“In the near term, the biofuels market looks like a train wreck. However, in the 10 to 15 year timeframe, the outlook remains very positive.” –Clint Wheelock, managing director, Pike Research
Making biofuels a consistent, reliable source of energy for world transportation needs, yet one that also does not encroach upon the globe’s food supplies, is becoming an even tougher goal; a goal that is, at least in the short haul, increasingly viewed as unattainable.
Yet the jury is still out on whether there is no future in biofuels, be they cellulosic ethanol, renewable diesel, biomass-to-liquids (BTL) or Fischer Tropsch liquids made from feedstocks such as agricultural or municipal solid wastes, grasses, woods, waste paper and algae. According to a new study released today from Hart Energy Consulting, despite a number of key issues such as land use and competition for feedstocks supplies for traditional food and feed uses, global use of biofuels is expected to more than double between now and 2015.
The firm’s global analysis reports that the U.S. is leading that expansion in biofuel use, with a growth of total biofuels use of more than 35%. Brazil will grow domestic supplies by 30% and more than double export volume. Indonesia and Malaysia will more than double production of palm oil biodiesel, while Germany will remain the largest producer of biofuels in Europe, Hart noted in its report.
Yet despite major public policy interest in next-generation biofuels, actual commercial growth in the production and use of these fuels between 2009 and 2015 is projected to remain behind expectations, according to Hart. It found that out of the approximately 170 next-generation biofuels projects around the world that are in some stage of development (operational, under construction or proposed), only 30% of those are actually expected to be operating between now and 2015, with most of those only in the pilot project stage.
Moreover, Tammy Klein, executive director of Hart’s Global Biofuels Center and this study’s leader, pointed out that government mandates set that require next generation biofuels will not be met, particularly in the U.S.
“The economics of ethanol and biodiesel are not yet competitive with petro fuels, and governments have pulled back some of their support,” noted Clint Wheelock, managing director at Pike Research, in a similar analysis of the global biofuels market released back in July.
He stated the widespread excitement surrounding biofuels is being tempered somewhat by its many challenges, which include: limited availability of inexpensive feedstocks, ethical questions of food versus fuel, petroleum price volatility, global recession, and overcapacity of production. Yet Pike’s research also determined that, despite those significant challenges, the combined biodiesel and ethanol markets should reach $247 billion in sales by 2020, up from just $76 billion in 2010.
My compatriot Brian Straight noted in his own recent blog post on the subject of biofuels – specifically about bidodiesel – that several major issues need to be addressed: geographic depth, strong institutional funding and vertical integration along the supply chain, with “government support essential” for both U.S. and European suppliers.
Pike’s research indicates three key waves of next generation biodiesel development over the next several years. First, fuels based on waste greases will hit the market in 2010. Jatropha-based fuels will begin having a significant impact on the market in 2014. Then the third big wave hits: algae-based biodiesel, which will achieve commercial availability in 2012 and will have a deeper effect on the market beginning in 2016.
It’s a given, however, that much about the future of biofuels remains uncertain – especially when placed in the context of competition over arable land with food and feedstock. Figuring out the answer to that huge problem is what will truly unlock the potential of biofuels down the road.
“This service is another way we’re constantly pushing the envelope for our customers to help them succeed in an increasingly competitive marketplace.” –Lisa Lynn, director, UPS new product development
In recent weeks, I’ve been hearing a lot about how the “niche” is becoming a more and more critical piece of trucking’s future, for both large and small carriers alike. By that I mean that many truckers are looking at ways – or being encouraged to look at ways – to develop more customized freight services to reach specific freight market segments.
That, in the opinion of several noted industry experts, is what’s going to allow fleets not only to survive but thrive in a freight world vastly remade by the ongoing global economic downturn.
“The dynamic forces affecting this [trucking] market must be accepted – they are things we cannot change. So carriers must find a way to live with them or take advantage of them,” noted Duff Swain, president of consulting firm Trincon Group and a veteran observer of this industry. “This means the big carriers are going to get bigger and fewer, while the smaller carriers need to get smarter and more niche-driven.”
Swain (at right) has long contended that change is essential for truckers. “Some companies learned the lesson early and invested time and money in people and processes which allowed them to identify their markets, utilize technology as a management tool, develop talented management teams, demand greater accountability, and use appropriate strategies to control their markets,” he explained during a presentation at TMW System’s 2009 TransForum user conferences.
“They have learned to operate a capital-intensive business using talented managers and good information management,” Swain noted. “This process has helped them learn how to market themselves where they are most effective – and their actions have allowed them to control the market and competitors have been forced to respond to their moves. We can learn from their example.”
Mark Winkler, vice president of strategic planning & business for Bridgestone Bandag, echoed the same message, noting that both tires produced by his industry and trucking freight services are in danger of becoming commodities – that, at the end of the day, price has become the determining factor of which a tire or transportation service is purchased.
The reason is simple in trucking’s case, said Winkler (at left), as everyone meets the same basic set of standards: tracking and tracing freight, meeting on-time delivery metrics, etc. The key going forward, he stressed, is how to bring unique offerings to the commodity that is trucking. This approach calls for a “zone of segment focus” instead of the more typical “zone of customer focus” used by the industry today – and thus a greater focus on developing niche-driven services.
“A ‘zone of customer focus’ is a generic strategy, if you will– you develop products and services to meet the common needs of your entire customer base,” Winkler explained. “With a ‘zone of segment focus,’ however, you are meeting needs of specific segments with products and services that may be incompatible and irrelevant across the segments. Developing specific solutions this way can help carriers, especially smaller ones, build more profit.”
United Parcel Service is demonstrating how such a niche-driven strategy can be put into play in the freight world, as it is piloting a new service called “UPS Direct to Door” that delivers product samples to residential locations. UPS is initially testing this unusual marketing service in five cities – Chicago, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Miami, Phoenix and Washington, D.C.
It’s a smart niche offering because its taps into UPS’s established freight network to provide something new and different without adding much extra cost to Big Brown – up to 12 product samples are packaged in a custom-designed UPS Direct to Door Pak and delivered to residents that are ALREADY receiving a small shipment that day.
Casey Chroust, executive vice president of retail operations for the Retail Industry Leaders Association, summed up the benefit of UPS’s service pretty succinctly: “Retail marketers are looking for ways to make their messages stand out. UPS Direct to Door serves as a very unique and targeted marketing approach because messages are personally delivered to the door, which makes the delivery special.”
