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Starsky Robotics ” might have you believe, the world of long-haul trucking isn’t a slam-bang adrenaline-fueled thrill ride. But Florida startup wants to change all that by making autonomous semi a reality.Starsky is doing a pretty good job of taking autonomous trucks out of the realm of the theoretical and getting them onto the road. Just this month, the company conducted the first ever fully unmanned autonomous truck drive on a public highway. Unmanned means unmanned too, there were no emergency drivers or engineers onboard. The truck traveled for 7 miles on a stretch of Florida highway, admittedly one that was dead-straight and empty, without incident.

Starsky has previously used manned but autonomous trucks to deliver aid in the wake of Hurricane Irma. One of its trucks on an aid trip was able to complete a 68-mile trip with no safety driver interventions. The thing that makes the Starsky approach a little different than that of some other autonomous trucking companies is that it’s only focused on autonomy on the highway, where it’s simpler to do cleanly and safely. For “first mile” and “last mile” portion of a truck’s trip, a remote driver takes over and navigates the more complex city streets.Starsky isn’t so much trying to replace truck drivers as take away the tedious and dangerous parts of their jobs while keeping them around for the parts that require real human skill.

There are a few other, infrastructure-based limitations to be worked out — who puts the diesel in the autonomous semi in the middle of the night at a rural truck stop? But the Starsky Robotics approach seems to have a real chance of actually becoming a thing, even if it isn’t the sexiest solution.Now I just need to convince Starsky to let me remote drive a semi-truck.

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Source: https://www.cnet.com/

It’s a big turnaround from recent years when there wasn’t enough freight demand to fill up all the nation’s trucks and drivers struggled to get attractive rates. This year will be the best for the trucking industry since 2005, said David Ross, an analyst at Stifel Financial Corp. “There are real serious constraints on capacity – mainly a lack of sufficient amounts of qualified drivers – that should drive trucking rates much higher as we move through the year.” “The rates are the best I’ve seen in several years,” Jim Kienbaum, an independent refrigerated truck driver from White Water, Wis., told Trucks.com. Both were about double previous rates.

Rates “were astronomical coming out of Arizona last week,” he said. and inclement weather has pushed the need for more for trucking services, bumping up rates significantly from a year earlier, said Mark Montague, an analyst at DAT Solutions, which tracks freight and rates. Rates for the week of Jan. Rates for refrigerated freight remained unchanged at $2.70. Freight rates still remain higher than at any time in 2017, according to DAT. Freight rates should remain high throughout the year, despite a possible dip because of less freight in February and March, before spring rates surge, Montague said. attributes the surge in rates partially to the ELD mandate, which took effect Dec. get more involved in being proactive to solve these issues like reducing wait times, better communication with carriers so trucking operations become smoother and more efficient,” Montague said.

Shippers expect rates to continue to climb because there are not enough trucks or drivers to handle freight demand, according to the analysts at Stifel. “We are seeing some really crazy high rates right now,” said Linda Caffee, who is half of a driver team with her husband, Bob, of Silex, Mo. “The freight is there and the rates are there.” Last year was the best year the Caffees have experienced in their 13 years as owner-operators.

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Source:https://www.trucks.com/

He was cautious a year ago about investment, exports and government three of the five elements that make up TEA, the other two being consumption and imports but by the end of the year, government spending was the only area of caution.Dieli uses a tool called the Enhanced Aggregate Spread to help him forecast market conditions.

At the end of the third quarter of 2017 (the latest period for which figures are available), all areas of TEA have shown growth, aided by truckable investment and truckable exports, but truckable consumption was the true driver of the growth.

He expects this to continue with employment continuing to rise.Looking forward, Dieli said TEA is continuing to follow the path normally associated with the expansion phases of the economic cycle.Dielis forecast model shows that for 2018, the expansion will continue and TEA growth will remain positive. The drag on TEA seems likely to persist this year.

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Source: http://www.truckinginfo.com/

The topic of women in the workforce has been and continues to be, a trending topic. Our representation in trucking shadows our male counterparts: federal labor statistics show that women comprise just 27% of the transportation workforce. Overall, women represent only 3% of drivers, technicians, and mechanics. Trucking HR Canada highlighted the lack of women in the trucking workforce as an issue in 2014 when our national Women with Drive advisory committee was formed. The committee is led by 18 accomplished women and men, including company presidents, senior managers, and HR leads.

We came together with a common vision to support employers in recruiting and retaining more women in trucking. With women comprising 48% of the Canadian labor force, this effort isn’t simply a question of “Doing the right thing.” It is first and foremost a business issue for an industry facing significant shortages in key occupations. Occupations from funeral directors to architects have managed to increase women representation over the past couple of years. Each year, we bring transportation professionals together, both men and women, to learn from each other, share success stories, and nurture our networks. We have fun doing it! And each year, there are more young women in attendance. As someone born in 1990 and has attended the event since its inception, here are some of my key takeaways from my experiences at our Women with Drive Leadership Summit: 1. Recruiting and retaining women is a business issue At our event last year, Stephania Varelli from the Women of Influence organization told us that economies do better when women do better.

The Women with Drive Leadership Summit brings together a variety of people in transportation. This diverse mix shows young women, whether they’re in high school or already in the workplace, that a career in our industry is not only an option but a career of choice for many. I hope you’ll join me at our 2018 Women with Drive Leadership Summit, starting with a reception on February 28 and continuing with the full-day event on March 1 in Toronto.

