One of the largest sources of climate pollution is the transportation sector, which is responsible for about a quarter of our nation’s greenhouse gas pollution. It is clear that to reach our climate goals, we must reduce car and truck emissions.

One way to reduce harmful air and climate pollution is by electrifying the transportation sector, especially long-haul trucks, buses, delivery vehicles, garbage trucks and regional “day cab” tractors used at ports. Heavy-duty vehicles are not only responsible for significant climate pollution, they are also responsible for about 30% of Nitrogen oxide pollution. These emissions can increase cancer risk, neurological and metabolic diseases, and cause respiratory and cardiovascular damage.

Toxic air pollutants like these are often hyper-localized, disproportionately impacting low-income communities and communities of color who are more likely to live near major highways, ports, and distribution centers. A recent EDF study of Oakland’s air pollution, for example, observed residents living near one particular freeway (home to much of the city’s diesel fueled traffic) were exposed to concentrations of black carbon 80% higher than a similar road.

Electrifying these medium and heavy-duty vehicles therefore reduces both pollution that harms human health and reduces greenhouse gas emissions from the combustion of the fuel. But making this win-win transition will require significant technological and political support to succeed. Fortunately, a growing number of innovators are adopting and/or developing tools to expand the number of medium- and heavy-duty electric vehicles on the road — ultimately reducing harmful pollution and preserving a clean, reliable and equitable electric grid.

A smarter way to access energy

The cost of charging an electric vehicle can be high, especially for commercial customers who manage large fleets. As an illustration, the battery capacity of an electric bus is typically about 200-300 kilowatts (kWh), versus the Chevy Bolt, which has a capacity of 60 kWh. To adequately charge a heavy-duty vehicle in a reasonable amount of time, rapid chargers are needed, which can cause spikes in demand and lead to high energy costs for customers.

Fortunately, some utilities have developed a solution: a pricing mechanism that charges customers less for energy when demand is lowest – typically around midday, when there is abundant solar energy generation. Therefore, companies that charge vehicles when energy rates are lowest can reap huge economic and environmental benefits.

Rebates, incentives and lower costs

Currently, there are multitude of other programs that can help offset the cost of vehicles and infrastructure. For example, all of the major utilities in California now have programs and proposals that help ensure the state is developing charging stations to guarantee fleets can charge at their existing depots and have sufficient access to public charging stations. Another California program provides rebates to vehicle purchasers at the time of sale.

The New York utility Con Edison also recently expanded their SmartCharge program in order to encourage the purchase and strategic use of medium and heavy-duty vehicles. Fleet owners who take advantage of these programs, and the policy makers who develop them both play critical roles in reducing the up-front costs associated with electric vehicles.

Embracing technological innovations

A number of emerging technologies can also save companies money and ensure a clean, reliable grid. Some tech can help vehicles dispatch energy they have charged, but are not using, back to the grid and generate new revenue streams for companies. Others, like mobile apps and smart charging stations, can help ease the complexities of charging vehicles in off-peak hours. Embracing these innovative tools can give fleet owners a competitive edge when switching to electric vehicles.

The smartest, most innovative trucking companies successfully manage their fleets as a form of energy storage, take advantage of rebates and incentives, embrace innovation, and provide benefits where they are needed most. As we strive to transition to a much-needed, electrified transportation sector, companies and policy makers are increasingly proving that they are finding ways to make this shift work financially and environmentally.

Over the next several months, we will be profiling the innovators – ranging from small technology developers to long-haul national trucking companies — who are taking advantage of these tools to make the transition to cleaner energy possible.

This article was first found at the Environmental Defence Fund and written By Larissa Koehler

Spot truckload rates for van and refrigerated freight hit their highest national averages since January during the week ending June 23 despite lower load-to-truck ratios, said DAT Solutions, which operates the industry’s largest load board network.

The number of truck posts on the DAT network of load boards increased 3.5% while the number of loads declined 2% compared to the previous week.

National average spot rates for the month, through June 23:

• Van: $1.90/mile, 11 cents above the May average
• Reefer: $2.25/mile, 10 cents higher
• Flatbed: $2.30/mile, 2 cents higher

Van trends: The national average van load-to-truck ratio fell from 3.0 to 2.6 although freight availability on the Top 100 van lanes on DAT RateView remained solid last week. Combined volume on these lanes is up 22% compared to the same period a year ago, although spot rates are lower year over year: indeed, the spread between truckload contract rates and spot rates is near a historic high.

