House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) has introduced a draft of an infrastructure plan that would be funded in part by an increase in fuel taxes.
Author Archives: Jeffrey Goh
The Association of American Railroads (AAR) today reported U.S. rail traffic for the week ending July 21, 2018. For this week, total U.S. weekly rail traffic was 553,024 carloads and intermodal units, up 4.9 percent compared with the same week last year. Total carloads for the week ending July 21 were 265,338 carloads, up 3.8 percent compared with the same week in 2017, while U.S. weekly intermodal volume was 287,686 containers and trailers, up 5.9 percent compared to 2017.
The ATA’s advanced seasonally-adjusted (SA) For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index fell 0.4%, to 113 (2015=100) from May to June, following a 0.4% April to May increase.On an annual basis, the SA was up 7.8%, which is ahead of May’s 7.4% annual gain. And on a year-to-date basis, SA is up 7.9%, which tops last year’s 3.8% annual increase for the same period.
The Alliance for Driver Safety & Security, also known as the Trucking Alliance, is calling for all state legislatures to require electronic logging devices in commercial trucks that only operate within their state (intrastate).
In its most recent Recruitment & Retention Survey, Driver iQ found that, by and large, fleets expect to raise truck driver wages and offer more bonuses while turnover continues to increase. In a trucking environment where fleets are increasing driver pay, benefits, and sign-on bonuses, more than a third of fleets have reported that 6-10% of their seats went unfilled. Fleets are desperate to find experienced drivers and nearly 70% of fleets surveyed by Driver iQ said they were offering a sign-on bonus to attract new talent.
US trucking companies are throwing everything but the kitchen sink into efforts to hire and keep truck drivers, the most essential yet often missing element of freight transportation capacity in 2018. Heck, they’d even toss in the kitchen sink — if they could fit one in a Class 8 tractor.
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The number of Americans claiming new unemployment benefits fell last week to the lowest level in nearly five decades. Initial jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs across the U.S., decreased by 8,000 to a seasonally adjusted 207,000 in the week ended July 14, the Labor Department said Thursday. This marks the lowest level for claims since December 1969.
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The U.S. economy sped up in June, according to an index that attempts to forecast the nation’s economic health. The leading economic index rose 0.5% after no gain in May, the Conference Board said Thursday. A measure of current conditions – or how the economy is doing right now – climbed 0.3%.
President Donald Trump said he’s “ready to go” with tariffs on $500 billion of Chinese imports, saying the U.S. has been taken advantage of for too long. The $500 billion figure is about the value of Chinese goods imported into the U.S. last year.
Energy circles are abuzz with talk that U.S. President Donald Trump might tap the nation’s emergency oil stockpile to stabilize pump prices. The tool at his disposal is the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, set up in the aftermath of the Arab oil embargo in the 1970s as a backup in case of subsequent supply shocks. It’s the world’s largest supply of emergency crude, stored in deep and heavily guarded underground salt caverns along the U.S. Gulf Coast. At present, the reserve totals 660 million barrels.