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Class 8 truck sales and orders have continued to outpace the expectations of analysts and company executives, creating a round of hiring at truck plants and a healthy backlog of orders that should keep the plants busy for months to come.

A U.S. District Court in California reopened the nearly two-year-old arrangement that regulates truck environmental standards at the Port of Long Beach, part of the nation’s busiest container complex.

Bidding to expand in the freight transportation and logistics markets, software maker Trimble Navigation Ltd. announced July 20 that it is acquiring privately held PeopleNet Communications Corp., the Minnetonka, Minn., provider of motor carrier on-board computing and mobile communications systems.

Tom Linebarger, who will become Cummins Inc.’s next chairman and CEO on Jan. 1, said the company is well positioned to meet the competition of North American truck makers offering “vertically integrated” packages of their own trucks and engines.

Truck component supplier Meritor Inc. rearranged its executive positions in the wake of the departure of Chief Operating Officer Carsten Reinhardt, who left the Troy, Mich., manufacturer last week.

Indications are growing that carriers, brokers and shippers are shifting freight-buying habits to make more use of spot markets and load boards as freight capacity continues to tighten, sources said.

Two years after truckers won a decade-long battle to win new federally mandated chassis-safety rules, broad disagreement about the effect of those changes remains, marketplace confusion reigns and operational issues are unresolved, according to trucking officials and consultants.

The average price of a gallon retail diesel fuel rose 2.4 cents a gallon last week to $3.923, the second straight weekly increase, according to the Department of Energy.

YRC Worldwide said late Friday it has completed the financial restructuring plan it first announced in April, completing the last remaining milestones.