Where van rates are rising: The average spot van rate strengthened out of Los Angeles ($2.35/mile, up 5 cents) and Stockton, Calif. ($2.06/mile, up 5 cents), compared to the previous week but volumes were softer, perhaps signaling a winding down of supply chain managers moving freight to beat potential tariff increases. Key van-lane rates on the spot market:

• Stockton to Seattle, up 16 cents to $2.79/mile
• Los Angeles to Phoenix, up 11 cents to $2.80/mile
• Atlanta to Miami, up 12 cents to $2.65/mile

Flatbed trends: Spot flatbed freight volumes increased 3% last week and, at 19.0, the national average flatbed load-to-truck ratio was marginally higher compared to the previous week.ADVERTISING

Where rates are rising: Raleigh, N.C., stands out for having gained 11.6% in the average outbound rate during the last month and hitting $2.94/mile last week. Outbound flatbed volumes were up 41% there as well.

In Las Vegas, flatbed volumes surged 51% last week and several key lanes saw rates jump:

• Las Vegas to Sacramento, up 55 cents to $2.92/mile
• Las Vegas to Phoenix, up 44 cents to $3.15/mile
• Las Vegas to Los Angeles, up 30 cents to $2.91/mile

Photo: DAT Solutions

DAT Trendlines is a weekly snapshot of month-to-date national average rates from DAT RateView, which provides real-time reports on spot market and contract rates, as well as historical rate and capacity trends. The RateView database is comprised of more than $60 billion in freight payments. DAT load boards average 1.2 million load posts searched per business day.

This article was first found at FleetOwner.Com and written by Fleet Owner Staff 

COLUMBUS, Ind. — The latest release of ACT’s For-Hire Trucking Index showed nearly across-the-board declines, with capacity being the lone exception.

The Pricing Index fell considerably to 38.8, in May on a seasonally adjusted (SA) basis, the lowest in survey history, from 45.4 in April.

The Volume Index dropped further into negative territory hitting 46.7 (SA), from 49.5 in April. Fleet productivity/utilization slipped to 46.0 in May on a seasonally adjusted basis down from 49.4 in April, and capacity growth increased to 54.6, from April’s 54.3 reading.

“May’s Pricing Index was the fourth consecutive negative number after 30 straight months of expansion. This confirms our expectation that the annual bid season is not going well for truckers,” said Tim Denoyer, ACT Research’s vice president and senior analyst. “We continue to believe rates are under pressure from weak freight volumes and strong capacity growth.”

Volume in May fell for the sixth time in the past seven months, Denover said.

“The softness coincides with several other recent freight metrics, with the drop likely due in part to rapid growth of private fleets and the slowdown in the industrial sector of the economy,” he said. “The supply-demand balance reading loosened to 42.1, from 45.3 in April. The past seven consecutive readings have shown a deterioration in the supply-demand balance, with May the largest yet.”

The ACT Freight Forecast provides quarterly forecasts for the direction of volumes and contract rates through 2020 and annual forecasts through 2021 for the truckload, less-than-truckload and intermodal segments of the transportation industry.

For the truckload spot market, the report provides forecasts for the next 12 months.

ACT is a publisher of new and used commercial vehicle (CV) industry data, market analysis and forecasting services for the North American market, as well as the U.S. tractor-trailer market and the China CV market. ACT’s CV services are used by all major North American truck and trailer manufacturers and their suppliers, major trucking and logistics firms, as well as the banking and investment community in North America, Europe, and China.

This article was first found at TheTrucker.Com, and written by The Trucker News Staff 

• Amazon leased 10,000 branded trailers to haul your Prime deliveries.
• It launched its own freight brokerage service in late 2016 or early 2017, according to a recent FreightWaves report. Freight brokers match shipments with truckers who can move the goods.
• But the truckers who are driving your Amazon packages across the country told Business Insider that Amazon pays too little for them to justify working with the company.
• And trucking executives told FreightWaves that contracts with Amazon are “heavily one-sided” towards the e-commerce company.
• Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

In April, Amazon launched a website that allowed truckers to take jobs driving Amazon packages in Prime-branded trailers across the country. Scott Leckliter, an Iowa-based independent trucker, checked it out.

And he was surprised at how low the rates were.

