earlier your insurance company is engaged, the earlier their claims investigation team can be deployed. Evidence secured in the first 24 hours is qualitatively different from evidence reconstructed two weeks later. Carriers who report immediately and cooperate fully with their insurer’s investigation are in a materially better claims position than carriers who wait, delay, or attempt to manage the situation independently before involving their insurance company.

The simplest claims strategy, as TrueNorth’s Dan Cook summarized, is not to have the claim in the first place. But when accidents happen — and in trucking, they will — the response protocol determines whether the claim settles reasonably or becomes the kind of nuclear verdict that ends the operation.

The Non-Obvious Coverages Small Carriers Are Missing

Most small carriers are adequately covered for the obvious risks — primary liability, physical damage, cargo. The coverages that produce expensive surprises tend to be the ones that were either never purchased or were minimized at renewal to keep the premium down.

Excess or umbrella liability above your primary limits is the most consequential gap. At a time when the median nuclear verdict is $51 million, a primary liability policy at the FMCSA minimum of $750,000 is not protection — it is a starting point for a conversation that ends in the carrier’s personal assets. Small carriers who are running on minimum limits are making a calculation that a catastrophic accident will not happen to them. They are not wrong about the probability. They are wrong about the consequence if they are.

Cyber liability coverage is becoming relevant for carriers as dispatch and load management move to digital platforms. A carrier whose dispatch system is compromised, whose load data is stolen, or whose bank accounts are accessed through a logistics platform vulnerability has a loss that standard commercial policies do not cover. The freight industry has been specifically targeted by fraud and cyber operations for the past three years, and the exposure is not limited to large carriers with sophisticated IT infrastructure.

Pollution liability for carriers hauling certain cargo categories — agricultural chemicals, industrial materials, fuel — can produce claim exposures that standard cargo policies exclude. Carriers who have not reviewed their exclusions specifically against the freight they are hauling may discover those exclusions at exactly the moment they need coverage most.

Commonly Asked Questions

Q: My CSA scores are not great. What is the fastest way to improve them for my next insurance renewal?

There is no fast way — CSA scores are calculated on a rolling 24-month window, which means old violations continue to count until they age out. What you can do immediately is stop adding new violations. A clean roadside inspection record going forward starts reducing your score as older violations age off. Request a DataQ challenge on any violations you believe were cited incorrectly — successfully challenged violations are removed from your record. And have a direct conversation with your insurance broker about your score trajectory, not just your current score. A carrier who can show their score is improving has more underwriting leverage than one who cannot explain the direction of their record.

Q: Is a dashcam system worth it if my trucks are already insured?

The premium discount available to carriers with documented camera programs in preferred markets currently ranges from 5% to 15% depending on the insurer and the program. On a $60,000 annual insurance spend for say a five-truck fleet, a 10% discount is $6,000 per year. A basic forward and driver-facing camera system for five trucks costs $5,000 to $7,500 installed. The ROI is within 12 months in premium savings alone, before accounting for the claims mitigation value — documented footage that exonerates your driver in a disputed liability claim is worth far more than the camera system cost.

Q: What do I actually say to my broker when I want to push back on a premium increase?

Come with data, not emotion. Pull your loss run for the past five years and calculate your actual loss ratio — what your insurer paid in claims divided by what you paid in premiums. If your loss ratio is below 60%, you are a profitable account for your insurer and have leverage to negotiate. Present your safety program documentation: driver hiring standards, MVR review process, pre-trip inspection records, maintenance records. Present your CSA BASIC scores and their trend. The carriers who get better renewal outcomes are the ones who arrive at the conversation as a prepared business partner, not the ones who arrive shocked by the number and asking for a discount.

The post Your Insurance Renewal Is Going to Be Worse Than Last Year. Here Is Why — and What You Can Actually Do About It. appeared first on FreightWaves.