Instructional Technologies Inc. (ITI) announced it is offering free cargo securement training focused on open deck transportation companies in advance of the annual Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance's (CVSA) International Roadcheck June 6-8.
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...Read the rest of this storyNew ground freight-sharing platform Doft (Do Freight Transportation) has welcomed Pat Hull, the CEO and founder of Getloaded.com, as an advisor to the company.
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...Read the rest of this storyVelociti is in the final stages of construction on an expansion project that will double the size of its Riverside, MO, headquarters facility. The additional 33,000-sq.-ft. will not only accommodate Velociti's growing team, but will house an expanded warehouse for inventory management, staging and configuration; a fitness center and a cafeteria.
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...Read the rest of this storyRoadrunner Transportation Systems announced that Terence R. Rogers has joined the company as executive vice president and chief financial officer.
Prior to joining Roadrunner, Rogers served for four years as chief financial officer for The Heico Companies, LLC, parent company for a diversified portfolio of over 35 businesses. His career includes 17 years in financial positions with Ryerson Inc., a distributor and value-added processor of industrial metals, most recently as chief financial officer.
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...Read the rest of this storyPhoto via Max Pixel
">Photo via Max Pixel
">President Donald Trump's 2018 proposed budget slashes the Department of Energy's Vehicle Technology program funding, reducing it from $310 million in FY-2016 to just $82 million. The cuts include terminating funding for the Clean Cities program.
The cuts are part of President Trump's $4.1 trillion budget proposal released on Tuesday. The Vehicle Technologies program funds early-stage, high-risk research to generate knowledge that industry can use to develop and deploy technologies for transportation.
Ken Brown, consultant for Transportation Energy Partners, a non-profit that works with Clean Cities coalitions, said Clean Cities is the only deployment initiative funded by the program, and that the majority of the Vehicle Technology group is focused on research and development of technologies such as batteries, advanced natural gas engines, and biofuels.
“Government-supported research has been key to advancing these technologies, so to see these proposed cuts really shows a lack of vision of what the future is,” he said.
The Congressional Budget Justification stated that the budget will support efforts to contribute to the DOE's goals, including: research and development of advanced vehicle batteries; development of advanced engines to improve vehicle fuel economy; research of advanced materials to reduce vehicle weight; and creation of data analytics to improve energy efficiency of vehicles and overall mobility, including connected and autonomous vehicle technology.
The budget restructures some subgroups of Vehicle Technologies program and reduces funding for every subgroup. Subgroups losing large amounts of funding compared to FY-2016 are: Battery and Electrification Technologies by 74%, to $36.3 million; Materials Technology by 72% to $7.5 million; and Outreach, which includes Clean Cities.
The subprogram formerly named Outreach, Deployment, and Analysis has been separated into two subgroups: Outreach and Analysis. Funding for the previous subgroup was $48.4 million; funding for the new subgroups is $2 million each. For Outreach, funding will be used ...Read the rest of this story
A Mac Trailer aluminum drop deck's transition area includes the 90-degree step (upper left) and a large curved “radius” beneath the upper and lower decks (center). The radius evenly distributes weight and stress between the two areas. Here, I-beam-like flanges add strength to the curved members. Photo: Tom Berg
">A Mac Trailer aluminum drop deck's transition area includes the 90-degree step (upper left) and a large curved “radius” beneath the upper and lower decks (center). The radius evenly distributes weight and stress between the two areas. Here, I-beam-like flanges add strength to the curved members. Photo: Tom Berg
">When freight is tall, trailers that carry it must be short. That's the reason for the drop deck, a variant of the flatbed or platform trailer. A “single drop” or “step deck” has a forward down-step and a main deck that provides another 20 or more inches of vertical space to accommodate large coils of steel and aluminum, outsized mechanical or electrical gear, farm implements, and aircraft engines, among other things. A “double drop” has an even lower deck and an up-step ahead of the rear tandem.
The low main deck lowers the center of gravity, which helps with top-heavy loads, noted Bill Wallace at East Manufacturing, one of the trailer makers HDT visited during the recent Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Kentucky. The depth of a flatbed's understructure tapers upward under its nose, partly to match the height of the tractor's fifth wheel and because less strength is needed at the trailer's front. Likewise, a drop deck's underframe also tapers upward at the rear, which allows the deck to be closer to the ground. This also is because less strength is needed, and it adds space for tall cargo.
Because of a single drop's low main deck, the wheels and tires are typically smaller than the usual 22.5-inch size, 19.5s or even 17.5s. But with a double drop's high rear deck, the 22.5s, with their longer-lasting tires and brakes, can be used.
Drop decks are not needed for most freight. And drop decks cannot carry items like long pipes, except when fitted with ...Read the rest of this story
President Trump's 2018 Budget Photo: White House Office of Management and Budget
">President Trump's 2018 Budget Photo: White House Office of Management and Budget
">Anyone hoping they'll learn lots more about that trillion-dollar infrastructure investment plan President Trump first dangled before the nation back on the day after the election has to be sorely disappointed if they read the foundational document on his federal budget proposal just put out by the White House.
Grandly titled “A New Foundation for American Greatness,” the Fiscal Year 2018 budget document runs over 50 pages.
But less than a single printed page is devoted to “an Infrastructure Plan to support $1 trillion in private/public infrastructure investment.”
What's more, or less as the case is here, the discussion about infrastructure is presented in the most general of terms.
The only mention tying in highways comes in a laundry list of what the plan aims to fix: “surface transportation, airports, waterways, ports, drinking and waste water, broadband and key Federal facilities.”
Rather than seeking substantial increases in federal spending on infrastructure from Congress, the message is loud and clear that Trump sees the private sector riding to the rescue of America's failing infrastructure.
The administration's goal is “to seek long-term reforms on how infrastructure projects are regulated, funded, delivered, and maintained. Simply providing more Federal funding for infrastructure is not the solution. Rather, we will work to fix underlying incentives, procedures, and policies to spur better, and more efficient, infrastructure decisions and outcomes.”
The document claims that the president's target of $1 trillion in investments will be “met with a combination of new Federal funding, incentivized non-Federal funding, and expedited projects that would not have happened but for the administration's involvement (for example, the Keystone XL Pipeline).”
The budget calls for $200 billion in federal outlays “related to the infrastructure initiative,” which appears intended to work as seed money for public-private partnerships (P3) projects, ...Read the rest of this story
