ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø

High bonding and minimum volume requirements by railroads make it difficult for small and mid-size intermodal marketing companies to offer competitive rates to shippers, according to the executive director of the Transportation Intermediaries Association.

The Customs Service put its import-export automation eggs in a new basket called the Automated Commercial Environment. But funding and operational issues have delayed the delivery of ACE, and everyone involved in cross-border trade, including trucking, continues lurching along with the old system, hoping it won’t crash utterly and throw the customs-clearance process back into the Dark Ages of massive paper-filing.

In the original Star Trek television show, no matter where in the universe Capt. James T. Kirk went, the intelligent alien species always understood what he was saying, and he understood them.

Considering how Americans love their coffee it’s no wonder that Internet retailing companies are cropping up to satisfy the demand for a good cup of morning brew.

The Internet is sparking the development of new businesses and new ways of doing business throughout the shipping and trucking cycle, and brokers and freight-forwarders are no exception.

Revisions by the Bureau of the Census have wiped out an apparent record set for trailer shipments in 1998, while new reports showed January 2000 shipments trailing those in the same month a year earlier.

The recently announced purchase of part of Mitsubishi Motors Corp. by DaimlerChrysler AG further complicates the international family of truck makers, but it is not expected to affect the U.S. medium-duty truck market in the near future.

E-Paccar, a subsidiary of Paccar Corp., has joined the list of firms establishing a business-to-business exchange for buying and selling goods on the Internet.

Teamsters and Overnite Transportation officials made no progress after three more days of negotiations last week, but the union was involved in job actions all over the country.