Business

Benefiting from increased global demand for its trucks, Volvo AB reported a 143% jump in first-quarter earnings from a year earlier, driven by a 22% increase in revenue, the company said April 27.

UPS Inc. said its first-quarter profit jumped 66% from a year earlier, as revenue grew 7.3%, helping boost net income over the earlier three-month period that was beset with lower volumes and several one-time charges, the Atlanta-based corporation said on April 26.

Rising inflation, whether fuel, food and other basic consumer prices, or the costs of running trucking firms, presents a danger of crimping fleet profit increases this year, transportation analysts said.

Already several years behind deploying biometric card readers to identify transportation industry workers at the nation’s ports, the Transportation Security Administration is not expected to issue a proposal for regulating the devices until late 2012.

The head of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance said a proposed rule requiring that flammable liquids be purged from tank truck wetlines during transport is “for practical purposes unenforceable in the field.”

U.S. truck tonnage rose 6.3% in March, the 16th consecutive year-over-year increase, as U.S. economic growth continued even in the face of sharply higher fuel costs, American Trucking Associations reported.

The average retail price of U.S. diesel declined for only the second time in about four months last week, slipping 0.7 cent to $4.098 a gallon on the coattails of relatively stable crude oil prices, the Department of Energy said.

Universal Truckload Services’ first-quarter income rose from a year ago as load volumes improved.

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. Friday reported a first-quarter profit, turning around a loss from a year ago, as sales jumped 27% from a year ago to a record.