“As long as you pay me market value, I’m good. I don’t need astronomical numbers,” Leckliter told Business Insider. “But they were lower than that and it was considerable.”

According to a recent report from FreightWaves , Amazon’s rates in the spot market which is whenretailers and manufacturers buy trucking capacity as they need it, rather than through a contract are on average 18.4% lower than rates posted on DAT , one of the largest broker boards in the country.

“It was just not gonna work for me,” Leckliter said. “It was not as profitable as working with a different broker who is going to pay market value.”

Trucking companies are wary of Amazon, too.Daniel Lacroix, who is the director of safety and compliance at Franklin, Massachusetts-based Regency Transportation, told Business Insider that he wasn’t interested in working with Amazon after seeing the rates offered.

“We didn’t make it past the initial bid process because the rates were just ridiculous,” Lacroix said. “I love Amazon.I get all of my stuff off of Amazon, but I don’t want to do business with them.”

Amazon declined to comment.

Amazon’s low freight rates are happening amid a serious dip in trucking prices industry-wide.

The amount of loads on the spot market fell by 62.6% in May year over year , and ratesfor van loads sank 20% in May year over year, according to DAT .Lexington, Kentucky-based owner-operator Chad Boblett said some truck drivers are seeing a “bloodbath.”

“We cannot continue driving shipping costs down,” one trucking company said in the FreightWaves report. “Where are the antitrust laws? Amazon is becoming a monopoly. Small companies will not be able to compete.”

Trucking executives are wary of working too closely with Amazon

Outside of picking up quick loads on the company’s new freight board, many trucking executives don’t like entering into contracts with Amazon. They say contracts with Amazon are “heavily one-sided” towards the e-commerce behemoth, according to the FreightWaves report.

That means rates can be too low to turn a profit, but it can also mean that the company demands so much capacity that it overwhelms a company’s network.

“Amazon contracts are pretty demanding,” Satish Jindel, the SJ Consulting Group’s principal consultant, previously told Business Insider . “Because they’re growing so rapidly, they can suck up a lot more of your capacity that you planned to make available to them.”

And, when Amazon suddenly shifts its logistics strategies, the company is at risk of losing a major customer that it may have grown dependent on.

“Amazon is really trying to monopolize the transportation side and dictate their own terms,” Lacroix of Regency told Business Insider. “People can choose if they want to work with them or not. But some people are going into the (trucking) business (to work with Amazon), thenthey realize there’s not enough money to operate with them.”

XPO Logistics, which is among the country’s largest logistics players, said in Feb. that the company will lose some $600 million in revenues as its “largest customer” (believed to be Amazon) begins to in-house some trucking and logistics operations.

Amazon has been shifting more and more packages to its in-house delivery network of trains, planes, delivery vans, trucks, and ocean freighters.Amazon’s worldwide shipping costs have grown fifteenfold from 2009 to 2018. Net sales increased by sevenfold in the same time.

Amazon says its in-house network is better and more cost-efficient. Many observers say Amazon is also building a third-party logistics company that will someday compete against FedEx and UPS.

“Amazon is making a shrewd move here in saying, ‘Look, I can build this myself and I have the capability to deliver this myself,'” AT Kearney vice president Joshua Brogan previously told Business Insider of Amazon’s logistics moves.

But for most truckers, the e-commerce company isn’t the ideal partner. Leckliter said most other truckers he knows tend to stay away.

“There are a few that work with them,” Leckliter said. “Then they go whine when something doesn’t work with them.”

This article was first at Business Insider

A large trucking company based in Pennsylvania recently was hit by a ransomware attack that impacted network communication systems.

On Monday, June 17, trucking company A. Duie Pyle announced that the company had been targeted by a ransomware attack. Ransomeware is a type of malware that typically threatens to prevent a company from accessing their data unless they pay a certain amount of money.

The company said that its core operating systems and backups were not invaded or compromised, and that there was no data extracted from these systems.

The company issued a statement on their team’s response to the attack:

While all businesses in our country are at risk for these type of attacks, and our turn came this weekend, we are very proud of our Pyle Team’s around the clock response to this intrusion. We thank you for your past and continuing support, and while we expect there may be some competitive attempts to exploit this occurrence, we trust we can count on your on-going support of our Pyle Team.

The company also said that the attack had minimal impact on operations: “All Pyle LTL, Dedicated, Warehousing and Brokerage Services are up and operating and conducting business effectively.”

