Nasstrac Backs Drive to Raise Limits on Truck Size, Weight
Nasstrac, which represents the small shipment community that purchases mostly less-than-truckload and small package services from the industry, announced at its spring membership meeting last week that it would work with the Alliance for Safe and Efficient Trucking and the Motor Freight Carriers Association to increase trucking productivity.
“Nasstrac is putting a stake down,” said John S. DuBiel Jr., who chairs a committee on provider relations for the group. “We strongly support increased productivity. This is important to us because we want, and need, motor carriers to be profitable.”
Increased productivity generally means higher-capacity vehicles, and that translates into larger trailers. Shippers see this as an important avenue to lowering per-unit costs of freight transportation, but trucking is sensitive to the equipment costs and public relations implications of going down that street.
Congress put the brakes on one aspect of trucking productivity in 1991 when it “froze” LCV operations in place, saying that no new routes could be added for triple-trailers, Rocky Mountain doubles and turnpike doubles. The freeze also barred states without pre-existing provisions from increasing truck weights beyond 80,000 pounds without congressional approval.
“Right now we are not focused on the LCV issue,” said Michael Regan, president of Tranzact Systems, Homewood, Ill., and chairman of the alliance. “There are other groups that might pick up that cause, however. We have specifically targeted increasing weights of up to 97,000 pounds.”
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