“As marketing channels evolve and consumer choices increase, we need new touch points to connect with customers,” added Pat Connolly, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Williams Sonoma. “With a UPS Direct to Door delivery, we’re reaching an active consumer – an important factor for increased response rates.”
And that added business – small to be sure for a while – is going to help UPS stand out from its competitors, demonstrating it can do new and different things with its current delivery network. That should help their bottom line and keep their capital-intensive assets busy, without adding a lot of additional costs. It’s this kind of smart, niche-driven thinking truckers on a larger scale need to tap into.
“We must act now to stop distracted driving from becoming a deadly epidemic on our nation’s roadways. This Summit will give safety leaders from across the nation a forum to identify, target and tackle the fundamental elements of this problem.” –U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood
This week, a two-day government-sponsored summit will gather safety experts, researchers, elected officials, and (of course) a variety of interest groups in our nation’s capital to focus on the growing roadway safety issue of distracted driving.
This summit meeting has been in the works for a while now, and it’s going to feature five panels – on data, research, technology, policy, and outreach – with a range of experts discussing each topic.
And these aren’t lightweights, I stress. For example, to “set the stage” for the summit, as it were, an overview of the problem of distracted driving will be guided by Victor Mendez, administrator for the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), this Wednesday with insight from: Dr. John D. Lee, professor, department of industrial and systems engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; Bruce Magladry, director, office of highway safety for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB); Kristin Backstrom, senior manager, AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety; and John Inglish, general manager, Utah Transit Authority.
Rose McMurray (at right), acting deputy administrator for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is leading a panel on determining how risky distracted driving really is, with insight offered by: Dr. Tom Dingus, director of the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute; Dr. William Horrey, with insurance giant Liberty Mutual’s Research Institute for Safety; and Dr. Key Dismukes, chief scientist-human systems integration division with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (that would be NASA – and you though there were no ties between trucking and the space program!)
Dr. David Eby, research associate professor and head of social and behavioral analysis for the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, along with Rod MacKenzie, chief technology officer and vice president of programs with the Intelligent Transportation Society of America, are two of the luminaries that will discuss the distractions caused by technology, the efforts needed to assess and reduce the negative impact of distractions caused by current and planned devices, plus technologies that can prevent the consequences of distraction.
On Thursday this week, the legislative, regulatory, and law enforcement approaches to address distracted driving get a good going-over. Peter Rogoff, administrator for the Federal Transit Administration, leads a panel comprised of: John D’Amico, representative of the Illinois General Assembly; Bruce Starr, a state senator from Oregon; State representative Steve Farley from Arizona; Major David Salmon, director-traffic services division, New York State Police; and Vernon Betkey, chairman Governors Highway Safety Association and director, Maryland Highway Safety Office.
Probably one of the more interesting panels closes this two-day summit; a panel that not only reviews ongoing initiatives to increase public awareness of safety issues such as distracted driving, but also reviews research regarding the effectiveness of such efforts. Ron Medford, acting deputy administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), will lead this panel discussion, joined by: Chuck Hurley (at left), executive director and CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD); Janet Froetscher, president and CEO of the National Safety Council; and Dr. Adrian Lund, president, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
They’ll also be joined by two unusual guests: Sandy Spavone, executive director of the National Organizations for Youth Safety and Ann Shoket, (at right) Editor-in-Chief, Seventeen Magazine – yes, THATSeventeen magazine. No doubt that Shoket will be able to tell the assembled experts whether any of their concerns about distracted driving are making any impact on younger drivers, especially teenagers. It’ll be interesting to hear what she says.
Even as this two-day event gets underway this week, efforts are being ramped up to legislatively attack many of the behaviors that lead to distracted driving.
For example, AAA and its safety advocacy arm AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety are launching a broad national effort to pass laws banning text messaging by drivers in all 50 states by 2013 – something that we’ll hear more about, no doubt, as the groups are participating in this week’s summit.
AAA pointed to a study by one of its state members, the Auto Club of Southern California, that analyzed a texting while driving ban implemented in the Golden State back in January – a ban that appears to be reducing texting by drivers.
Prior to the California texting while driving ban, researchers observed 1.4% of drivers at any point in time in Orange County, CA, were texting while driving, said AAA. Following the law taking effect, just 0.4% of drivers were observed texting—a decline of about 70% overall. This indicates that banning texting while driving can potentially change driving behavior of motorists, reduce dangerous distracted driving, and improve safety, AAA noted.
The problem though, is widespread, according to the AAA Foundation’s research. It shows that approximately one in five U.S. drivers admit to texting while driving at least once in the last 30 days. That is why AAA said it is advocating for laws that make it illegal for drivers of all ages to send, write, or read a text message or e-mail while their vehicle is in motion.
Currently, 18 states and the District of Columbia have laws that address text messaging by all drivers. Two more states have laws that prohibit teens or other new drivers from texting while driving – yet laws differ across the states and some have significant shortcomings, according to Tom Frymark, AAA regional president.
“New technologies that help us multitask in our everyday lives and increasingly popular social media sites present a hard-to-resist challenge to the typically safe driver,” Frymark said. “AAA will lobby nationwide to pass laws in states that lack them and improve existing laws against texting while driving. We’ll also continue our work through public education, driver training, and other safety programs to discourage motorists from engaging in the broad range of other distractions that tempt them while behind the wheel.”
Needless to say, it’ll be interesting to see how all of this comes together at this week’s big summit on distracted driving – and more importantly, how its findings may drive the creation of new laws and regulations across the nation in the months ahead.
“Remember this: you’ve got to take care of your people, but don’t forget to also take care of your sheepdogs.” –Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honore (Ret.), from a recent speech on Leadership and Preparedness in the 21st Century.
It may seem a bit odd, this reference to “sheepdogs” by retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who won a plethora of plaudits for commanding Task Force Katrina back in 2005, but bear with me here.
I had the great privilege to hear the General speak at TMW System’s 2009 TransForum user conference this week and let me tell you, his rousing speech really drove home what the concepts of leadership and responsibility are all about – and he used that “sheepdog” analogy near the end of his talk to illustrate the value of personnel who perform tough and often times thankless tasks.