A. Duie Pyle reported on Wednesday afternoon that their team had restored email services. As of Wednesday afternoon, several features on the company’s website remained down.

This article was first found at CDLLIFE

Navistar announced a $125 million investment in its Huntsville, Alabama, engine plant as part of a plan to begin producing next-generation big-bore diesel engines developed with its European partner, Traton, in the future.

Navistar makes International brand diesel engines at the plant, and plans to make the new investments over the next three years.

The principal engine currently built at Navistar’s Huntsville plant is the International A26, a 12.4L big-bore engine offered in Class 8 on-highway trucks such as the International LT Series and RH Series, as well as in vocational trucks such as the International HV Series and HX Series.

According to local news reports, part of the expansion is relocating to Huntsville a gear box assembly line.

In 2017, Navistar and VW told reporters that the two companies would collaborate on a fully integrated, next-generation diesel big bore powertrains for North America, launching in 2021. It also said at the time that it expects to be in a position to launch its first medium-duty electric powered vehicle for the U.S. and Canadian markets in late 2019 or early 2020. 

“Over the last two decades, the state of Alabama has been a wonderful partner for Navistar as we have developed and produced big-bore engines and other products in the state,” said Persio Lisboa, Navistar’s executive vice president and chief operating officer. “Today, we are excited to have the opportunity to expand our presence in Alabama, while adding to our array of next-generation products.”

In 2014, as part of its turnaround efforts, the company announced it was moving its mid-range engine production from Huntsville to its Melrose Park, Illinois, plant.

This article was first found at Trucking Info, and was written by HDT Staff

Last year Azmi Kiswani was hiring truck drivers to keep pace with shippers clamoring to move goods in a booming market. Now there’s too little freight to keep them all busy.

Kiswani is vice president at Kiswani National, a South Holland trucking company with nearly $30 million in revenue and 200 employees, 150 of them drivers. Around mid-February, the company saw volume drop, which was normal. But the flood of holiday merchandise that should have arrived by now hasn’t materialized, which isn’t. Drivers have been working just three or four days per week since March.

“You’re going from an extreme of so much freight on the market that nobody knows what to do, to 2019, and it’s like, where’s all the freight?” he says. “You’re going from hot to cold.”

A suite of factors combined in 2018 to goose the freight market to record levels, from customers stocking up before tariffs took effect to new governmental regulation mandating electronic logging devices. Trucking companies across the country hired drivers and added trucks to meet the surge.

Demand cooled shortly after the new capacity came online, causing ripple effects through the industry. Truck driver recruitment ads have vanished from the radio as hiring slowed. Excess capacity is pushing down short-term shipping rates, squeezing companies that spent heavily on new equipment.

Shrinking shipments signal trouble ahead for the national economy, and Chicago in particular. Transportation and warehousing, including rail, truck and third-party logistics companies, employs nearly 230,000 in the region. A quarter of the country’s freight originates, terminates or passes through here.

A healthy economy and the growth of e-commerce helped fuel last year’s freight boom, says market analyst Peggy Dorf at DAT Solutions, an online freight marketplace. So did oil drilling that exceeded pipeline capacity, forcing that oil onto tanker trucks, plus shipments of equipment to extract it from the ground. Demand for drivers got a further boost from the rollout of electronic logging devices in December 2017, devices that force drivers to stop work after they’ve driven the hours allowable by law.

Shippers also scrambled to bring more goods into the country before tariffs on imports took effect in July and August, with more threatened by Jan. 1, 2019. (Tariffs eventually were raised to 25 percent on $200 billion of Chinese goods on May 10.) So trucking companies saw a bump as customers filled warehouses with goods they might otherwise have ordered in 2019.

With high demand and tight capacity, shippers paid up for space on trucks and rail cars. Spot market rates, the fluctuating prices that carriers charge shippers to move goods immediately, peaked at $2.32 a mile in June 2018.

Since then, oil industry shipments have slipped alongside oil prices, shippers with fully stocked warehouses have cut back on new orders and the one-time effects of electronic logging have played out. By last month, the spot rate had dropped 23 percent to $1.79 as a supply-demand imbalance weakened carriers’ bargaining power.

