Private fleet operators have been riding a roller coaster since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in March.

The lowest level of North American Class 8 truck orders in modern times is not stopping fleets and engine manufacturers from pushing ahead to prepare for more stringent emission regulations. Companies are finding ways to squeeze out better fuel mileage and uptime performance from the next wave of diesel engines.

On the heels of a booming 2018, truck manufacturers and their key Tier 1 suppliers powered through a slower equipment market in 2019, continuing to invest in new products and preparing for a future when tightening emission standards and the electrification of trucks will provide both challenges and opportunities.

After improving in 2018, it appears as though driver detention time has increased recently, with many shippers falling back into habits that delay trucks at their docks and push up dwell times.

How fleets buy, maintain and sell their assets has never been more pivotal than in today’s shifting business landscape.

Trucking companies are pulling out all the stops to find, recruit, educate, train, develop and recognize the next generation of commercial vehicle technicians. It’s a fundamental issue as the industry’s workforce of technicians continues to age toward retirement, while at the same time, there’s a scarcity of young men and women coming into the profession to fill their ranks.

The advent of ELDs is influencing how carriers and shippers work together to control costs, deploy capacity, design networks, offer and charge for services, make capital investments, recruit and assign drivers and leverage new technology.

It was not so long ago that home delivery of products such as furniture, mattresses and televisions was straightforward and rigid, with few choices for customers.

Welcome to a potentially new world of cybercrime: trucks targeted for theft or sabotage by hacking into engine control modules and planting malicious code.

Cybersecurity threats are growing in both number and sophis­tication, forcing transportation companies to take additional steps to prevent these attacks from crippling their information technology systems, compromising proprietary data or potentially even disrupting trucks’ electronic controls.