Business

The owner of Lakeville Motor Express, a company that in recent years has operated as a cartage agent for Minnesota-based regional less-than-truckload carrier LME Inc., said he has shut down the business due to “heavy financial losses” and operational difficulties, including “the inability to hire drivers.”

A semi-autonomous truck operated by technology firm Otto traveled on highways in Ohio last week as the state announced a $15 million investment in smart infrastructure, its latest effort to support the testing of automated vehicles.

Funding for government agencies is expected to go beyond March in a bid to give Trump administration officials a voice in the congressional appropriations process next year, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Dec. 1.

Direct ChassisLink Inc. will raise daily chassis rates it charges trucking companies to haul containers from ports in the Southeast, Gulf Coast and Midwest beginning Dec. 15, following similar increases from Trac Intermodal and Flexi-Van Leasing Inc. this summer.

The average used Class 8 truck sold in October entered the resale market with lower mileage than those sold a year earlier, but its sales price was down about 14% due to soft demand and an excessive inventory of unsold vehicles, analysts said.

Increases next year in private highway and bridge construction activity across residential and commercial developments will help transportation construction to grow by 1.3%, a leading transportation economist indicated Dec. 2.

Old Dominion Freight Line Inc. reported less-than-truckload shipments dropped in November 2016 compared with the year prior, but revenue was up overall, according to a Dec. 2 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The global shipping industry is in the midst of a huge downturn, with weak demand engulfing it for the past few years. Experts acknowledge that the sector’s biggest hurdle is overcapacity, but the wave of mergers and acquisitions means the hard times will pass eventually.

If President-elect Donald Trump is successful with his proposed $1 trillion, 10-year program to fix America’s disintegrating and inadequate infrastructure, the states have a list of critical projects ready for him. And while $1 trillion could be a decent down payment, it’s not nearly enough.

SALT LAKE CITY — Deliveries of the Nikola One hydrogen-electric Class 8 tractor produced by Nikola Motor Co. will begin in 2020, and the company has moved forward with plans to design a day cab, called the Nikola Two. People in trucking said the technology has the potential to change the industry.