Equipment

American Trucking Associations has launched a campaign to protect the trucking industry’s use of independent contractors, a move officials said is needed to counter recent court decisions and an increasingly “hostile” legislative environment.

Truckload carrier Landstar System will increase fourth-quarter revenue in the “mid-single-digit range,” Chief Executive Officer Henry Gerkens said in a conference call with investors, Bloomberg reported.

Cummins Inc., the largest foreign investor in the Chinese diesel engine industry, received an order for 1,900 bus engines from transit agencies in China, Bloomberg reported.

The number of U.S. heavy-duty trucks on the nation’s roads climbed to 3.59 million in the third quarter, a 3.2% increase over last year and a slight increase over the second quarter gain of 2.2%.

Ryder System said Friday it will combine its U.S. and International Supply Chain Solutions business units to form a single integrated organization to serve SCS customers globally.

Performance Transportation Services, a Wayne, Mich., auto transporter, said it, along with certain subsidiaries, will file for chapter 11 bankruptcy as part of a $67 million deal to sell nearly all of its assets to Allied Systems Holdings.

Aluminum manufacturer Alcoa, Pittsburgh, Pa., said Monday that its Alcoa Auto and Truck Structures business in Hungary delivered a aluminum truck bodies to SIP-WELL, a company that delivers water coolers and water to homes and offices.

Private Equity firm Fenway Partners, New York, N.Y., said Monday it acquired Canadian transportation firm Consolidated Fastfrate.

Heavy-duty retail truck sales in the United States fell 53.1% in October, the sixth straight month in which sales fell 50% or more below 2006 levels, according to WardsAuto.com.

ATLANTA — UPS Inc.’s incoming chief financial officer told shippers here what freight carriers have long heard: The U.S. transportation network is so clogged — and getting worse — that Congress must create an infrastructure improvement plan and pay for it with dedicated taxes on the system’s users.