RAIL SHIPMENTS DOWN

Railroad volumes declined 2.4 percent in the first five months of 2019, compared to the same period last year, according to the Association of American Railroads. The Cass Freight Index, which measures all domestic freight modes, shows shipments have dropped for five straight months, while data from the American Trucking Association shows over-the-road freight tonnage falling in February and March before rebounding in April.

Chicago-based freight brokerage Echo Global Logistics has seen its stock price fall 44 percent in the last 12 months since peaking at $36.75 in September, to $20.55. Chief Operating Officer Dave Menzel said on an April 24 earnings call that “capacity is relatively loose and overall demand has been muted.”

Not everyone is worried. In a note titled “The Death of Freight Has Been Greatly Exaggerated,” Cowen analyst Jason Seidl writes that 2019 is suffering from the comparison to 2018’s historic highs and comparisons to larger timespans “shows that the 2019 data isn’t nearly as bad as people are making it out to be.” Spot rates in Cowen’s proprietary index are negative year over year, but still up 5 percent against the index’s January 2017 baseline.

There’s also been outsize impact this year from the “extenuating circumstances” of trade and weather, Seidl writes. Supply chains are moving out of China to avoid tariffs, forcing companies to find new ports, new railroads and new trucking companies. Cold, wet weather has dampened the need to move produce, and “one can understand why the market for charcoal for barbecues or gardening supplies hasn’t been as robust as usual.” Seidl predicts demand will return to normal seasonal levels as the weather improves.

That would be good news to drivers like Ahmad Mohammed. Kiswani’s 28-year-old cousin has driven commercially for seven years. Employee drivers can make $1,500 a week, or $78,000 a year, he says, and drivers who own their own trucks make more. However, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median annual pay for a tractor-trailer driver in metro Chicago at $49,000.

Last year dispatchers sometimes pushed Mohammed to take loads when he wanted to take the day off, so when the slowdown started, at first he enjoyed the break. That ended when the break stretched to a week, then two.

“Every week it’s, ‘We’ll see what happens next week,’ ” he says. “There’s just not enough loads to go around.”

Transportation sees the booms and busts before everyone else, Kiswani says.

“The recession was supposed to hit in 2020,” he says. “Could it be coming earlier? I think it is.”Letter

This article was first found at ChicagoBusiness.com and written by; CLAIRE BUSHEY

Attacks on two tankers carrying Saudi and Emirati oil products are jacking up insurance rates for ship operators in the region, and forcing some captains to forgo setting sail—threatening one of the biggest disruptions to crude trading in the Strait of Hormuz in years.

This article was first found at The Wall Street Journal.

A significant heat wave will develop in the western U.S. this week, mostly in California, with temperatures cracking the 100° mark in some places. California has the largest economy of all 50 states and is the number one producer of summer crops like strawberries. The fruit is the state’s fourth-largest commodity, and California produces nearly 90 percent of total U.S. production. For growers, there appears to be some light at the end of the tunnel after an excessively wet winter that delayed plantings, as well as severe spring storms that destroyed approximately three million cases of cherries, as reported by FreightWaves last month. 

Impact on Freight

According to FreightWaves Market Expert Dean Croke, produce volumes have been growing recently with the arrival of more summer-like weather, especially in the major northern California agricultural regions. The latest SONAR data shows outbound tender volumes in Stockton (OTVI.SCK) and San Francisco (OTVI.SFO) have increased 11.29 percent and 39.50 percent, respectively, in the last two weeks. Also, outbound tender rejections of refrigerated freight have increased fourfold to 6.70 percent and 5.16 percent, respectively. Loads that are offered to carriers by shippers may be rejected by those carriers for any number of reasons, including price per mile as well as capacity (amount of trucks available).

Agricultural truckload rates (AGRATE.SFOJFK) from the San Francisco area to New York City have increased by 5.45 percent to $7,700 over the same two-week period, which is an ominous sign for shippers exporting to large East Coast markets. Following Memorial Day in 2018, truckload rates jumped 21.02 percent to reach $9,914 towards the end of June. With produce volumes on the rise from the West Coast, shippers need to be ready for decreasing capacity. Long-haul (850 miles or more) outbound tender rejections from San Francisco (LTRI.SFO) almost tripled to 2.82 percent in the last week. There’s capacity in the market this week, but this could change quickly. Shippers should extend lead times to keep carriers on their weekly coast-to-coast cadence and decrease wait times (which increased by around 10 percent in May).