“The sheep often forget why there are sheepdogs; all they see is an animal barking at them, driving them this way and that,” Honore said. “They see how the master takes care of the sheepdog. How it sleeps in the house apart from them. They produce the wool that makes the money, the sheep often think – we do all the work. Why is the sheepdog treated differently?”
The reason, the General stressed, is that the sheepdog is there for when the wolves come – wolves that, in the context of his analogy, kill indiscriminately … and often kill “just for the hell of it.”
“Even though the sheep may often despise the sheepdog, it is the sheepdog that takes care of them; that drives off the wolves,” Honore said. “And remember this: compared to wolves, the sheepdog is often underweight and smaller. Yet it goes out to defend the flock. Sometimes, the sheepdog comes back missing an ear or with other injuries; sometimes, the sheepdog does not come back at all. But it goes out to defend the flock nonetheless, despite the danger.”
Taking danger head on, despite the risks, is something General Honore knows a lot about. A native of Louisiana of what he calls French-American Indian-Spanish heritage, Honore spent 37 years in the U.S. Army in a wide variety of posts: commanding the 2nd Infantry Division in Korea; vice director of operations J-3 for the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington D.C.; assistant commandant at the Army’s Infantry School in Ft. Benning, GA; and assistant division commander of the 1st Cavalry Division out of Ft. Hood, TX.
Honore is famous for his service in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, taking over recovery efforts for New Orleans and the rest of his native state with a firm yet fair hand and earning the title “John Wayne Dude” from the city’s mayor, Ray Nagin. “He came off the doggone chopper, and he started cussing and people started moving. And he’s getting some stuff done,” Nagin said at the time.
Yet the General did not dwell much on what he did during those long, weary days in the stifling heat of late August 2005. Rather, he stressed that there were valuable lessons to be learned from that terrible catastrophe – ones that all Americans should heed. It’s at the heart of what he calls “creating a culture of preparedness” so both citizens and businesses can survive and recover from the impact of any sort of disaster.
[Here’s a taste of what the General is like, both from his days on the ground after Katrina and as a speaker, sharing his thoughts on leadership and preparedness with Coca-Cola executives and managers.]
“Leadership means being prepared – and you truckers know something about that. You delivered the supplies to help us recover from Katrina,” Honore said at TMW’s conference. “But I ask you: how many of you have three days supply of non-perishable food and water in your house right now? How many of you have an emergency evacuation plan for your families? Many people think something like Hurricane Katrina can’t happen to them. Let me tell you – it can happen. Look at Atlanta this week, suffering from flash floods. It can happen and routinely happens, all over this country.”
The General boils that all down into a phrase he made famous in a press conference during Hurricane Rita recovery efforts: “Don’t get stuck on stupid.” He pointed out, for example, that a major high school and hospital in New Orleans had big backup generators on hand should the city lose power in the event of a natural disaster. But guess what: those generators were, in each case, located in the basement of the buildings – and thus were destroyed by flood waters.
“Let me tell you this: when we lose electricity, we go back to the way we used to live 80 years ago – instantly,” Honore stressed. “I know this stuff is pretty dull, but it’s important for Americans and American business to get and remain prepared.”
This notion of being prepared in order to face down heavy odds should be nothing new to Americans, the General pointed out. His favorite example of this “can do” spirit is none other than George Washington, the nation’s first president and commanding general.
“Go back to a cold Christmas night December in 1776,” Honore said. “Our army back then sat freezing in the snow, 90% of it sick or AWOL [away without leave]. Most didn’t have shoes and much of their ammunition didn’t work. What did they have to look forward to? There were no Veterans hospitals; social security didn’t exist. And they were facing the British army; the most powerful army in the world at that time.”
So what did General Washington do, faced with this sad state of affairs, asked Honore? Washington attacked – his troops crossing the ice-choked Delaware at night in boats confiscated from nearby fishermen, marching through the darkness in frigid temperatures, and then hitting Trenton, NJ, at dawn, killing or capturing over 900 Hessian mercenaries fighting in the British army.
“Remember that: they attacked and the kept the Revolution alive, right at the edge when it flickered and almost went out for good,” Honore stressed. “We must not forget their sacrifices and what they did so we can enjoy our freedoms today. Sure, there’s a downturn right now and we might have to make sacrifices to get through it – but we’ll be better for it in the end. Our obligation is to leave our country free and strong, in memory to those who volunteered to fight for freedom back then – many who weren’t free, being indentured servants and slaves.”
Honore said fighting for freedom, be it on the battlefield or in business, is a critical part of America’s heritage, for while to be born free is an accident and to live free is a privilege, to die free is a responsibility.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your world – and your world will be more volatile in the next 20 to 30 years than it was in the previous 20 to 30 years,” the General said – and that is being proved more so every minute; just look at today’s announcement that Iran has a second plant developed to uranium enrichment, this one located near one of its military bases. As the specter of nuclear weapons in the oil patch again raises its ugly head, it brings home how critical true leadership skills are going to be in dealing with this ongoing crisis.
“That’s why leadership revolves around three things: seeing first, understanding first, and then acting first. There’s a value in being first, in recognizing and then acting on danger,” Honore said. “Leadership is about innovation and ingenuity; it’s about being prepared not just to help yourself but to help others. How you survive a disaster, whatever it may be, directly relates to what you do before it strikes. Because if you wait for things to break before fixing them, they will break at the worst time.”
Valuable lessons indeed, from a veteran sheepdog that helped keep the wolves at bay for a long, long time.
“The past 12 months have posed unprecedented challenges for logistics providers around the world … But in that time we have all learned a great deal and made business adjustments that undoubtedly positioned the industry for steady growth and continued success as the economy rebounds.” –Vince Hartnett, president, Penske Logistics
So, yes, OK, I am writing today about yet ANOTHER survey, this one taking the pulse of the global logistics industry (one would think I should be working for the Gallup organization, clipboard in hand and conducting door-to-door polling, the way I carry on about these surveys!)
Whatever you think of survey methodology and whether it accurately reflects what’s occurring in the transportation and logistics markets right now, these reports t the very least open a window of sorts into what the top executives of the companies being polled are thinking. Are they pessimistic? Or optimistic? And, most importantly, what changes do they believe are occurring right now that could alter the business environment for their respective companies in the months ahead?
