Love’s Travel Stops

Pilot joins list of truck stop chains requiring masks

Pilot Co. joins a growing list of truck stop chains and retailers requiring customers to wear masks.

Pilot Co. is joining a growing list of major truck stop chains that will start requiring all customers to wear face coverings, except children and those with a medical condition that prevents them from doing so, at all of its locations to help curb the spread of COVID-19.

The Knoxville, Tennessee-based truck stop chain has 950 retail and fueling locations in the Pilot Flying J travel center network that operate in 44 states and six Canadian provinces.

Customers at Pilot Co.’s locations will be...

https://s29755.pcdn.co/news/pilot-joins-list-of-truck-stop-chains-requiring-masks

The Daily Dash: Knight-Swift Q2 earnings; TuSimple revenues; and settling a New Prime driver misclassification suit

Knight Swift earnings

The Daily Dash is a quick look at what is happening in the freight ecosystem. In today’s edition, reports suggest that autonomous truck startup TuSimple is not meeting revenue projections, Knight-Swift continues a trend of better-than-expected second-quarter earnings results, a long-running court battle concludes, and how innovative fleets are benefiting from open technology platforms.

Just a little short

Autonomous truck startup TuSimple is not meeting its revenue projections, according to a...

https://s29755.pcdn.co/news/the-daily-dash-knight-swift-q2-earnings-tusimple-revenues-and-settling-a-new-prime-driver-misclassification-suit

Love’s Travel Stops to require face masks starting July 29

Truck driver wearing mask fuels up at a Love's Travel Stop.

Love’s Travel Stops announced Tuesday that it is joining a growing list of retailers that are requiring customers to wear face coverings in an attempt to curb the spread of COVID-19.

The new face-covering policy starts on July 29 and will be required at all Love’s Travel Stops, Love’s Country Store, Love’s Truck Care and Speedco locations to protect customers, employees and local communities from the highly contagious virus. 

The Oklahoma City-based truck stop chain has more than 520 locations in...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/loves-travel-stops-to-require-face-masks-starting-july-29

Love’s acquisitions expand its factoring business

Love’s factoring business just got much larger, and the paychecks for some of its workers this month will be bigger too. 

The company known mostly for its travel centers also has a factoring business, and it announced the first two acquisitions in its history on Wednesday, July 1. Love’s Financial, as the factoring arm is known, acquired Vero Business Capital of Memphis and Foley Business Capital of Omaha.

Vero acquired Foley less than a year ago. Southworth Capital Management, also in Memphis...

https://s29755.pcdn.co/news/loves-acquisition-expand-its-factoring-business

As truck stop restaurants reopen, will drivers pull up a seat?

TravelCentes of America Dining Room

As the human and economic toll of the COVID-19 pandemic mounts, America is adapting to   changes at dine-in restaurants, including travel plazas dotting the nation’s highways.

“You’d never in the regular course of business, without something like COVID, shut down your restaurants and then try to reopen them in a different way,” said Jon Pertchik, CEO of TravelCenters of America (NASDAQ: TA). “It’s given us an opportunity, if you want to look for a silver lining, to really test ourselves.”

With...

https://s29755.pcdn.co/news/as-truck-stop-restaurants-reopen-will-drivers-pull-up-a-seat

Possible protests spur some interstate exit closings, warnings of delivery delays

Businesses like the Love’s Travel Stop in South Holland, Illinois, shut down services to truck drivers in anticipation of potential protests in the Chicago area late Tuesday.

A truck driver who stopped in at Love’s wasn’t allowed to fuel up or come inside and was asked to return to their truck late Tuesday.

Richard Anderson, shift lead at the Love’s, confirmed that fuel pumps had been turned off and that he had been instructed not to let drivers inside except to use the bathroom one at a time.

“We...

https://s29755.pcdn.co/news/possible-protests-spur-some-interstate-exit-closings-warnings-of-delivery-delays

Trucker charity on track for record donations

Pilot travel stop canopy

A charity that helps truckers pay living expenses while off the road for illness is seeing record donations as the public recognizes truck drivers’ role in delivering critical goods during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The St. Christopher’s Trucker Development and Relief Fund (CTF) is more than halfway to its $1 million fundraising goal for the year, said Shannon Currier, CTF director of philanthropy and development.

St. Christopher’s has received three separate donations of $100,000 from the Pilot...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/trucker-charity-on-track-for-record-donations

A tale of two cities and how they’re welcoming trucking facilities

Trucking facilities tend to leave a sizable footprint in the communities where they operate. Their construction and expansion can become a flashpoint and set off local political battles.

Love’s Travel Stops is facing some of that opposition in its attempt to build a truck stop in Glendale, Arizona, on what had been farmland. More than halfway across the country, Old Dominion Freight is trying to build a new terminal in Youngstown, Ohio, where it already has one. There, the company appears likely...

https://s29755.pcdn.co/news/a-tale-of-two-cities-and-how-theyre-welcoming-trucking-facilities

Borderlands: CBP beefs up border security; Kenworth restarts truck factory in Mexico

Borderlands is a weekly rundown of developments in the world of United States-Mexico cross-border trucking and trade. This week: CBP beefs up security at US-Mexico border; Kenworth restarts truck factory in Mexico; Love’s Travel Stops opens new location in Laredo; Port of Brownsville ranks third for “financial resilience.”

CBP beefs up scanning security technology at US-Mexico border

Several United States-Mexico ports of entry will soon have new tools to help stop concealed drugs, weapons, cash,...

https://s29755.pcdn.co/news/borderlands-cbp-beefs-up-border-security-kenworth-restarts-truck-factory-in-mexico

Playing catch-up: TravelCenters of America kick-starts franchising

Truck with TA sign in background

TravelCenters of America (NASDAQ: TA) is pulling the franchise lever to grow its presence on the highway map.

Actively pursuing franchisees to take over existing truck stops is one of CEO Jon Pertchik’s approaches to growing the TA, Petro Stopping Centers and TA Express travel center brands. A new TA Express franchise opened Wednesday in Mount Vernon, Texas.

“The competitors have been eating our lunch in the last few years in terms of adding dots on the map,” Pertchik told FreightWaves in a March...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/playing-catch-up-travelcenters-of-america-kickstarts-franchising

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