Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

newsworthy

"Reliance Network" hangs tough in wake of Land Air Express shutdown

Consortium shares assets, pulls from outside to weather temporary closing of its Northeast, New England partner.

The "Reliance Network," a consortium of seven regional less-than-truckload (LTL) carriers knitted together to serve the U.S. and Mexico, held it together for 10 days while its Northeast and New England partner, Land Air Express of New England Ltd., was pulled off the road by the federal government due to safety concerns, a top executive of one of the member carriers said Friday.

In the wake of Williston, Vt.-based Land Air's Dec. 29 shutdown by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), the six remaining network carriers executed a contingency plan to serve the eight states in New York and New England that Land Air would normally manage, according to Geoff Muessig, executive vice president and chief marketing officer at Pitt Ohio Express, a Pittsburgh-based company and Reliance Network partner whose six-state network connects directly with Land Air's and was thus most exposed to the fallout from Land Air's shutdown.


FMCSA lifted Land Air's out-of-service order Friday after the company and regulators negotiated a safety-management plan and the company demonstrated that it had corrected unspecified "deficiencies" in its safety-management system.

Muessig said in an e-mail Friday that by using the network's resources and the assets of out-of-network carriers, Pitt Ohio had recovered and delivered about 96 percent of shipments that had been stranded in the Land Air network. As of week's end, the network had "stabilized" its second-day LTL service to New York State and through New England, Muessig said.

Muessig was unavailable to comment today on the current status of the network's operations in the wake of Land-Air's resumption of service.

The Latest

More Stories

chart of women's portion of transport and storage jobs

Women hold only 12% of transportation and storage jobs worldwide

Women are significantly underrepresented in the global transport sector workforce, comprising only 12% of transportation and storage workers worldwide as they face hurdles such as unfavorable workplace policies and significant gender gaps in operational, technical and leadership roles, a study from the World Bank Group shows.

This underrepresentation limits diverse perspectives in service design and decision-making, negatively affects businesses and undermines economic growth, according to the report, “Addressing Barriers to Women’s Participation in Transport.” The paper—which covers global trends and provides in-depth analysis of the women’s role in the transport sector in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) and Middle East and North Africa (MENA)—was prepared jointly by the World Bank Group, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), the European Investment Bank (EIB), and the International Transport Forum (ITF).

Keep ReadingShow less

Featured

How clever is that chatbot?

Oh, you work in logistics, too? Then you’ve probably met my friends Truedi, Lumi, and Roger.

No, you haven’t swapped business cards with those guys or eaten appetizers together at a trade-show social hour. But the chances are good that you’ve had conversations with them. That’s because they’re the online chatbots “employed” by three companies operating in the supply chain arena—TrueCommerce, Blue Yonder, and Truckstop. And there’s more where they came from. A number of other logistics-focused companies—like ChargePoint, Packsize, FedEx, and Inspectorio—have also jumped in the game.

Keep ReadingShow less
White House in washington DC

Experts: U.S. companies need strategies to pay costs of Trump tariffs

With the hourglass dwindling before steep tariffs threatened by the new Trump Administration will impose new taxes on U.S. companies importing goods from abroad, organizations need to deploy strategies to handle those spiraling costs.

American companies with far-flung supply chains have been hanging for weeks in a “wait-and-see” situation to learn if they will have to pay increased fees to U.S. Customs and Border Enforcement agents for every container they import from certain nations. After paying those levies, companies face the stark choice of either cutting their own profit margins or passing the increased cost on to U.S. consumers in the form of higher prices.

Keep ReadingShow less
phone screen of online grocery order

Houchens Food Group taps eGrowcery for e-com grocery tech

Grocery shoppers at select IGA, Price Less, and Food Giant stores will soon be able to use an upgraded in-store digital commerce experience, since store chain operator Houchens Food Group said it would deploy technology from eGrowcery, provider of a retail food industry white-label digital commerce platform.

Kentucky-based Houchens Food Group, which owns and operates more than 400 grocery, convenience, hardware/DIY, and foodservice locations in 15 states, said the move would empower retailers to rethink how and when to engage their shoppers best.

Keep ReadingShow less
solar panels in a field

J.B. Hunt launches solar farm to power its three HQ buildings

Supply chain solution provider J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. has launched a large-scale solar facility that will generate enough electricity to offset up to 80% of the power used by its three main corporate campus buildings in Lowell, Arkansas.

The 40-acre solar facility in Gentry, Arkansas, includes nearly 18,000 solar panels and 10,000-plus bi-facial solar modules to capture sunlight, which is then converted to electricity and transmitted to a nearby electric grid for Carroll County Electric. The facility will produce approximately 9.3M kWh annually and utilize net metering, which helps transfer surplus power onto the power grid.

Keep ReadingShow less