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Trucking companies should consider altering the ways they levy and maintain fuel surcharges or risk additional red ink from diesel and gasoline costs this year, industry consultants and analysts advise.

Transportation leaders of the United States and Mexico have taken steps toward resolving the countries’ trade dispute, which was sparked by the end of a cross-border trucking program and led Mexico to place tariffs on more than $2 billion in U.S. goods.

The U.S. average retail diesel price rose another 5.4 cents a gallon last week to $3.069, raising concern among fleet executives and analysts alike that the steady rise could dampen economic growth. 

Class 8 U.S. retail truck sales gained 9.8% in March, driven by very strong performances by three original equipment manufacturers, the third month in a row that sales have increased, after falling every month in 2009.

U.S. consumer confidence held fell this month to its lowest level in five months, according to the latest Reuters/University of Michigan monthly consumer sentiment index released Friday.

Housing starts rose in March, while building permits increased to the highest level in almost a year and a half, the Commerce Department said Friday.

TUCSON, Ariz. — An official with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration told anxious freight brokers here the agency’s new safety ratings system would not significantly alter their business landscape.

Manufacturing levels in the Philadelphia region expanded in March at the fastest pace in four months, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia said Thursday.