The avocado crop not doing quite as well as others in California. The city of Fallbrook in San Diego County claims the title of “Avocado Capital of the World” and holds an Avocado Festival each year. An intense heat wave in July 2018 took a steep toll on the popular summer fruit. 

“My objective, pretty consistently every year, is to be finished by the Fourth of July,” Fallbrook grower and grove manager Charley Wolk told Fresh Plaza.com last week. “Except for one grove, I’m finished now. That gives you some idea of how much smaller that crop is.”

Jan DeLyser, vice president of marketing for the California Avocado Commission, puts early estimates of the 2019 harvest at 175 million pounds. That’s down considerably from 337.8 million pounds harvested in the 2017-18 crop year.

“We started in basically early April with volume shipments, and we’re looking at continuing really into September, which is a longer period of time than we thought we were going to be in the marketplace originally,” DeLyser said.

The weather in the past year has reduced volume, but has helped in other ways. The avocadoes, in many cases, are larger than normal and growers have saved some money because they didn’t have to irrigate as often compared to a normal season.

Heat Wave

Record/near-record temperatures are forecast for the next few days for the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys. Temperatures on the I-5 corridor in places such as Chico, Redding, Sacramento and Stockton will reach 100°-106°. On average, these cities see their first 100° day around this time of year, but normal highs are 86°-88°. Highs of 95°-105° are likely in the San Francisco metro area, as well as Bakersfield, Fresno, Hanford, Merced and Paso Robles.

The heat wave will spread to far northern California and southern Oregon on Tuesday, as well as far southern California, southwestern Arizona and the Las Vegas area. Temperatures will range from 95°-105° from Mount Shasta, California to Medford, Oregon, and from 110°-115° from Eagle Mountain and El Centro, California to Phoenix and Yuma, Arizona. The hottest spot will probably be Death Valley, with scorching highs of 115°-120° all week, several degrees above normal for early to mid-June.Drivers: Make sure your trucks are in tip-top shape, and don’t forget to stay hydrated! Drink some extra water occasionally, even if you don’t feel thirsty, and spend your breaks indoors in cool, comfortable spots. The National Weather Service (NWS) has issued Heat Advisories and Excessive Heat Warnings across the region.

This article was found at Freight Waves, and written by Nick Austin, Director of Weather Analytics and Senior Meteorologist

An Indiana-based trucking company will lay off all its drivers and close its doors for good later this month.

A.L.A. Trucking’s 41 drivers and 15 other employees will lose their jobs in the layoff, owner Alan Adams confirmed late Wednesday night.

Adams blamed the company’s rising insurance costs for its ultimate demise, noting that insurance rates at the company jumped to more than $700,000 this year from less than $340,000 last year. He said the jump was due to factors beyond the company’s control, including the way the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) handles Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) scores.

“I didn’t do anything wrong with the company. It’s the way the government has this new grading system that is affecting a lot of companies,” Adams said. “If there’s a situation on the road where a car comes off the on-ramp and bumps into a tractor trailer, until that claim is settled, the insurance company charges a company with that claim.”

While insurance rates may have been what ultimately pushed the company over the ledge, the shutdown comes amid a general slowdown throughout the freight market as a whole. Adams admitted that falling freight rates have taken a toll on the company.

“These rates are ridiculous,” Adams said. “The shippers and receivers are adding to it.”

He said rates have dropped so low, in fact, that the company cannot even afford to haul freight anymore.

Adams lamented the overall state of the trucking industry today and said the shutdown will hit him hard personally, as well as professionally.

“At 61 years old, we put every dime into this,” he said. “I don’t want anything to do with the trucking industry anymore, but it’s all I know. I have to go back to it as a driver. Not as an owner, but I have to go back as a driver and put up with the bull.”

The company’s circumstances have changed dramatically in the last two years. A.L.A. Trucking broke ground on a new headquarters in 2017, setting up shop at a former lumber yard at a cost of nearly $1.3 million, according to Adams.

The company, which was founded in 1988, received a six-year tax abatement which would save an estimated $118,000 upon building its new headquarters. At the time, Adams planned to hire 20 additional drivers to complement its existing 33 drivers, at an additional annual salary cost of $1.1 million.

A.L.A. Trucking is expected to haul its last load by Wednesday, June 26.

This article was first published at FreightWaves and was written by Ashley Coker, Staff Writer