Spot Truckload Freight Volume Falls, Flatbed Rates Gain

Spot truckload freight rates switched patterns over the past week, following seasonal highs hit by vans and reefers and a decline in flatbeds, as overall cargo volume was lower than anticipated, according to DAT Solutions and its network of load boards..

The number of available loads rose just 7% for the week ending July 16, well below the 20% expected rise following the holiday-shortened week before.

The average spot rate for reefer freight fell 4 cents to $1.98 per mile, still a penny higher than the national average in June. The van rate also declined 4 cents to $1.66 per mile, but that's 4 cents higher than the June average. In contrast, the national average flatbed rate gained 4 cents to $1.85 per mile, but far from erasing the 10 cents drop the week before.

This happened as truck posts on the DAT network increased 37% week-over-week causing load-to truck ratios to drop for all equipment types. Vans fell 26% to 2.6 available loads per truck while reefers dropped a little more, 27%, to 4.7 loads per truck. Flatbeds posted the smallest decline 14%, putting the load-to-truck radio at 13.4 to 1

The number of van-load posts gained 3% and truck posts rose 38% as outbound van rates declined in major markets. The highest outbound regional rates all posted declines over the past week, falling between 2 cents and 8 cents per mile.

The one bright spot was Memphis, where rates held steady at an average of $1.94 mile. Also the Memphis-Columbus lane jumped 15 cents to $2.03 per mile. That lane is associated with retail freight so this could be a sign of good things to come, according to DAT.

The number of reefer load posts dropped 4% while truck posts increased 32% for the week. Again, load activity was below expectations.

Rates fell in major regional markets in the Southeast and West. The average outbound rate from Los Angeles declined 9 cents to $2.58 per mile while Sacramento, Ontario, Fresno, and Twin Falls all had lower rates.

On the Mexican border, the average outbound rate from McAllen, Texas, gained 7 cents to $1.82 per mile and edged up on most high-volume lanes. Nogales, Ariz., fell 15 cents per mile with the Nogales-Los Angeles lane plunging 39 cents to $1.67 per mile.

Flatbed load availability added 18% and capacity increased 37%, leading to somewhat of a surprise that the average rate increased rather than fell in the sector over the past week.

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Tesla's Musk plans to build trucks, defends autonomous vehicles

Autonomous Truck Development Marches On

The Mercedes-Benz Future Bus is Daimler's latest entry into the autonomous commercial vehicle realm.

It's been an interesting news week on the autonomous commercial vehicle front.

Tesla founder Elon Musk, apparently unfazed by the recent fatal crash involving one of its cars on a beta-test “autopilot” mode and a tractor-trailer (or perhaps wanting to provide a distraction from the bad press), revealed a “master plan” that includes trucks, buses and ride sharing.

In a blog posted on the automaker's website, he says heavy-duty electric trucks are in the early stages of development and should be ready for unveiling next year.

“We believe the Tesla Semi will deliver a substantial reduction in the cost of cargo transport, while increasing safety and making it really fun to operate.”

He also writes that “as the technology matures, all Tesla vehicles will have the hardware necessary to be fully self-driving with fail-operational capability.”

He cautions, however, that autonomy is still in its early stages.

“It is important to emphasize that refinement and validation of the software will take much longer than putting in place the cameras, radar, sonar and computing hardware … Even once the software is highly refined and far better than the average human driver, there will still be a significant time gap, varying widely by jurisdiction, before true self-driving is approved by regulators.”

Musk said he expects it will take some 6 billion miles of experience with this technology before you see worldwide regulatory approval. Currently we're accumulating that experience at just over 3 million miles a day, he noted.

So why is Tesla deploying partial autonomy now?

“The most important reason is that, when used correctly, it is already significantly safer than a person driving by themselves, and it would therefore be morally reprehensible to delay release simply for fear of bad press or some mercantile calculation of legal liability.

