With backing from an Atlanta venture capital firm, Thomas M. Caudell is turning the lowly business of lumping into a big, high-tech center of profits.

Three years ago, Richard E. Durst, president of Arctic Express in Hilliard, Ohio, sat down and calculated the cost of exchanging pallets with shippers. Seeing 1% of his revenues was being eaten up by pallets, he killed off his exchanges.

The first shot in what is expected to be a rapid consolidation of Internet-based transportation companies was fired last week with a proposed merger of Logistics.com and QuoteShip.com.

The first shot in what is expected to be a rapid consolidation of Internet-based transportation companies was fired last week with a proposed merger of Logistics.com and QuoteShip.com.

The relationship between drivers and dispatchers has always been a potentially stormy one.

After 28 years as the owner and operator of Acme Truck Line, Doyle Coatney has turned over the keys to the oil-field and general freight hauler in Harvey, La., to his son Mike Coatney.

Asche Transportation Services, the Shannon, Ill.-based parent of two refrigerated truckload carriers and a company that hauls municipal solid waste, said it has struck a deal with Churchill Environmental & Industrial Equity Partners to get $7 million in exchange for promissory notes that could give Churchill eventual majority ownership in Asche.

Asche Transportation Services, the Shannon, Ill.-based parent of two refrigerated carriers, said it has struck a deal with Churchill Environmental & Industrial Equity Partners to get $7 million in exchange for a majority stake in Asche.

Cardinal Freight Carriers announced an across-the-board pay increase for drivers and owner-operators in its van division, effective July 3.

Two years ago, J. Vincent Ciroli Jr. was developing Internet sites for banks and helping his wife promote her real estate business online.