ATLANTA — The trucking industry must hire more drivers and pay them more as part of carriers’ efforts to deal with the ongoing capacity crunch, fleet and shipper representatives said here.

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Trailer demand is strong but manufacturers have extended delivery times for orders because of supplier backlogs and insufficient production capacity, they said recently.

SAN DIEGO — Trucking executives told Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration officials here that they wanted more accurate safety statistics about their companies and that the agency’s compliance reviews should be less intrusive.

Third-party logistics providers said they are continuing to invest in new software and hardware systems to remain competitive with rivals, to better serve their shipper customers and to increase their own profitability.

A new lubricating oil standard set by the American Petroleum Institute that takes effect Sept. 1 is designed to handle the higher temperatures generated by heavy-duty diesel engines built to meet October 2002 federal emissions standards.

In a flurry of second-quarter earnings reports, many less-than-truckload carriers reported higher profits as they hauled more freight and increased freight rates in an improved economy.

TOLEDO, Ohio — Members of a key shippers’ group vented their frustrations over what they said was slow and inadequate freight service to railroad officials who were not able to offer immediate hope for faster transportation of the shippers’ goods.

With the peak shipping season for intermodal containers set to begin this month, railroads are making seasonal rate hikes, but the increases may stay in place after the peak, shipping executives said last week.

All but one of the nation’s four major railroads have provided detailed plans as requested by the U.S. Surface Transportation Board on how they intend to meet the peak freight-shipping season now setting in, STB Chairman Roger Nober told Transport Topics.

Bob Maddocks, president of Software vendor Maddocks Systems, told Transport Topics he expected his company’s acquisition by Digital Dispatch Systems to go through as planned by Sept. 17.