“According to the recently released 2015 NHTSA report, automotive fatalities increased by 8% to one death every 89 million miles. Autopilot miles will soon exceed twice that number and the system gets better every day. It would no more make sense to disable Tesla's Autopilot, as some have called for, than it would to disable autopilot in aircraft, after which our system is named."

On the other side of the Atlantic, Daimler, after testing autonomous technology on commercial trucks in Europe and the U.S. with HighwayPilot, unveiled a semi-automated city bus with CityPilot, touting it as the face of urban public transport of the future.

The technology of the CityPilot in the Mercedes-Benz Future Bus is based on that of the autonomously driving Mercedes-Benz Actros truck with Highway Pilot presented two years ago. It has however undergone substantial further development specifically for use in a city bus. It can recognize traffic lights, communicate with them and safely negotiate junctions controlled by them. It can also recognize obstacles, especially pedestrians on the road, and brake autonomously. It approaches bus stops automatically, where it opens and closes its doors.

Just under a dozen cameras scan the road and surroundings, while long and short-range radar systems constantly monitor the route ahead. There is also a GPS system. All the data received create an extremely precise picture and allow the bus to be positioned to within centimeters. The world premiere of the CityPilot took the bus on an exacting route covering almost 20 km, with a number of tight bends, tunnels, numerous bus stops, and high speeds for a city bus.

Meanwhile, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx told an industry conference that the Department of Transportation will issue guidelines this summer on self-driving cars. I'm assuming that these guidelines will either also cover autonomous trucks, or that they will provide a framework for separate guidelines for commercial vehicles.

"We want people who start a trip to finish it," Foxx said, according to published reports, speaking at the fifth annual Automated Vehicle Symposium in San Francisco.

While the DOT has been working with companies that are developing automated vehicles to adapt existing safety rules to these new technology, Foxx said those existing rules are not enough.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Foxx hinted that those guidelines would involve "pre-market approval steps" for autonomous car technology. But, the paper said, he also emphasized the approach would be flexible, with input from businesses, drivers and technology experts.

"We need clear lines of responsibility between industry, government and consumers," he said.

Foxx acknowledged that “autonomous vehicles are coming,” whether the world is “ready or not,” reported Fortune.com, which also quoted him as saying:

“We don't want to replace crashes with human factors with large numbers of crashes caused by systems." While there are many reasons why the industry is moving toward autonomous vehicles, he said, “if safety isn't at the very top of the list, we're not going to get very far.”

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FMCSA follows through on FAST Act mandates

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Bendix expands Formula Blue Line

Expanding coverage of its Formula Blue hydraulic brake parts line, Bendix Spicer Foundation Brake (BSFB) added 100 new part numbers, and plans to introduce additional parts every quarter.

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Drivers Behaving Badly

There are bad apples in any profession, of course, but the visibility of tractor-trailers tends to result in more media coverage. Our industry already battles image problems, and these truckers really give all the safe, professional drivers out there a bad name.

My news feed every day is full of stories about drivers who get stuck driving places they aren't supposed to go, trying to make U-turns and failing miserably, striking overpasses that aren't high enough for their load, etc. But some really stand out.

Some of these stories are tragic. Take Randall J. Weddle, who the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration declared an "imminent hazard" recently. Weddle was traveling around 80 mph in a 55-mph zone in Maine when his rig crossed the centerline, tipped over and scattered its load of lumber onto the highway. Two people were killed.

A field sobriety detected the presence of alcohol and police found a bottle of whiskey in Weddle's truck. His CDL had been revoked by the state of Virginia for a driving while intoxicated conviction. He had multiple federal hours-of-service violations, and had taken a family member as an unauthorized passenger on the same trip, dropping the passenger off shortly before the crash. Weddle reportedly was asleep in his bunk while his trailer was loaded with lumber, while that unauthorized family member secured the load.

Others just make you shake your head, wondering whether the driver was really that dumb, careless, or simply didn't give a crap.

