ATLANTA — The future of autonomous trucks is further down the road than people believe, but final-mile delivery by robots is closer to larger use, said Steve Banker of ARC Advisory Group, giving his assessment of future disruption at the SMC3 Jump Start conference.

Georgia’s seaports shook off fears of global trade tensions and the early days of the partial government shutdown to post another record year of freight traffic in calendar year 2018, a sign the economy remains sound despite recent turmoil.

Trucking groups prepared their drivers with tips on operations and safety as a polar vortex gripped the Midwest, delivering extremely cold temperatures and harsh wind chills.

Representatives for container shipping companies and trucking companies pushed back against a proposal to restrict the number of 1,100-foot-plus container vessels that call on Houston, saying this would hurt the entire shipping and logistics supply chain.

The advent of ELDs is influencing how carriers and shippers work together to control costs, deploy capacity, design networks, offer and charge for services, make capital investments, recruit and assign drivers and leverage new technology.

ATLANTA — Disruption is increasingly happening for freight movers as they seek to cross the United States’ borders with Mexico and Canada, and it’s not the positive technological change often associated with that word. Instead, it’s delayed freight or higher costs.

The world’s biggest shipbuilder sees China’s cleanup of its smoggy skies lifting prices of the vessels this year.

FedEx Corp., looking beyond Amazon.com Inc. for growth in e-commerce, is introducing a new late-night shipping option for retailers who want to speedily send orders directly to online customers.