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Source:https://www.trucknews.com/

But because the trucking company, Bert Baxter Transport Ltd., cannot prove the damage did not arise through the negligence or improper conduct of its driver, it must pay damages to Duraroc Consulting Ltd., Smith said. A semi tractor-trailer unit owned by Bert Baxter Transport Ltd., driven by Anthony Dale Voth, was traveling through Saskatoon when it left Highway 11 just after passing under the Highway 16 overpass in the city’s southeast. Bert Baxter Transport argued that the crash was caused by unforeseen circumstances and could not have been prevented by exercising normal care and that because there is no evidence the company or its driver acted negligently, it should not be liable for the damages. Duraroc noted Bert Baxter Transport presented no evidence that the crash was unavoidable and should be responsible for damages.

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Source: http://thestarphoenix.com/

The same might soon happen for the trucking space, thanks to the electronic logging device mandate. And a lot of backlash, including an opposition rally held by truckers earlier this month, the mandate finally went into effect this week, allowing compliance deadline, inspectors and roadside enforcement personnel to start documenting ELD violations. Starting in April, things will heat up even more, as inspectors will start placing drivers out of service if their vehicle is not equipped with an ELD.

A survey conducted earlier this month found that nearly half of owner-operators said they hadn’t even select an ELD yet, and only a third had installed one. While the trucking companies themselves may be dragging their feet, perhaps hoping that the mandate will still be struck down, startups and venture capitalists already see the ELD mandate as an opportunity for the industry. That includes Peloton Technology, a connected and automated vehicle technology company, which is in favor of the mandate and has already installed ELDs in its vehicles. “We operate a small fleet of test vehicles and we have implemented ELD’s internally across our fleet in compliance with the regulations.

Our driver-assistive truck platooning system does take hours of service into account when determining platooning eligibility so we are supportive of the ELD mandate,” Rod McLane, VP of Marketing at Peloton, told me. For FourKites, a real-time tracking and orchestration company in the trucking space, the big opportunity that comes from the ELD mandate is the data that will allow trucks to operate faster and more cost-effectively. “The ELD mandate will create a massive influx of real-time data about shipments on the road across the United States. ELDs are a good idea in general “For the simple but powerful reason that they put every truck online,” he said. “With an ELD in the truck, that truck is now streaming its location and the available hours that driver has in real time on the internet.

This will increase efficiency, improve utilization and increase earning potential for drivers, reduce congestion and pollution and bring transparency and efficiency to the market that today is hindered by lack of visibility to this information.” Ultimately, Kropp believes that ELDs will force the trucking industry to adopt cloud technology, which will finally help bring the industry into this century technology-wise.

I see it as a real game-changer for the the trucking tech sector.” While he believes that ELD’s are important from a safety perspective, and will make it easier to enforce Hours of Service rules that mandate that drivers can’t go more than 10 to 12 hours, he also acknowledges that it may create scenarios where drivers might be incentivized to drive faster than is safe so they don’t run out of hours. Dan Lewis, Co-founder and CEO of on-demand trucking app Convoy comes down more squarely on the side of the mandate being good for drivers.

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Source: http://vator.tv/

The Tesla Semi offers something to the trucking industry that could drastically alter the entire freight moving sector. The trucking industry has seen major changes since it began roughly a century ago and has, despite the assumptions of many outsiders looking in, been one of the more technologically-advanced industries in our nation. Trucks themselves have seen huge changes in the past few decades while the freight industry as a whole has been reinvented and revamped multiple times over in that same time period. Nasdaq.com contributor Martin Tillier mentions the impacts that the Tesla Semi and others with similar game-changing technologies will have on the trucking industry long-term.

“The technological change that benefits trucking and delivery businesses have been widely reported, but in my experience, most people that I ask about it focus on the potential negatives rather than looking for opportunities,” writes Tillier. They ignore the biggest beneficiary of all: trucking companies. According to the American Trucking Associations, over 70 percent of the freight moved in the United States is moved by truck. In trucking, the highest cost to the trucking company is the driver behind the wheel, with wages and benefits-not to mention legalities and downtime-having the highest impact on the bottom line. Self-driving trucks would also solve a problem that’s long plagued the trucking industry: driver shortages. Replacements for those skilled drivers are new drivers who’ve completed perhaps three weeks of trucking school and a month of over-the-road training with a slightly more skilled driver as a mentor. This doesn’t make trucking an easy job, but it does mean that those with the most skills are the least likely to lose their jobs when automation becomes the norm. The trucking industry is going through another sea change. The trucking industry knows that electrification and automation are coming. How Tesla’s Semi will dramatically alter the trucking industry.

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Source:https://www.teslarati.com/

The Tennessee Highway Patrol arrested the 20 employees who are from Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala respectfully.As a result of those investigations, those 20 illegal aliens, defendants, are alleged to have presented fraudulent documents between November 2016 and November 2017 to certify their identity and eligibility to work here in this country, said U.S. A Memphis employment agency, Provide Staffing, assigned multiple employees to Expeditors International, a freight forwarder based in Memphis.

The Immigration and Reform Act of 1986, amended, and the Immigration and Nationality Act together require employers to verify the identity and employment eligibility of their employees using a prescribed form, Form I-9 and require that employees present documents to verify their identity and eligibility to work in the United States. Each defendant is charged with knowingly using a false identification document as evidence of his or her employment eligibility, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1546 (a) or Section 1546(b) (2).

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Source: http://www.localmemphis.com/