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Heavy-duty truck sales fell 5.4% in December from a year earlier, ending a four-month sales spurt that analysts said was caused by fleets buying tractors with engines built before new emission standards took effect.

International Truck & Engine Corp. plans to put 2007 emission-compliant engines in the hands of its customers a full year before production begins, Steve Keate, president of International’s truck group, said last week.

Freight volumes have been rising in recent months and are likely to continue rising in 2003, after a slight dip early in the year, freight haulers, shippers and industry analysts said this week.

Freight shippers and industry analysts said they expected this year's holiday shipping volume to remain relatively flat compared with 2001 due to a lackluster U.S. economy, a weak job market and concerns about rising fuel prices.

Truckload carrier J.B. Hunt Transport Services said it would buy 2,100 tractors from heavy-duty truck maker Freightliner LLC next year in order to cut maintenance costs and lower the age of its fleet.

Executives of four national truckload carriers and analysts who track them warned that what is already a serious capacity crunch for that industry will tighten further in 2003.

NEW YORK - Top officials from three large truckload carriers outlined plans to embrace new federally mandated heavy-duty truck engines in 2003, even as they said their engine tests raised some performance issues.

International refrigerated, flatbed and liquid bulk truckload carrier Prime Inc. has purchased the assets of bankrupt Rocor International, Oklahoma's largest trucking company, for an undisclosed sum..

Sales of heavy-duty trucks soared 39.7% in September from a year earlier, as fleets continued to buy trucks with engines made before tougher federal emissions standards took effect Oct. 1.

More than two decades after the federal government reopened trucking to free competition through deregulation, the industry suffers from a negative image problem.