TRUCKING MARKETS * USA & Canada

* USA - Celadon’s Chief: Abrupt Capacity Shortage Threatens Trucking,  Warns

Princenton,NJ,USA -Transport Topics, by Dan Leone -9 May 2011: --   There could be an “instantaneous capacity shortage” in the United States this year or next because of a “perfect storm” fed by an aging, shrinking truck fleet and a lack of good drivers, said Paul Will, president and chief operating officer of Celadon Group...  The convergence of these economic storm fronts will “result in the tightest transportation market we’ve seen,” Will said May 4 in a keynote address at ALK Technologies’ annual summit...  Will cited an expected tightening in the driver workforce, exacerbated by the introduction of the federal Compliance, Safety, Accountability rating program late last year, and a U.S. truck fleet that is close to 6.7 years in age...  Moreover, Will said, only large fleets appear to be buying trucks, and those carriers’ shopping lists are limited because truck makers appear to have a kink in their supply chain. OEMs “can’t ramp up production because they can’t get their suppliers to ramp up,” Will said. “We see that when we buy trucks and trailers” ...  Fuel costs have soared in the past six months, and Will said that some small truckers have found themselves forced to use credit lines to fund working capital needs — thus preventing them from using their credit toward buying new trucks... One smaller fleet operator who attended the ALK show said that the perception that small- and medium-size fleets were older than large fleets wasn’t exactly correct...


* Canada - Show profitable growth in final quarter of 2010

OTTAWA,ONT,CAN -Truck News, by Lou Smyrlis -5 May 2011: -- The operating profit of trucking companies improved 19% in the fourth quarter of 2010 compared with the same quarter in 2009, according to Statistics Canada's new quarterly trucking survey...  Operating revenue (+10%) increased more than operating expenses (+9%). Fourth quarter profit reached $1.2 billion on revenue of $10.8 billion and expenses of $9.6 billion, the survey results, released today, indicate...  Salaries and wages expenses increased 3% to $2.5 billion in the fourth quarter compared with the same quarter in 2009. Vehicle fuel expenses rose more rapidly (+14%) but, at $1.9 billion, remained a smaller component of total expenses. Most of the increase in fuel expenses was a result of higher prices, as fuel consumption rose 5%...  During 2010, trucking companies experienced year-over-year increases in quarterly profits averaging 26%, reflecting the general economic upturn. Quarterly revenue increased 12%, on average, and outgrew expenses in each of the four quarters...

* USA - President and CEO FedEx Corporation: "We must electrify the transport sector"

Little Rock, Arkansas,USA -FT, by Frederick Smith, chairman, president and chief executive officer of FedEx Corporation -May 9, 2011: -- It is tempting to say that the headlines about rising fuel prices, Libya and other events in the Middle East will be a wake-up call to the dangers of oil dependence. But such calls have been repeated for almost 40 years, and yet the vulnerability – both in the US and across the globe – remains...  Every American recession over the past 35 years has been preceded by – or occurred concurrently with – an oil-price spike...  That price spike contributed greatly to the recession and financial crisis which the world is still struggling to recover from...  This addiction has also led the US to commit its young men and women in uniform to protecting the world’s oil infrastructure. And it means that western diplomacy is handicapped by the need to placate oil-producing nations, including those that do not share America’s views or values...

So what can be done? 

* First, the US should produce more oil at home. Increased safety and environmental standards must come hand-in-hand with this increased production, but such standards – along with stalled permit processes and endless litigation – must not stop the US from exploiting its domestic resources...   

* Second, America must continue on the path started by George W. Bush and continued by President Barack Obama to make cars, light trucks and commercial vehicles more fuel-efficient. The less oil used to drive the transport system, the less effect a price spike will have.

* Third: The Electrification Coalition, an organisation of which I am a member, has put forward a plan to deploy electric vehicles at scale throughout the US. These policies would cost far less over all of the years of their implementation than the hundreds of billions of dollars America sends overseas to pay for oil in a single year. In almost every conceivable area, the coalition’s plan represents a positive return on investment, from a $127bn improvement in the US balance of trade to millions of new jobs... (Photo: An USPS vehicle)