One of the more interesting trends that surfaced in the 16th annual 3PL Provider CEO Perspective survey is that supply chains are shortening or being relocated altogether – a continued trend towards what’s been called “reverse globalization” that shifts manufacturing activities away from Asia and back to North or Central America or Europe.
[Read that as: traditional factory jobs coming BACK to the U.S. as the complexities and costs of moving raw materials and finished goods throughout a globe-spanning manufacturing footprint become too much in some cases to bear.]
“Many customers of the 3PLs involved in this survey took steps during the past year to shorten their supply chains,” noted survey author Professor Robert Lieb of supply chain management studies at Northeastern University, who conducted his reserach with Penske Logistics’ sponsorship. “The CEOs surveyed in North America and Europe reported that, on average, nearly one-quarter of their clients had taken such steps during the past year. For the APAC [Asia-Pacific] region, the reported average was 9%.”
Lieb noted that 20 of the 35 CEOs that responded to this survey reported that some of their major clients had shifted some of their manufacturing activities from Asia to North or Central America or Eastern Europe. “The scale of that shift is small at this point, but many of the CEOs expect the trend to grow over the next several years as many companies seek to shorten supply chains,” he explained.
Joe Gallick, senior vice president of sales for Penske Logistics, pointed out that during 2009, three separate surveys were conducted to generate this single report: one of the CEOs of large companies serving the North American third party logistics or “3PL” marketplace; another of those serving the European market; and a third of companies serving the Asia-Pacific3PL marketplace.
The 35 companies participating in this survey are big and well-known – including luminaries such as Cardinal Logistics, DHL Exel Supply Chain, Genco Supply Chain Solutions, Kuehne+Nagel Logistics, Landstar, Menlo Logistics, Penske Logistics, Ryder Integrated Logistics, Schneider Logistics, Transplace, UPS Supply Chain Solutions, Caterpillar Logistics Services, and CEVA Logistics, among others. Collectively, they generated in excess of $64 billion in 3PL revenues in those three global markets during 2008 – not too shabby by any stretch of the imagination.
However, this year, 16 of the 35 companies surveyed failed to meet their revenue growth projections during 2008 – nine in North America, six in Europe, one in APAC – though 33 reported they were at least at least moderately profitable during 2008, with only one unprofitable. Not surprisingly, though, the global recession is affecting their revenue growth outlook pretty significantly, with one-year company revenue growth projections at 6.9% in North America for this year (12.6% in 2008), negative 3.3% for Europe (10.8% in 2008) and 12.9% for APAC (21.4% in 2008).
For the industry as a whole, the CEOS are in less sanguine about the outlook, projecting one-year industry revenue growth to average 3.5% for North America (9.0% in 2008), negative 1.4% for Europe (7.3% in 2008) and 10.7% for Asia-Pacific (11.2% in 2008).
Not surprisingly, 33 out of the 35 CEOs indicated that the economic downturn had intensified price compression issues within the industry (what a shocker this factoid is – not!), yet they also recognized battling over pricing had been a long-standing problem within the industry before the global recession began.
More seriously, the impact of the global recession on business relationships in the three regions is none too positive, with CEOs in all three regions reporting about one-quarter of such relationships with clients becoming more adversarial as a result of these tight economic times.
However, in some cases that was at least partially offset by the emergence of more collaborative relationships with other customers. Interestingly, more shippers in the North American region seem to be talking the collaborative approach, with 3PL CEOs reporting such relationships with more than one-third of their customers. European 3PL CEOs, by contrast, reported the same development with approximately 20% of their customers, while and APAC CEOs reported more collaborative relationships with approximately 13% of their clients.
What are the big problems ahead, according to 3PL CEOs? For those in North America, they include dealing with the ongoing economic recession and its related impact on volume, price compression, and the loss of talent tied to layoffs and hiring freezes. European CEOs focused on problems related to volume fluctuations, price compression and the financial instability of some important customers. The problems identified by the CEOs in the APAC survey included an ongoing lack of management talent in the region, the region’s “weak” infrastructure, cost pressures, and problems with government bureaucracy and corruption.
Distilling all of this information down, Northeastern’s Lieb formed a 10-point “outlook” of major trends and issues that’ll affect the global market going forward:
1. Slow recovery of 3PL business, particularly in Europe
2. In many cases adversarial clients are likely to become ex-clients
3. Stronger relationships to emerge with many key 3PL customers
4. More emphasis on “quality” customers and solid verticals
5. Less aggressive posture on mergers and acquisitions
6. Slower pace of geographic expansion
7. More emphasis placed by large 3PLs on alliances with other 3PLs, carriers and middlemen
8. Failures among small/medium size 3PLs in all regions
9. Chronic management shortage lessened due to provider and user layoffs
10. Sustainability issues to receive greater attention, particularly in the APAC region
Yet despite those many negatives, Lieb reported that there’s a lot of positive thought flowing out there in the logistics community – especially as it relates to forming more collaborative (and thus hopefully more fiscally-equal) partnerships – and that could bode well for domestic truckers.
“Despite bearish growth projections and acknowledgement that consolidation, pricing pressures and operational reductions were, and may continue to be, necessary adjustments, the opportunities for improved collaboration with customers, expansion into emerging markets and the possible addition of new management talent have many excited about the next several years,” Lieb said.
“Customers are telling us they think we’ve stopped going backwards, that they are starting to see things picking up. That is why now is the time for trucking to re-tool its technology.” –David Wangler, president and CEO, TMW Systems
If there’s anything good to be said about down times like these, it’s that they offer fleets a chance to re-evaluate their position in the trucking industry and (hopefully) embark on changes and shifts in strategy in order to be ready for when business accelerates (though projections are that business won’t accelerate at any pace faster than that over an overloaded and underpowered minivan – and from experience, I can tell you that is mighty slow indeed!)
Technology, of course, is harped on constantly in this industry as a great tool for making such changes, though fleets themselves remain mixed on whether such items as in-cab computers, portable truck-specific navigation devices, and trailer-tracking systems offer the opportunity to make the positive changes that result in more profitable business from shippers.
One thing is for certain, though: the technology being brought to the fore in the world of trucking today is pretty slick and may indeed offer some opportunities for fleets, large and small alike, to make some significant shifts in their business models. I got a peek at a lot of these new and improved technologies at TMW Systems 2009 TransForum user conference this week in Nashville, TN, so I’d like to show them to you so you can decide whether they can make a difference in your operation or not.
