ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø

CORAL GABLES, Fla. — Less-than-truckload carriers need to improve their pricing discipline and sophistication to boost profits in a market where rate-driven, third-party logistics operators are playing a growing role, LTL executives said.

Congress last week dropped a proposed extension of a tax break, credited with dramatically boosting truck sales in 2011, from a bill that extends the federal payroll-tax holiday, but a Democratic lawmaker said the tax incentive could be passed later in the year.

President Obama last week proposed spending $476 billion on transportation over the coming six years in a plan that includes $50 billion for immediate infrastructure spending to spur job creation.

Retail diesel prices hit their highest levels in three months last week, jumping 8.7 cents to $3.943 a gallon, the Department of Energy reported.

The Environmental Protection Agency is investigating whether Navistar Inc. completed assembly of 7,600 heavy-duty 2009 model truck engines in 2010, thereby making them noncompliant with current emission regulations.

Fleet maintenance directors and their suppliers will return to Tampa, Fla., this week to discuss ever more complicated techniques for eking out new slender margins of efficiency to keep the nation’s trucks rolling down highways longer and more smoothly.

American Trucking Associations has asked a federal appeals court to throw out the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s recently published hours-of-service rule and is likely to challenge specifically the rule’s 34-hour restart provision.

U.S. Class 8 truck sales grew sharply in January, jumping 52.9% compared with the first month of 2011, as all manufacturers posted gains of more than 40%, with the exception of Volvo Trucks, which dropped 5.2%.

An index of leading economic indicators rose in December for a third straight month, the New York-based Conference Board said Thursday.