Perspective

The United States wants to do business with truck fleets that are more fuel-efficient, better for the environment and cheaper to operate.

For 25 years or longer, operating ratio (the ratio of operating expenses to operating revenue) has been a common measure of profitability and efficiency in the truckload transportation industry.

At No. 21 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest U.S. and Canadian for-hire carriers, Prime Inc. is a major trucking industry player. The company has more than 5,000 drivers, most of them trained by Prime’s safety director, Don Lacy. Many, however, have had additional coaching in weight control and exercise by fellow driver Siphiwe Baleka.

The Presidential Youth Fitness Program announced by the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition during a recent function in Washington, D.C., provides a model for fitness education that includes the use of a health-related fitness assessment and educational and motivational tools that support educators and encourage students to adopt an active lifestyle.

Excessive roadside service calls are a major symptom of a dysfunctional fleet operation, the sort whose pickup-and-delivery times are less than dependable and whose truck downtime is costing the head office big bucks for lost business and expensive repairs. And the No. 1 cause of roadside service calls is tires.

Every year at the Management Conference & Exhibition, American Trucking Associations selects a new chairman. I am immensely grateful for the opportunity to serve you all this year.

As our industry adds more and more safety technology, an increasing number of your trucks have equipment installed that alerts drivers and dispatchers when the vehicle changes lanes.

There’s no denying that technology is rapidly changing the shipping and logistics industry. These changes are making warehousing more efficient, dispatching faster, planning easier and communications smoother — and that’s just the tip of the technological iceberg.

It was about this time last year that I had the privilege of addressing you in these pages as I started my year as chairman of American Trucking Associations.

The Sept. 9 issue of Transport Topics included a News Digest entry regarding backup warning devices.