FreightWaves Classics is sponsored by Old Dominion Freight Line — Helping the World Keep Promises. Learn more here. FreightWaves explores the archives of American Shipper’s nearly 70-year-old collection of shipping and maritime publications to showcase interesting freight stories of long ago. In this week’s edition from the August 1982 issue, we step back in time to when shipping first began to handle paperwork electronically. Electronic paperwork Computerized tariff systems hold the promise of long-term cost savings to users, which can be achieved only if the minimum requirements of the ..read more

By Bart De Muynck The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of FreightWaves or its affiliates. In the ever-evolving landscape of logistics and supply chain management, the often-overlooked yard operations are experiencing a technological transformation that promises to revolutionize efficiency.  Although the yard has received more attention from shippers and 3PLs in the past few years, the yard often is still a black hole in the supply chain with a lack of efficiency and very little automation. In a recent study by McKinsey, di ..read more

Cargo truck wait times at the port of entry in Eagle Pass, Texas, have soared since federal officials announced the temporary partial closure of the border crossing on Nov. 27. U.S. Customs and Border Protection closed the port’s International Bridge I to northbound traffic after diverting customs agents to immigration duty amid a new migrant surge in the area.  Along with the disruption from migrants, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) began safety inspections for all cargo trucks arriving from Mexico in Eagle Pass and Del Rio, Texas. Homero Balderas, general manager for the ci ..read more

ArcBest saw tonnage fall again in November as it continues to use a favorable less-than-truckload capacity backdrop following Yellow’s shutdown to further unwind dynamic pricing initiatives. A Tuesday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission showed tonnage in the company’s asset-based segment, which includes LTL carrier ABF Freight, was off 10% year over year (y/y) in November following a 4% decline in October. The carrier had the benefit of negative comps from a year ago (down 3.9% and 3.3% y/y in October and November 2022, respectively.)   “The company has reduced shipme ..read more

Welcome to Check Call, our corner of the internet for all things 3PL, freight broker and supply chain. Check Call the podcast comes out every Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. EST. Catch up on previous episodes here. If this was forwarded to you, sign up for Check Call the newsletter here. (Gif: Tenor)  Better together is a phrase that didn’t die in the pandemic as BNSF Railway, Grupo México Transportes (GMXT) and J.B. Hunt Services have taken the phrase literally. These three companies are working together to form a U.S.-Mexico seamless operation for automakers and parts suppliers. They claim that ..read more

A November survey of supply chain managers fell back into contraction territory with transportation metrics partly to blame. The Logistics Managers’ Index (LMI) produced a reading of 49.4 during the month, which was 7.1 percentage points worse than October and followed three consecutive months of expansion. The data is compiled in a diffusion index where a reading above 50 indicates expansion while one below 50 signals contraction. The index’s transportation metrics remained uninspiring from a carriers’ perspective during November. Capacity (61.8) increased 5.2 points, utilization (50) fell 1 ..read more

A U.K.-based company said it has created the first shipping label embedded with a tracking device that’s connected to a 5G cellular network, enabling users to print tracking labels at scale from a standard thermal barcode printer. The company, Reelables, was founded in 2018 to develop label-tracking technology for freight forwarders. It has now expanded into the parcel delivery market, a segment where tens of millions of labels are printed each day.  The technology, which is also available to retailers, will allow for shipment tracking without the need for manual intervention to scan bar ..read more

Class 8 truck orders continued to outpace the sluggish freight market with November orders surpassing 40,000 . It was the best month since September 2022 on a seasonally adjusted basis. November preliminary North American Class 8 net orders were 41,700 units, rising by 9,000 units from both October and year-ago November, ACT Research reported. Even accounting for seasonal adjustment, orders surpassed 40,000 for the first time in more than a year. “November [was] the best ‘real’ order month since September 2022,” Kenny Vieth, ACT president and senior analyst, said in a news release. “Since the ..read more

Learn more at SONAR.FreightWaves.com The post Weekly Fuel Report: December 05, 2023 appeared first on FreightWaves ..read more

Less-than-truckload carrier XPO reported shipments were up again in November but that lower shipment weights dragged down tonnage. The Tuesday report showed the year-over-year (y/y) progression in metrics was more muted during November than what was previously reported for October. October shipments were up 6% y/y while November shipments increased 3.8%. A roughly 4% decline in weight per shipment in each month resulted in tons per day in the network up 2.5% in October but down slightly in November. XPO (NYSE: XPO) does have a tougher comparison to the 2022 fourth quarter than most of its oth ..read more