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Forward Air Corp.’s first-quarter profit was $10 million, or 35 cents a share, compared with $10.3 million, or 34 cents, a year earlier.

Rising fuel costs, weakening demand for freight hauling and the subprime lending crisis are making it tougher for drivers and trucking companies to qualify for financing to buy equipment.

The use of heavier trucks can be an effective way for the industry to reduce fuel consumption and emissions, a new study by the American Transportation Research Institute said.

Brent Hilton, the 2008 chairman of the Technology & Maintenance Council, said one of the focuses of his term will be to increase membership among service dealerships that perform essential “heavy-duty” maintenance for trucking.

Plans by the Chinese government to close factories in and around Beijing and Shanghai this summer to reduce air pollution for the 2008 Summer Olympics could cause early or late peak seasonal surges in exports to the United States, shipping industry executives and transportation experts said.

As I understand the new driver-training rules, they indicate that a company cannot hire drivers if that company has a school for training those drivers. This is in conflict with every training institution in the country — if not the world.

Diesel engine maker Cummins Inc. said Tuesday it opened its first fuel systems manufacturing site outside of North America, the Cummins Fuel Systems Wuhan plant, in China.

As we move closer to the next federal mandate on emissions — which comes into force for 2010-model heavy-duty trucks — proponents of the two competing technologies are beginning to publicly argue over the superiority of their choices.

Auxiliary power units, initially pushed by federal and state governments to reduce air pollution despite concerns by fleet owners and owner-operators over their initial cost, are attracting more buyers who purchase them for the fuel savings, now that average diesel prices are about $4 a gallon.

The national average retail diesel price dipped 2.5 cents a gallon last week after six straight increases, the Department of Energy reported, even as gasoline rose 3.1 cents to set a new record high.