First up is PeopleNet’s new BLU in-cab communication and computing device. It’s not cheap, costing just over $700 per unit compared to the $200 price tag of its current LCD text-based unit, but it offers the opportunity to bring a lot more capability and functionality into the truck cab for drivers and fleets alike. I’ll let them tell you about these systems so you can decide for yourself if they offer value for your operation now or down the road:
Map maker Rand McNally is also going electronic with a truck-specific navigation device of its own, dubbed the IntelliRoute TND 500. This is noteworthy because, unlike the GPS navigation devices that are proliferating on retailer store shelves, this system produces TRUCK-SPECIFIC routes, so you don’t get stuck under a low bridge or sent on a road forbidden to tractor-trailers.
I talked to one fleet manager at the show that when he sees a driver with an off-the-shelf GPS unit in his cab, he rips it out immediately because they send trucks on roads only cars can travel – resulting in all sorts of costly problems. Rand McNally’s unit ain’t cheap – it costs $499 retail, with discounts starting when you buy three or more units – but it’s worth a look:
Finally, there’s trailer tracking via satellite based systems. Now, wihile this surely isn’t new technology – many fleets are already long time users – it’s being updated with a variety of new features, such as cargo sensors and the inclusion of satellite maps for greater detail within the software. It’s pretty neat stuff, so here is SkyBitz to give you a walk through:
Finally, there’s a new upgrade to the Fuelmaster fuel management package developed by Syn-Tech Systems that uses radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to make refueling easier, faster, and more secure for fleets and drivers alike.
While I’m sure it doesn’t work perfectly all of the time, the use of RFID in this manner really offers fleets a chance to not only control refueling operations better — at least those coming back to a central location every day/night — but get more accurate and timely data from their vehicles as well, with little extra effort on the part of personnel.
Like I said earlier, all of this stuff may offer new opportunities for carriers out there to become more efficient and/or drum up new business – or might not. It’s really up to you to see if technological advances, like what’s shown above, fills a void, opens a door to potential new business, or offers the chance at greater efficiencies. One thing is for sure – more stuff like this is coming to market. It just remains to be seen how truckers can put it to good, profitable use.
“A tremendous amount of change has taken place in our world and it‘s not clear that all of the turmoil is behind us. You have to wonder how long these conditions will last, and what our economy and businesses might look like when the storm clouds finally pass.” – David Wangler, president and CEO, TMW Systems
It’s been a topsy-turvy world of late for truckers large and small; of that, I am sure no one out there has any doubts. The question that needs answering now is: what will trucking’s future from here on out be like? More importantly, can truckers survive in it?
David Wangler, president and CEO of TMW Systems, tried to answer this and other questions about the future of trucking in his keynote address at his company’s 2009 TransForum user conference being held this week down here in Nashville, TN. He drew several interesting conclusions from the current freight environment and what it portends for the future – some of which you may agree with, and some you may reject.
What’s important, though, is that Wangler believes trucking must undergo a major transition – moving away from past practices to develop new ones that emphasize, in part, surviving on limited growth in freight volumes for the foreseeable future. That formed the heart of the “sustainability” theme in his presentation – with “sustainability” focused not so much relating to “green” environmental programs, but more so on how to help trucking businesses survive over the near and long term.
“While environmental issues are obviously important to our long-term health and well-being, I think most of us are also concerned about the sustainability of our businesses in a turbulent domestic and global economy,” Wangler said. “The question is; will we be able to sustain, not only our livelihoods, but our standard of living and our expectations for the future? Will we be able to pass along our vision of endless possibilities to our children and our successors?”
He posits the most popular definition of “sustainability” comes from a 1987 United Nations conference, where the participants defined “sustainable developments” as those that “meet present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.”
Sounds simple enough, but since 1987 a tremendous amount of debate has occurred at the federal, state and local levels as well as across academia on what it means to create a sustainable society, Wangler stressed.
“The direct tie back to the business community is the increasingly popular notion of a ‘triple bottom line’ that concurrently increases profits, improves the planet and improving the lives of people,” he explained. “But what does that definition of ‘sustainability’ really mean for a logistics business, or a trucking company, a ready-mix manufacturer or a maintenance and repair operation? “
When it comes then to the question of business sustainability, Wangler believes three questions need to be asked and answered:
1. Are there really only two choices for our businesses: Grow or Die?
2. Is it true that numbers don‘t lie? Or can we misinterpret them to the same effect?
3. If we continue to do things the same way, are we really crazy to expect different results?
“If we accept that all ecosystems have a ‘carrying capacity’ in terms of population growth, energy consumption, etc., and if we consider industries are also ‘ecosystems,’ then in terms of business sustainability, what does ‘carrying capacity mean?” asked Wangler.
In the case of the freight industry, he said, the business “ecosystem” consists of freight to be shipped, trucks and trailers, fuel, drivers and the roadways that carry them. “It certainly seemed that 2 or 3 years ago we were running out of drivers and space on our highway system,” Wangler noted. “But with the dramatic economic downturn of the past year, we now find ourselves without enough freight to challenge either of those constraints. “
He pointed to the American Trucking Associations (ATA) monthly freight index as a way to track the rise and fall of trucking’s fortunes over the last nine years. ATA‘s index took year 2000 freight volume as a baseline and assigned that year a value of 100 – thus, a value of 115 would indicate a 15% increase in freight volumes.
In the beginning of 2003, the index was around 104. By 2006, just three years later, it was 115, and then it stayed between 112 and 115 until the fall of 2008. A sharp decline then began in October of 2008 and continued into 2009, driving the index all the way back down below 100 in March of this year. “If you were to graph the index, it resembles the same frown that many people have been wearing since last March,” Wangler noted.
He also pointed to a report from analyst Stifel Nicolas last month for potential investors in truckload and intermodal stocks that put the trends we‘ve been seeing over the past few years into a broader context.
Starting with de-regulation in 1980, truckload and intermodal businesses have shown fairly consistent year-over-year growth, fueled by the consumer‘s seemingly boundless appetite to build houses and acquire goods, lots of available credit and the emergence of big-box retailers.
Retail chains like Lowe‘s, Best Buy, Target, and Wal-Mart developed a logistics-based supply chain delivering products primarily manufactured in Asia. This helped to keep prices low, further stretching our buying power, said Wangler.
