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More than two dozen retail and shipper organizations, including the National Industrial Transportation League and the National Retail Federation, have urged congressional leaders to advance legislation that repeals the antitrust immunity that ocean liner carriers have enjoyed since 1916.

Trucks account for only 7% of the miles traveled in the nation’s urban areas but they shoulder 29% of the costs that urban traffic congestion produces annually in wasted time and fuel, according to the annual Urban Mobility Report from the Texas Transportation Institute of Texas A&M University.

Businesses involved in supplying diesel exhaust fluid needed for about 75% of the nation’s newest heavy-duty trucks say they easily will meet the expected 300% increase in demand this year.

Profits increased sharply at most of the eight publicly traded truckload carriers that issued earnings reports last week, with gains coming mostly through rate increases rather than volume growth in the uneven, but modestly growing, freight market.

Federal regulators last week proposed a rule to require tank truck carriers who haul flammable liquids to either retrofit their existing tankers to protect their wetlines or install a system to purge product from those lines.

Freight tonnage ended 2010 on a high note, as American Trucking Associations reported its seasonally adjusted cargo index climbed 4.2% in December to its highest level since early in the recession.

Consumer confidence slipped in January from a six-month high in December, according to the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index released Friday.

Logistics and intermodal firm Hub Group’s fourth-quarter profit jumped 25.7% to $12.5 million, or 34 cents a share, from $10 million, or 26 cents, a year earlier.

U.S. gross domestic product rose at a 3.2% annual rate in the fourth quarter, following a 2.6% expansion in the third quarter, the Commerce Department said Friday.