Government

The U.S. Postal Service, angling for a bigger slice of the parcel market, has started a ground-based regional delivery service aimed at high-volume, business-to-consumer shippers selling retail goods online.

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.

Manufacturing activity in the Chicago region slipped in April from March, but showed continued expansion, the Institute for Supply Chain Management-Chicago said Friday.

Consumer confidence rose in April from a 16-month low, according to the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index released Friday.

The country’s recent economic climate certainly illustrates how essential and strong the transportation component is to our way of life, but trucking has needed to navigate regulatory challenges as well.

The U.S. economy grew at a 1.8% annual rate in the first quarter, the Commerce Department said Thursday.

Federal Reserve policy makers said Wednesday that the U.S. economy is recovering at a “moderate pace” and that any inflation surge likely to be temporary, while agreeing keeping interest rates at a record low rate, Bloomberg reported.

The number of injuries in U.S. truck related accidents declined by 18% in 2009, according to new statistics compiled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Swift Transportation Co. reported a first-quarter profit compared with a loss a year ago, as its operating income more than doubled.

The American Truck Dealers held its annual convention in Phoenix this month, with members cheerful over the economic rebound but increasingly leery of pending federal regulations.