Editorial: End Scene, 2016

This Editorial appears in the Dec. 19 & 26 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

That’s a wrap for a year that has been very eventful, but probably won’t be remembered fondly by many.

If you look at the sluggish freight volumes tendered to the nation’s truck fleets, you might assume that not much happened. Business wasn’t terrible, as in 2009, just aggressively unimpressive.

Federal regulators in the executive branch were very active. Even though the second part of the first greenhouse-gas rule doesn’t start until Jan. 1, two federal agencies published their Phase 2 rule that will shape truck and trailer manufacturing through the late 2020s.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration chimed in with final rules for entry-level driver training and a drug-and-alcohol clearinghouse and a proposal for speed limiters.

And then there was the presidential election, a grim, Medieval slog through a battlefield of screaming and insults. The incoming Trump administration will probably be more friendly to business, in general, and trucking, specifically, on the regulatory front.

No one knows how many rules will be repealed, if any at all, but not dealing with a limitless army of new rules will certainly be beneficial.

There are also indications of a swell in infrastructure spending, a most welcome development — as long as the plan is not accomplished with a surge in tolled roads.

The biggest cause for worry, so far, is a breakdown in the vast network of North American trade that rides on trucks.

There were also interesting developments in technology that started this year, the importance of which will not be fully appreciated until many years from now.

The Panama Canal opened its significant expansion, allowing much larger containerships to bypass U.S. Pacific ports and head to competing locations on the Atlantic side, leading to change for logistics planners.

Many trucks and engines were updated early for greenhouse-gas changes mentioned above. Even though they are more expensive than what they replace, manufacturers trumpeted the new arrivals because they are more fuel efficient, a happy change with crude oil and diesel prices on the rise.

Trucks of the future became visible today, as original equipment manufacturers demonstrated platooned teams of trucks, more autonomous assistance for drivers and a beer truck by Otto that was all but driverless.

We might not even have to worry as much about diesel if the Nikola demonstration of a hydrogen-electric truck takes off.

We do live in an interesting time.