On this week’s Drilling Deep podcast, David Roush of KSM Transport Partners, who has a wealth of experience in the sector, tackles several issues on the minds of truckers everywhere.
Why do some companies take freight with a lousy price? What does it mean to get ready for a post-COVID-19 world? And what does capacity look like for the end of the year?
Host John Kingston interviews Roush and also takes a look at the diesel market. Retail diesel prices have acted as if movements in the broader...
The less-than-truckload (LTL) sector of the trucking sector is generally more stable than the truckload carriers it shares the road with. But that doesn’t mean it has faced the pandemic without major upheaval.
On this week’s Drilling Deep podcast, host John Kingston speaks with Brian Thompson, the chief commercial officer of SMC3. His company sets the base rates for LTL shipments and he has a special insight into how the sector is faring.
LTL’s primary base of business from industry is being...
https://s29755.pcdn.co/news/drilling-deep-the-ltl-model-adapts-to-the-covid-19-world
To watch the stock of Nikola Motors, the company that has raised millions to produce a hydrogen-produced truck, you’d think that the day of the diesel engine was going to end soon.
But that isn’t the case. Allen Schaeffer, the executive director of the Diesel Technology Forum, joins host John Kingston on the Drilling Deep podcast to talk about the work his group is doing to produce engines that are cleaner and that stay a step ahead of other technologies, powered by a significant wave of...
Steve Burks was a truck driver in an earlier professional capacity. He also earned his Bachelor’s degree, his Master’s degree and then his PhD. He’s a professor of economics at the University of Minnesota-Morris where he continues to research truck drivers and the markets where they ply their trade.
He joins the Drilling Deep podcast this week along with host John Kingston to offer his views on the state of a market whose decline, he says, is radically different than the declines of the past,...
When food trucks were allowed to start selling their products at rest stops on many of the nation’s highways earlier this year, it marked a significant shift from years of policy that mostly kept the trucks on the road but the food off of an exit.
Yes, there were vending machines at the rest stops. And in some states where the interstate was part of a road more controlled by the state, like the Pennsylvania Turnpike, there were full-service stops. But for those small rest stops with minimal...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/drilling-deep-what-to-do-about-food-trucks-at-rest-stops
Tolls on bridges, tunnels and roads are plummeting in the wake of the pandemic. Unlike the broader system of highways whose upkeep is paid for by the rapidly depleting Highway Trust Fund, infrastructure funded by tolls generally has a steady stream of income to keep it in working condition.
But that is now threatened by a dramatic collapse in revenues due to the sharp drop-off in traffic. Steep cuts in capital expenditures are coming. Is this going to weaken this part of the nation’s...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/drilling-deep-toll-collectors-are-handling-a-lot-less-money
Steve Moss is the general manager of DTS Logistics in Montana. He’s heard the fierce criticism drivers are leveling against the 3PL industry as rates fall, with a great deal of blame being placed at the feet of the brokerage sector.
Moss reached out to FreightWaves to spell out his case for why this criticism is unfair, and we speak to him on Drilling Deep about his views of the complaints, based on 20 years in the business.
We also look at something that seems incredible: The price of diesel at...
https://s29755.pcdn.co/news/drilling-deep-a-broker-defends-his-industry
The numbers are in – earnings for the quarter have been reported by all the trucking and other freight-related companies for the three months that ended March 31. And what a quarter it was, finishing up in the middle of a radically changed scenario that nobody could have ever modeled for.
On this week’s Drilling Deep podcast, host John Kingston talks with Todd Fowler, the transportation equity analyst at KeyBank. Todd sat in on all the main earnings calls for the quarter – and followed up with...
https://s29755.pcdn.co/news/drilling-deep-the-last-mostly-normal-quarter-in-trucking-is-in-the-books
Plenty of trucking companies are going bankrupt. We know that. But what if a change in the bankruptcy law last year could keep a lot of them alive?
On this week’s Drilling Deep podcast, host John Kingston brings in attorney Matt Ferris from the firm of Haynes & Boone to talk about a changed provision in federal bankruptcy law that could keep a lot of smaller companies alive when liquidation might otherwise have been the only course of action.
Larger companies utilize Chapter 11 to reorganize and...
https://s29755.pcdn.co/news/drilling-deep-change-in-bankruptcy-law-may-save-some-trucking-companies
Airlines have suffered mightily from the loss of passenger traffic as a result of the pandemic. But there also has been a demand for their services to move freight, including an area that has always been taken to the skies to move from point A to point B: medical supplies.
On this week’s Drilling Deep podcast, host John Kingston talks with his colleague Eric Kulisch of FreightWaves on how airlines have tried to use their spare capacity to compensate for their loss in passenger movement. There...