Saia Inc. opened four new terminals in Pennsylvania and New Jersey on May 1, entering the Northeast to battle regional and national less-than-truckload carriers for market share.

Roadrunner Transportation Systems Inc. said it has received a $540 million cash infusion from a private equity group that owns 8.6% of the shares in an announcement that also included a change in the senior leadership of the recently troubled trucking company.

Truckload companies continue to struggle in the first quarter, with executives in the industry assigning blame to continued excess capacity, bad weather and a weak used-truck market.

Many trucking and third-party logistics companies still write checks to pay their invoices, but efforts are underway to transition from pen and paper to point-and-click e-payments. If successful, it would shift decades-old business patterns ingrained in the industry.

All publicly traded freight railroads reported higher profits in the first quarter, led by a strong rebound in coal transportation from the doldrums of recent years and continued improvement in the intermodal sector.

Less-than-truckload earnings season began on a positive note with growth in shipments and revenue growth compared with the lackluster year-over-year results in the truckload sector.

Profits at Universal Logistics Holdings Inc. fell 42% year-over-year despite 9.2% growth in revenue during the same period, which the company acknowledged was due to problems with a few of its large value-added programs.

Union Pacific’s profits increased 9.5% to $1.07 billion dollars, or $1.32 per share, after strong results on a year-over-year basis in the coal, agricultural and intermodal transportation.