Take this example, from the Gothamist, about a trucker who decided to use the bike path to go the wrong way down a one-way street in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn. It appears he was taking the four-block shortcut to avoid having to travel

"Look, sometimes you're driving a big rig through Williamsburg and that one-way isn't going your way but there's this green path to the side that's as wide as a truck with these weird little symbols on it, and well, you know the rest," starts the Gothamist story accompanying video shot by a cyclist.

The street, Kent Avenue, IS an official truck route, but it's a one-way, notes the report. "To travel south, as the trucker here wanted to, without breaking the law, commercial drivers are supposed to head five blocks over onto Roebling Street, or seven onto Union Avenue."

The cyclist who shot the video said, "My dad is a trucker, so I have a certain amount of sympathy for truck drivers getting disorientied/pressured in urban environments," he explained. But the driver cut off the videographer and another cyclist to make his turn off the one-way, and yelled some pretty rude and angry things at the cyclist while doing it.

It's these types of "bad apples" that give hard-working, safe drivers and trucking companies a bad name. And unfortunately it's a lot harder to get stories about the good things trucking is doing to go "viral." We just have to keep trying to tell our stories, one good guy at a time.

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Mack Weathering Sales ‘Correction’ Well, Its President Says

Photo: Mack Trucks

The new truck market is experiencing a “correction” as fleets are moderating their truck orders in response to slower freight movement while lowered values for used trucks have caused some potential customers to hang onto theirs instead of trading them in.

However, Mack Trucks is handling both situations better than some other manufacturers, said the builder's president, Dennis Slagle, at a briefing for reporters on Wednesday.

Although there are still “too many trucks in the pipeline” to dealers – the reason all heavy truck makers are cutting production from last year's high levels – Mack has been able to slow production with “down weeks rather than cutbacks and layoffs,” and it managed trade-in cycles through sales contracts in recent years to avoid a glut of trade-ins. That strategy is now paying off, he said.

Also helping is Volvo Group's ownership of Arrow Truck Sales, which is reselling many traded-in vehicles that might otherwise burden Mack and Volvo dealers. Meanwhile, a persistently strong economy is showing encouraging signs.

“We are seeing full employment and consumers are starting to clear off those shelves” of store merchandise piled there in anticipation of a strong Christmas shopping season which fell short, Slagle said.

That and other positive economic news are causing North American Class 8 production to clip along at a 255,000-unit pace for this year, above the 240,000 Mack predicted earlier this year but well under the 301,740 sold in 2015, he said.

Industry sales of long-haul and regional tractors are therefore down somewhat, though they still dominate overall sales, and other segments like construction, especially home building, are up, while refuse remains strong. This has given Mack - a traditionally energetic player in vocational trucks with its Granite, MR and recently introduced LR models - a second straight strong quarter.

Improvements to the Granite, including the addition of “crawler gears” to the mDrive automated manual transmission, should further boost Mack's performance in construction, said John Walsh, vice president, global marketing and brand management. A 13-speed mDrive HD is now standard on Granite, and a 14-speed version is available; these give better startability and high-speed cruising for construction trucks. The 12-speed HD is still available, and the regular 12-speed remains standard on highway models.

The mDrive now goes into 20% of Granites and now that should rise. The mDrive goes in 30% of Titans, while 80% of Pinnacle axle-back and 60% of Pinnacle axle-forward tractors get the AMT, Walsh said.

Mack and its dealers have improved the service experience for customers at its dealers, who have succeeded in cutting in half the industry's average 4.5-day waiting time for a 3.5-hour truck repair, he said. This is partly due to better staffing at dealers. Technician staffing is up by 98% and Mack Master Technician numbers are up by 340%. Dealers now have 6,430 technicians and 1,872 of them have been awarded master status.

This is part of Mack's Certified Uptime program wherein dealers improve staffing, processes and facilities to quickly fix trucks and get them back on the road, Slagle said. Thirty-nine dealer locations are now certified and 60 should be by year's end. The eventual goal is for all 430 locations to be certified.

Related: Class 8 Truck Demand Hits 4-Year Low

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