“And so it seemed as if this increasing consumption might continue indefinitely, immune from economic contraction, even though the industrial sector of our economy went through several slowdowns and continued shrinkage,” he said. Of course, what happened instead is that the bottom fell out of everyone’s house of cards.
So what does our business “carrying capacity” look like today? “Consumer buying, which makes up about two-thirds of the U.S. economy, has slowed dramatically on the heels of higher unemployment. People are saving more. They no longer feel comfortable spending so much of their disposable income,” Wangler said. “Their houses are now more like places to live in, rather than 30 year certificates of deposit with 15% interest rates. Many of us are also concerned about massive increases in government spending and the accompanying deficits which may devalue our currencies. “
In the end, it’s hard to imagine a “V” shaped recovery right back to “the good old days” when credit markets, housing markets, and even the automotive markets were hitting on all cylinders. Instead, manufacturers and retailers are still cutting back on inventories, trying to catch up with lower demand. Shippers continue to re-engineer their supply chains, decreasing lengths of haul and removing complexity and cost.
“In basic terms, the amount of freight moving across North America‘s roadways is much less than it was just 12 months ago,” Wangler said. “The ‘carrying capacity’ of our economy for profitable freight movement has fallen dramatically, and as an industry, we have no power to reverse it – we can only seek to adapt.”
This is where the “transition” for truckers needs to occur, he explained. “In order to sustain our businesses in this new environment, we‘ll have to become more cost-effective, more nimble, and more competitive to make a profit moving the freight that is available. Growth may no longer mean doing more of the same things that we did before, it‘s more likely to mean reconfiguring our businesses to do new things in new ways.”
Wangler believes the term “right-sizing” may have new relevance for the strategic thinking of truckers these days – and for one, he does not believe that if you can‘t make companies bigger, they‘re on a path to extinction.
He pointed to the revitalization of Youngstown, Ohio, as an example – an American steel town that with a population of 168,000 in the 1950s that seemed destined to grow forever, with city leaders back then envisioning the city being home to a quarter of a million people by the end of the century. Instead, by the 1980s, the steel industry had gone into a tailspin. Today, only a single, large steel mill is left and the city’s population is half of what it was in 1950.
[You can watch this part of Wangler’s speech below — I apologize for the poor audio quality; CNN I am not!]
While most of the mills have been torn down, the city has thousands of empty buildings and it still has 535 miles of roads that need to be maintained and kept free of snow and ice all winter. Like other Midwestern cities in similar straits, Youngstown tried to find some big employers to replace steel, such as prisons (both private and public), while also re-developing some of the former steel-mill sites into industrial parks. Yet none of those efforts ended up replacing jobs that vanished along with the steel industry.
Then in 2005, Youngstown elected Jay Williams, a former city planner, to be their mayor. He addressed the city’s problems with a radically simple concept –if the city removed its unused buildings and large chunks of un-needed infrastructure, it could then focus on improving its services and better align its expenses with tax revenues.
By reducing its obsolete infrastructure, the city could position itself for a much more sustainable future, one that might include a new era of growth, but not one that desperately needed growth to ensure its survival.
“Youngstown‘s approach to a future without foreseeable population growth is controversial,” said Wangler. “Accepting that a city is going to shrink, and even planning to help it shrink seems like a rejection of the American idea of progress, where a bigger city means more jobs, more tax revenues, better education, and better services.”
Yet he stressed that the “carrying capacity” of a city, or its ability to sustain its residents, is ultimately determined by its tax base, with the infrastructure needs of businesses and residents have to be balanced against available tax revenues.
“For decades, professors of urban planning have taught that the inability to grow a city‘s population is a terminal condition; all city planning strategies must revolve around growth, and city leadership should focus on stimulating that growth,” Wangler explained. “So is Youngstown just preparing for its extinction, or is it emphasizing quality over quantity? Well it‘s early in the new ballgame, but … it’s choosing an improved quality of life for its citizens by seeking creative alternatives to conventional growth.”
This idea of shrinking instead of growing in order to be more profitable is something that must wend its way into trucking, Wangler believes. “Typically, [trucking] companies thrived for years by putting as many trucks on the road as possible and working to keep every truck on the road every day,” he said. “Unfortunately, declining freight volumes meant that more and more of those road miles were empty and unpaid miles.”
In recent work with several carriers, Wangler said TMW found that by eliminating just 3% of the least profitable loads from their freight network, the re-assigning the right resources to the remaining freight movements, they increased revenue per mile and overall margins, moving less freight and running fewer trucks. Most importantly, the total profit increased by 5% in real dollars.
“Doing less work could actually make more money,” he said. “They focused on the more profitable loads out of current business and parked trucks that became idle when they dropped their least profitable freight. Though they were generating less revenue, they began making more profit – a crucial step in helping them re-structure their business operations for a more sustainable future.”
Freight, by its very nature, exists in a codependent environment, Wangler said, with the delivery of one load creating open capacity to accept another. “Good trucking operations try to minimize the empty miles and the time between these subsequent loads, but geography and freight density conspire against this,” he said. “So the true picture of profitability has to consider truck movements before and after any individual load.”
And Wangler pointed out that there are still quite a few motor carriers whose strategy in the face of falling rates and increased competition seems to be “wait and hope” … “wait” for a capacity correction to let them increase rates and start making money again, and “hope” that they can keep the doors open and the lights on until then.
“But passively waiting for the up portion of an economic cycle is truly not a way to sustain your business,” he said. “As a wise man once said, ‘hope is not a strategy.’”
“The global economic downturn has impacted every aspect of business operations, and [the] supply chain is no exception. During the past year companies have turned to their supply chains to cut costs and grow revenues. To a large degree, the supply chain has delivered, helping companies get through some tough times.” –Chuck Poirier, partner, CSC’s global business solutions and services group
It should come as no surprise to anyone in trucking – much less the world of logistics at large – that companies are starting to view their supply chains less as “necessary evils” and more as cost-control and revenue-generating tools. Consistent, dependable, efficient, reliable – use whatever descriptive you like; if the supply chain does it, a business thrives. It’s just a wonder it’s taken so long for so many in the business world to realize this (which has allowed Wal Mart to keep eating everyone’s lunch).
