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Transport Topics Online will be closed Monday, Sept. 5, for the Labor Day holiday. Please check back on Tuesday, Sept.6, for the latest trucking and freight transportation news.

Never mind the deliveries you want to make on time — the deliveries you don’t want to make at all may be the best reasons to invest in a navigation system designed specifically for commercial truck operations.

Many fleets are shifting to late-model used trucks to meet their need for additional vehicles, according to registration data provided by R.L. Polk & Co.

Concern about the availability and cost of trucking services is causing some shippers to increase the amount of freight they haul on their own vehicles and find new ways to share freight-hauling capacity with other companies.

A pilot program in which trucks made off-hour runs into New York City decreased the average delivery time from the depot to the first receiver by 75%, according to an analysis of the program.

Truckers, chemical manufacturers, and other trade groups are questioning a new federal requirement that motor carriers and exporters stipulate on electronic manifests the amount of residual chemicals left inside cargo tank containers when returning from deliveries in Canada and Mexico.

U.S. retail sales of medium-duty trucks — Classes 3-7 — jumped 54.5% in July from the corresponding month a year ago, the largest year-over-year gain since mid-2005 and the biggest sales month this year, WardsAuto.com reported.

The decisions by three trucking fleets to announce public share offerings in recent weeks represent a sharp change in direction for an industry that went more than five years without a stock sale.

Cloud computing is fast, reliable, inexpensive and swiftly growing in popularity — except in trucking.

The good news is that the trucking business is pretty good and is getting better. The bad news is that the economy is somewhat better, but it’s not getting better fast enough or strongly enough. And that’s where our troubles begin.