SEATTLE — With sales volumes soaring and likely to stay strong through the next three years, a truck-dealer industry official urged his fellow dealers to "make hay" leading up to new 2007 engine regulations that could lower sales dramatically.

In 1978, Al Jubitz founded DAT Services at his network of truck stops, based on his notion of Dial-A-Truck. Jubitz would call other truck stops and have them place notes that carriers could answer, said Don Thornton, a vice president of TransCore Inc. — the owner of DAT since 2001.

Freight broker VHI Transport got a last-minute call late in the day in March from one of its regular customers, a beverage bottler. Because a motor carrier had backed out of an agreement, the shipper had a load of empty bottles that had to be delivered 200 miles away by the next morning or the manufacturer would incur extensive penalties.

After a drop in January, freight volumes rebounded in February as American Trucking Associations’ seasonally adjusted Truck Tonnage Index rose 1.8% to 154.9.

BALTIMORE — U.S. sales of trucks in all classes are likely to be up this year and into 2005, a truck equipment analyst said here last week.

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. — Air-quality regulations after 2010 will become even stricter than those now scheduled, possibly extending to controls for such things as “nanoparticulates,” federal environmental regulators told a trucking conference here.

BALTIMORE —International Truck and Engine Corp. is poised to introduce a telematics system that would allow fleet managers to track vehicles and monitor their performance, a company official said.

The Department of Energy awarded truckload carrier Schneider National Inc. and engine manufacturer Caterpillar Inc. grants totaling $550,000 for separate test programs to cut the amount of truck idling.

Representatives of truck stops and truck leasing companies recently raised concerns about the upcoming federal requirement for ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel, saying the planned 4-year phase-in period could add costs and fuel-compatibility problems.

Enforcement of new federal driver hours-of-service rules appeared to vary around the country as the first month of a 2-month educational period came to a close, according to carrier and enforcement officials.