“We see this trend as evidence of the fact that supply chain is finally becoming entrenched as a company-wide improvement effort,” he said. “Leaders are implementing strategic supply chain efforts to transform business processes to achieve near-optimum operating conditions. At the same time, most firms identified as followers and laggards have not reached the limit of what can be done to enhance financial performance with their supply chains.”
Poirier said this survey, completed by supply chain executives representing more than 20 industries and every major geographical segment of the world, shows the extent to which the economy has impacted the supply management function. Respondents cited an immediate need to cut costs as the top economic pressure on their supply chain, with an overwhelming 88% of respondents have set objectives for purchasing to generate cost savings in the next 12 months.
The study also found 33% of respondents indicate they leveraged supply chain initiatives to reduce costs between 1% and 5% in the last three years, with 27% realizing even higher cost reductions, ranging from6% to 10%. “However, the most significant improvement over 2008 was in the number of respondents who reported no impact – or did not know the impact – of supply chain initiatives on costs,” Poirier said. “That number dropped significantly, from 22% in 2008 to 13% in this year’s survey.”
What does this mean for truckers? Well, a combination of things for starters. I think on the one hand it indicates a lot of shippers are again going to look at squeezing freight rates down as far as they can go. Yet I also think the data indicates the more enlightened firms are probably going to stop focusing solely on the price tag for logistics services and start looking longer term at things like value, consistency, and cargo integrity.
Here’s why I think this: Poirier explained that while a majority of respondents indicate they are already using their supply chain to trim logistics costs, source more strategically and generate additional savings by leveraging the purchasing function, others went step further – accelerating revenue generation by integrating the supply chain organization with key internal groups such as finance, IT and product development.
“The leaders, in short, understand the central role supply chain management can play in the company’s business success and are playing that role to the fullest,” he said.
Poirier also pointed out that while North American firms are more likely to have a supply chain management or “SCM” organization, the ones developed by European firms are more mature, with CEOs more likely to be involved in running them (over 50% compared to 30% in North America).
“It’s an old story, but most firms are simply too slow to recognize the values that can be added from a consistent focus on supply chain under the direction of professional and involved management,” he noted. “That’s a lesson the leaders wrapped up years ago.”
But it seems to be a lesson more businesses are taking to heart now – lessons that hopefully will offer opportunities for truckers in the months and years ahead to become more respected parts of global supply chains.
“As we advocate a new strategy on exports and challenge the new isolationism, we must also make it clear that much more than trade is at stake. At stake is America’s leadership in the world-our geopolitical relationships and our national security.” –Thomas J. Donohue, president and CEO, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
It’s no secret that trade and trucking are inextricably linked; you simply cannot have one without the other. For commerce to occur, it needs some form of transportation to move goods bought and sold, imported and exported, from manufacturer to distributor to consumer – and trucks provide the lion’s share of that movement in the U.S., handling some 71% of overall tonnage.
The flip side is also true – if there is no commerce, there is almost no need for trucks (outside of the needs of fire and rescue services, military operations, etc.) Trucks were created to serve the engine of commerce, because these machines could do so tirelessly and with greater efficiency, first in comparison with horses, then surpassing even the mighty locomotive with its flexible mobility.
Now, however, trucks and trade are finding themselves pitted against one another on our southern border with Mexico as the fiery debate continues – rising to yet another fever pitch – over whether to allow Mexican trucks to operate on U.S. roads in the name of more efficient commerce. The arguments also involve a wide range of topics – from equipment safety and driver linguistic capability, to the raging battle Mexico is fighting against a whole host of criminal enterprises on its border with the U.S., most them involving drug cartels.
At the end of the day, though, the issue of Mexican trucks is one at its heart grounded in trade and jobs. Would allowing Mexican carriers to operate on U.S. roads result in American job losses? That is the big concern.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce claims such American job losses are occurring now because the border is NOT open to Mexican trucks, as the border closure has resulted in a growing trade war between Mexico and the U.S. This claim is part of a larger battle against what the group feels is a growing trend in “isolationist thinking” in the U.S. on the subject of trade.
“In the eye of this storm, the first instinct is to turn inward and to protect the remaining businesses and jobs,” noted Thomas J. Donohue, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber in a speech this week at the Michigan chamber’s 2009 Future Forum & Annual Meeting. “But that’s an approach that simply won’t work. In a new, more competitive global economy, we need to expand our engagement with the world – not shrink it.”
[You can watch Donohue deliver part of that speech below.]
The study makes several big claims – ones that not everyone agrees with, but are worth thinking about nonetheless.
First, the group said the U.S. could suffer a net loss of more than 380,000 jobs and $40 billion in lost export sales if it fails to implement its pending trade agreements with Colombia and Korea.
Second, “Buy American” rules slipped into the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 – commonly referred to as the “stimulus bill” – would only create a limited number of U.S. jobs, which could quickly evaporate if other countries implement “buy national” policies in their own stimulus programs. If foreign governments lock U.S. companies out of just one percent of this total spending, the net U.S. job loss could surpass 170,000, the U.S. Chamber said.
Finally, the study found that the U.S. failure to implement the Mexican cross-border trucking provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement [NAFTA] has resulted in $2.2 billion in higher costs for goods, $2.6 billion in lost U.S. exports, and more than 25,000 lost jobs for American workers.
“The U.S. has refused to keep its word to Mexico,” said Donohue. “How can we call on other countries to meet their obligations under trade agreements if we refuse to meet our own?”
However, a lot of groups – especially those represent unionized workers in the U.S. – don’t see it that way at all. “The Chamber gets it exactly wrong on several levels,” said James P. Hoffa (at right), general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. “First, it’s NAFTA that cost at least a million U.S. jobs. Second, Mexico imposed tariffs that are manifestly excessive, and that’s a violation of trade rules. It’s outrageous to blame the U.S. government for Mexico’s disregard for U.S. highway safety standards as well as trade agreements.”
The trade dispute with Mexico stems from the cancelling of the nearly two-year old cross-border trucking program established by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration in early March this year via an addendum to appropriations bill by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND).
“None of the funds appropriated may be used, directly or indirectly, to establish, implement, continue, promote, or in any way permit a cross-border motor carrier demonstration program to allow Mexican-domiciled motor carriers to operate beyond the commercial zones along the international border between the United States and Mexico,” the words of his addendum stated.
