By Jonathan S. Reiskin, Associate News Editor
This story appears in the June 27 print edition of Transport Topics.
PHOENIX — American Trucking Associations wants to reinvigorate its operational councils, the group’s president said at industry meetings here, and especially in the field of technology, where significant developments have changed freight transportation dramatically.
ATA President Bill Graves told members of the Information Technology & Logistics Council and the National Accounting & Finance Council June 21 that as trucking’s recovery from the recession gains traction, the benefits will flow through to ATA and its councils.
“As the economy recovers, as we know it will, and trucking recovers, as we know it will, ATA will also recover, and we will reinvigorate our councils — which is where the rubber meets the road,” Graves said in his address to open the two councils’ joint meeting. Now in his ninth year leading the federation, Graves said the associations’ employment level declined from 240 to 160 because of the recession.
ATA is best known for its federal advocacy work on issues such as the multiyear highway budget and driver hours of service. Graves said he was disappointed to hear the House of Representatives has postponed action on a new surface transportation bill until at least the fall, by which point the plan that expired in October 2009 will have been extended for two years.
Graves also reiterated ATA’s opposition to aspects of the preliminary version of the HOS regulation.
In addition to the federal work, ATA has councils that provide fleet managers with expertise on operational topics. Beyond the finance and technology organizations, ATA has a Technology & Maintenance Council, its largest council.
Graves said international commerce relies on “increasingly complex supply chains, where all parties must collaborate and share information,” and that small- and medium-size companies now have access to technology that was once reserved for corporations on the Fortune 500. He said technology now permeates all aspects of the industry.
Graves said ITLC should, at some point in the future, contribute to discussions on topics such as radio frequency identification, or RFID. He said the small, embedded transponders are increasingly commonplace in commerce, but there are technical issues inhibiting their use.
“We need to use this technology in a uniform format, but hurdles for RFID remain. The frequencies that businesses use differ globally. What we use in the United States is not the same in other nations,” Graves said. He added that a conference to set common international standards would be of great value to international commerce, and that a group such as ITLC could participate.
“The technology is inevitable, but we need standards,” Graves said. Trade associations such as ATA and its councils should work to create agreements that individual companies cannot forge on their own, he said.
• Also during the conference, ATA said it has published a new driver compensation study, based on data from this year. The guide allows trucking companies to compare the compensation they offer with national averages. The document is available on paper and digitally for ATA members and nonmembers.
• NAFC members re-elected Terry Croslow as chairman for a second one-year term. Croslow is chief financial officer of Bestway Express, a dedicated contract carriage carrier in Vincennes, Ind.
