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Surface trade among the United States, Canada and Mexico dipped 0.1% in December from the same month a year earlier, though both truck and rail numbers rose, the Department of Transportation said.

The new chairman of the pivotal House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Rep. James Oberstar, said he would support a pilot program to test the effects that raising truck size and weight limits would have on the nation’s highways.

Transportation stocks, including airlines, trucking companies and railroads, were among the hardest hit in Tuesday’s stock market tumble, the Associated Press reported.

WASHINGTON — Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.), a key transportation legislator and a longtime opponent of increasing truck sizes and weights, told Transport Topics he would now support a pilot study of larger vehicles on U.S. highways.

Trucking executives said efforts to ban the use of cellular phones from the nation’s highways would receive industry support as long as state laws do not also ban two-way radios and satellite communication devices.

American Trucking Associations’ advanced seasonally adjusted truck tonnage index fell 3.6% in January following an increase in December, ATA said Tuesday.

Tank truck carrier Quality Distribution’s fourth-quarter profit was $6.2 million or 31 cents a share, compared with $6.2 million or 32 cents for the previous fourth quarter.

Inspectors from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration will travel to Mexico to conduct safety audits on trucking companies interested in hauling cargo to and from the United States, the Department of Transportation said late Thursday.

EL PASO, Texas — The United States will grant Mexican trucks access to U.S. highways under a pilot program, Transportation Secretary Mary Peters announced here today.

The Federal Maritime Commission has approved a settlement negotiated between American Trucking Associations’ Intermodal Motor Carriers Conference and an FMC-regulated ocean carrier, ATA said Thursday.