Industry
The Wall Street Journal Paul Berger January 26, 2023
Subscription-Based
Online freight booking platform Freightos Ltd. started trading shares publicly on Thursday through a merger with a special-purpose acquisition company, just as the booming shipping demand that helped fuel the digital startup’s growth shows signs of weakening.
Israel-based Freightos started trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol CRGO and opened at $22.76 a share after the offering was priced at $10 a share, making it one of the biggest public stock offerings in the freight sector over the past year and defying
a broader pause in new listings in an uncertain economic environment. Shares peaked over $30 in early trading and then fell back to $10.49 at the close.
Technology/Innovation
The Journal Of Commerce Eric Johnson January 26, 2023
Subscription-Based
Freight visibility vendor FourKites on Thursday launched a new tool that enables its customers to more easily flow data into various business intelligence (BI) tools.
The release of the product, called Data Connector, was driven by demand from FourKites shipper customers who sought to more easily pipe visibility data into their internal data lakes to feed into visualization and analytics software, such as Tableau or PowerBI.
Those data visualizations may be based on a single data point, but more often are used to combine multiple data sets to contextualize the overall data. For instance, a shipper might want to combine FourKites data around a truck proof of delivery with another
data source that shows whether the shipment inside the truck met order requirements.
Government/Safety/Sustainability
Freight Waves John Gallagher January 26, 2023
The latest data from the Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse reveals that drug use among commercial drivers may be at its highest level since the federal repository was set up in 2019 — but more are being cleared to drive again as well.
Total drug violations reported into the clearinghouse in 2022, including positive tests and refusals to take a drug test, increased 18% to 69,668 compared with last year’s 59,011, according to the most recent statistics released this week by the Federal Motor
Carrier Safety Administration. That rate almost doubled the 9.2% annual increase in drug violations reported in 2021.
Much of the increase can be attributed to violations related to marijuana, the substance identified most in positive tests. Marijuana violations increased 31.6% in 2022 compared with 2021, to 40,916. That compares to a 5.3% increase between 2020 and 2021.
In fact, positive drug tests reported into the clearinghouse in 2022 increased in 12 of 14 substances tracked by the database, with only hydrocodone and heroin showing decreases.
Link: Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration
Drug And Alcohol Clearinghouse December 2022 Monthly Summary Report
Transport Topics Eric Miller January 26, 2023
Nearly 41,000 truck drivers tested positive for marijuana in 2022, a 32% increase over 2021, according to a report recently compiled from data in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse.
The new report shows that more than 100,000 truck drivers have tested positive for marijuana since FMCSA opened the Clearinghouse on Jan. 6, 2020. Truck drivers who test positive for marijuana — and other drugs — are prohibited from driving, and must enter
a “return-to-work” process and retest to get back behind the wheel.
Transport Topics Noel Fletcher January 26, 2023
Toll increases this year in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York are frustrating trucking companies that are having to pass on costs in the form of higher freight charges.
“In the past, toll increases were years apart, but now agencies pass multiyear increases to reduce the number of times they must deal with the toll payers,” said Gail Toth, executive director of New Jersey Motor Truck Association. “Trucking companies just pass
along the increase.”
According to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ), automatic inflation-based adjustments (triggered by a 14% jump last year in the consumer price index) led to $1 increases in auto tolls at tunnels and bridges. New fees for trucks vary from
$57 to $69 for three axles, $76 to $92 for four axles, $95 to $115 for five axles and $114 to $138 for six axles.
Freight Waves Mark Solomon January 26, 2023
To calculate EV’s cost-effectiveness in the LTL world, Charlie Prickett, president and COO of LTL giant AAA Cooper Transportation, uses the ratio of charging time to operating time. Currently, EVs get about six to seven hours of charge time, which would produce
the equivalent of about eight hours of operating time, or about 400 miles, according to Prickett.
The subsequent charge cycle would take that vehicle out of use for large LTL fleets at critical times in their operations, Prickett said. This would require Cooper to add more trucks and drivers to replace one truck that could otherwise perform a full day’s
work, he added.
If LTL trucks were limited to 400-mile trips followed by six to seven hours of recharge idle time, the “economic leverage of asset utilization and transit speed could be negatively impacted,” Prickett said in an email. For LTL, the range and economic effect
on equipment utilization and delivery transit times would be “particularly impactful,” he said.
Since about half of Cooper’s 3,000 vehicles fall under the dual-use category, the adoption of EVs would mean many of the trucks would effectively be restricted to urban service, according to Prickett.
Workforce
Freight Waves Mark Solomon January 25, 2023
A survey of nearly 1,000 drivers by driver mobility provider Trucker Path asked a simple question: How frequently would you like to return home from the road? If the results are any indication, carriers appear to do a good job of responding to their drivers’
preferences.
The survey, published Wednesday, gave drivers four options to choose from: Whether they wanted to return home every night, several times a week, several times a month or never. According to the results, 63% of the drivers who preferred to return home every
night were allowed to do so. About 89% of drivers who wanted to return home several times a month had their request granted.
Roughly 80% of the drivers who preferred to always be on the road were given that privilege, accorded to the survey. About 74% of drivers who wanted to be home several times a week were allowed to do so.
Link: Trucker Path How Often Do Truckers Prefer To Return Home? How Often Do They
Actually Return Home?
CCJ Jason Cannon January 26, 2023
Nearly a quarter of all respondents (23%) to CCJ's most recent What Drivers Want survey of company drivers and leased owner-operators said they would raise pay if they were in charge of a fleet and could do one thing to attract and retain drivers. Another 18%
said they would guarantee pay, loads or mileage to make take home pay more predictable.
However, only a combined 10% listed not making enough money (9%) and a lack of loads and miles (1%) as the one thing they dislike most about their job, and that could be because just more than half (52%) of respondents said their carrier had raised pay at least
twice since 2020. Another 10% said pay had gone up three times or more.
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