Yet after President Barack Obama – who, along with Vice President Joe Biden, opposed FMCSA’s Mexican truck program while serving in the Senate – signed the measure, Mexico went on the trade warpath, slapping higher tariffs totaling $2.4 billion on over 90 goods its imported from the U.S. on everything from strawberries to Christmas trees.
“This is not about the safety of American roads and American drivers. This is protectionism,” said Arturo Sarukhan, Mexico’s ambassador to the U.S., in late March.
That got President Obama (at left) backpedaling pretty fast. “With respect to trade, Mexico is one of our largest trading partners,” said the President in a joint appearance with Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon in April.
“The amount of commerce that flows back and forth creates wealth in Mexico and it creates wealth in the U.S. I have said repeatedly that I’m in favor of free trade,” President Obama noted. “I know that there has been some concern about a provision that was placed in our stimulus package related to Mexican trucking. That wasn’t a provision that my administration introduced, and I said at the time that we need to fix this because the last thing we want to do at a time when the global economy is contracting and trade is shrinking is to resort to protectionist measures.”
To date, though, the trade war continues. The U.S. recently slapped retaliatory tariffs on goods from Mexico, estimated to be $427 million. Though U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood laid the groundwork for restating the Mexican truck program in May, nothing has occurred since then, leaving the issue twisting in the breeze.
And it’s exactly this type of “dawdling” on trade issues that, in the words of the U.S. Chamber’s Donohue, the U.S. simply cannot afford to do.
“Today, nearly half of the world economy is centered in the Asia-Pacific region. Fierce new competitors and markets of great opportunity – from China to India to Brazil – are rapidly emerging,” said Doinohue (seen here at right). “These developments are not only reshaping global economics, but they are altering geopolitics. Emerging nations are projecting their commercial influence into other spheres – securing capital and the best human talent, making deals for oil and natural resources, and flexing their economic muscle to advance their strategic interests. “
How is the U>S. responding to the new global race for jobs, markets, influence, and leadership? In Donohue’s view, not well, as the country is not stepping up on the worldwide stage as boldly, as vigorously, or as smartly as we must.
“Our nation faces a fundamental choice,” he said. “In a new global economy, and in the midst of a major economic downturn, do we hunker down and turn inward – or do we act boldly to ensure that America is as preeminent in the 21st century as we were in the 20th century?”
That’s a good question – but it’s one that will not be either easy or simple to answer when it comes to dealing with trade and trucks.
“Who better than a national network of professional van operators to say which truck stop, motor oil, or brand of tire is best? These are the things they live with every day, and the King of the Road survey lets them share their knowledge and experience with the rest of us.” –Glen Dunkerson, chairman and CEO, Atlas World Group
The King of the Road survey is one of the few such reports I look forward to reading every year. Now in its sixth year, this survey – compiled from the responses of 340 long haul drivers, most of the owner-operators, employed by Atlas Van Lines, a division of Atlas World Group – provides both a serious and light-hearted glimpse into the lives of some the hardest working professionals you’ll ever meet.
Not only do these folks spend a lot of time criss-crossing the country (31% of them spending 31 to 40 weeks on the road, with 23% out there over 40 weeks out of a year), they also put a lot of miles on the odometers of their rigs (38% traveling 50,000 to 74,999 miles per year, with 25% clocking 75,000 to nearly 100,000 miles annually) yet must also painstakingly load and unload precious household goods with the utmost care – not necessarily a recipe for a fun work day for most people, I think.
Yet it’s a calling for most of these drivers, with over 43% of those surveyed boasting of 10 or more years working as a “super van operator” (as the call themselves) for just Atlas Van Lines – that’s regardless of past moving company experience.
But life on the road isn’t easy, as any long-haul driver – mover, freight hauler, whomever – will tell you. And the big challenge for most of these drivers boils down to one thing nowadays – staying fit and healthy.
Nearly two-thirds of the respondents to Atlas’ survey said maintaining a healthy lifestyle is the biggest challenge of life on the road, with 56% saying eating right and 24% saying getting enough exercise are their greatest hurdles. Yet many of them report they are doing what they can to stay fit by walking/running at truck stops (37%) and choosing water (71%) and fresh fruit (36%) as their No. 1 drink and snack. They’re also choosing Subway as their top “fast-food” restaurant out on the road now, besting runners-up KFC and Wendy’s by a mile.
These drivers, too, are trying to be “green” where they can in their working lives. Nearly all respondents (94%) said they are trying to do more to protect the environment, including recycling whenever possible (38%), drinking from reusable containers (28%), and using biodiesel fuel (12%). A third of respondents use noted they are using systems designed to reduce engine idling time.
One sad note (of sorts) gleaned from this survey is that days of the CB or “Citizen’s Band” radio may be numbered, with only 50% of drivers using them, replaced (not surprisingly) by cell phones. Nearly all (95%) of Atlas’ respondents said cell phones are their preferred method of communication. In another surprising finding, over a third (36%) of Atlas’ long-haul van operators report they have daily access to a computer, and more than half use a computer once a week or more.
Blackberries and other mobile devices are also gaining popularity on the highways, too, with 14% of van operators said they use these devices, up from 7% a year ago.
Then, of course, come the “fun facts” as I like to call them:
Most scenic highway: I-70 through Colorado/Utah/Kansas/Pennsylvania
Most boring highway: I-10 through California/Arizona/New Mexico/Texas/Louisiana/Alabama/Florida
State with the best rest stops: Florida (20%), followed by Ohio (17%) and Texas (16%)
Favorite hotel chain: Super 8 (36%), with the Days Inn a close second (30%)
Best coffee: Dunkin’ Donuts (43%) with McDonald’s (21%) a VERY distant second
Most effective antacid: Tums (31%) with Rolaids (25%) the runner up
Favorite music: Classic rock from the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s just edges out Country (37% vs. 30%)
Best Class 8 tractor: Kenworth (38%), followed by Freightliner (22%) and Peterbilt (14%)
Favorite motor oil: Shell Rotella (40%), followed by Mobil Delvac (31%) and Chevron Delo (16%)
Best tires: Bridgestone (36%) followed by Michelin (32%) and Goodyear (19%)
Favorite truck stop chain: Petro (44%), with Flying J (24%) a distant second
Trucks at Work: Sean Kilcarr comments on trends affecting the many different strata of the trucking industry -- light and medium duty fleets up through over-the-road truckload, less-than-truckload, and private fleet operations
