The Half-Full Glass

This Editorial appears in the May 18 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

Ever so slowly, less-bad economic news — and even some good news — is beginning to pop up among the seemingly never-ending crop of troubling news that you have been seeing in this newspaper every week for about a year. 

Yes, this week we still have reports of more poor quarterly results from fleets and trucking-related companies. Trailer and truck sales are still appallingly low. And fuel prices are rising again.

But this week, we report that there also are signs that the gigantic federal stimulus package is beginning to trickle down into road-building projects. And one insider said trucking is likely to see about $1.1 billion in revenue from moving goods related to the program over the next two years (see story, p. 1; click here for subscriber-content story).

One construction company reported that it will use 25,000 truckloads of asphalt for the nine paving jobs it has been awarded in New England, projects that will cost $65 million. Another said the $14.6 million project it was awarded will require it to add four new trucks and dozens of workers.

Only about $11 million of the $26.7 billion that will be spent on highway projects actually has been paid out thus far.

Also this week, we report that some flatbed carriers are seeing some signs of life (see story, p. 3; click here for story). The flatbed sector has suffered the most during this recession of any segment of trucking.

Several carriers told us that there are some hopeful signs out there in recent weeks, even as weak levels of construction and auto building keep flatbed freight levels depressed.

Lately, several trucking industry officials have reminded us that business cycles always have been a major factor for trucking and that most carriers know how to deal with the downs that inevitably follow good economic years.

As Charles “Shorty” Whittington, chairman of American Trucking Associations, said at the National Tank Truck Carriers annual meeting in San Diego on May 12, “The glass is half full, not half empty. We are going to come out of this rut; it’s going to happen.”

And he told the fleet executives there that trucking’s role will only grow as the economy rebounds.

While trucking currently moves about 68.8% of the nation’s freight tonnage, its total is expected to grow to 71% by 2020.