The American Trucking Associations’ advance seasonally adjusted (SA) For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index increased 0.4 percent in March, following a revised 0.3 percent decrease in February. The latest improvement put the SA index at 109.2, which is the highest level since November 2008.

The nonseasonally adjusted index, which represents the change in tonnage actually hauled by the fleets before any seasonal adjustment, equaled 116.4 in March, up 19.1 percent from the previous month.

Compared with March 2009, SA tonnage jumped 7.5 percent, which was the fourth consecutive year-over-year gain and the largest increase since January 2005. For the first quarter of 2010, SA tonnage was up 4.9 percent compared with the same period last year.

ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello says he is getting more optimistic about the motor carrier industry’s recovery. “Freight is moving in the right direction, and I continue to hear from motor carriers that both the demand and supply situations are steadily improving,” says Costello, who attributed the first-quarter improvement in tonnage to the growing economy and to a slight inventory build after some sectors slashed inventories by too much in 2009. “For most fleets, freight volumes feel better than reported tonnage because the supply situation, particularly in the truckload sector, is turning quickly,” he says.

ATA calculates the tonnage index based on surveys from its membership. The report includes month-to-month and year-over-year results, relevant economic comparisons and key financial indicators. The baseline year is 2000.

The Technology & Maintenance Council of American Trucking Associations has expanded an industry practice designed to help equipment owners compare the performance of aftermarket brake linings. The document, TMC RP 628B, Aftermarket Brake Lining Classification, provides information for judging the performance of aftermarket brake linings on air-actuated foundation brakes, including testing in accordance with the dynamometer test procedure in Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 121 and lining supplier qualification information.

While performance of original equipment brake linings is regulated by FMVSS 121, linings sold as replacements for these friction materials are not. TMC says such information will assist fleet operators in choosing aftermarket brake linings that will perform adequately on typical combination (tractor-trailer) vehicles and single trucks. The revised RP will appear in TMC’s 2010-2011 Recommended Practices Manual, scheduled for release in April 2010.

Navistar International Corp. recently announced that it had withdrawn a lawsuit it had lodged against the California Air Resources Board following an agreement with the state agency to address issues raised in the litigation. The truck and engine maker had asked the San Francisco Superior Court to rule that CARB was improperly certifying 2010 diesel engines equipped with selective catalytic reduction (SCR) aftertreatment because the agency was applying U.S. Environmental Protection Agency certification requirements that permitted SCR-equipped trucks to operate for extended periods without controlling NOx emissions.

Navistar said it had dismissed its lawsuit after reaching an agreement with CARB in which CARB agreed that EPA’s 2009 SCR guidance documents are not its policy. CARB also agreed to hold a public workshop by August to address the issues Navistar raised. Navistar said it believes the workshop will lead to a decision by CARB that SCR-equipped trucks can’t operate with uncontrolled NOx emissions for multiple and lengthy periods of time. “We expect that our agreement with CARB will result in equal enforcement of the 2010 NOx requirements for all engine makers,” says Jack Allen, president of Navistar’s North American Truck Group.

Earlier this month, CARB sided with EPA in Navistar’s ongoing litigation against EPA over its certification of engines with SCR aftertreatment. However, CARB’s grounds for that support – filed April 9 as a so-called “friend of the court” brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit – apparently don’t foreclose the agency’s considerations of certification standards that are tougher than EPA’s guidance.

CARB developed two basic arguments in support of EPA. First, contrary to Navistar’s claim, the 2001 EPA rule that established the 2010 NOx standard did not rule out SCR for compliance. Second, Navistar’s claims that SCR-equipped engines don’t meet the 2001 NOx requirements should be pursued in challenges to the certification of actual engines, not an EPA guidance document.

So in its April 9 filing, CARB didn’t say Navistar was wrong about SCR’s performance; it just said the challenge to EPA’s guidance wasn’t ripe for litigation. “Navistar’s substantive challenge to the policy is a fact-intensive inquiry in a context that is only hypothetical without the actual details of an engine design,” CARB said. “For example, Navistar claims that the policy allows drivers to operate their trucks with empty urea tanks, but only by looking at the certification records can we know if this is true, how long this operation is allowed, what warning and inducements occur, what emissions occur if this is the case, how likely this is to happen, and what enforcement actions will be taken by EPA (and CARB).”

Navistar would not be hurt by having to challenge certification decisions rather than EPA policy, CARB said. “It is the certification decisions that allow Navistar’s competitors to sell engines with SCR systems, not the policy itself. Thus, the policy by itself does not affect Navistar’s ‘day-to-day’ business.”

Meanwhile, the briefing in Navistar’s federal lawsuit is complete, and the case is scheduled for a hearing before the appeals court on May 10.

An American Trucking Associations’ representative told carrier executives that upcoming Comprehensive Safety Analysis 2010 rules will rely on inconsistent state accident reporting and that carrier safety performance scores will be based on a flawed formula.

Rob Abbott, ATA vice president of safety policy, made his remarks to carrier executives gathered this past weekend for the 2010 Pegasus TransTech Users Conference at the Marriott Sand Key hotel in Clearwater Beach, Fla. Pegasus TransTech provides Transflo, Transflo Express and other technologies that speed the billing cycle and help carriers go paperless.

At the same conference, Cynthia B. Witty, safety investigator for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, said that enforcement under the new rules would stress compliance with hours-of-service. If a carrier is found to have numerous HOS violations, “I’ll be coming in for an audit,” she said. Witty also noted that current out-of-service criteria at roadside inspections will remain substantially unchanged with CSA 2010.

Abbott said the ATA generally supports CSA 2010 but finds fault with some of its features. He said CSA 2010 safety scores will be based on reports from FMCSA inspectors, state agencies and sometimes from regional authorities, but that only those agencies that participate in the federally funded Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program will report violations, and most law enforcement below the state level is not part of MCSAP. That means accidents in some states are far less likely to be reported to FMCSA than in others, resulting in uneven enforcement under CSA 2010.

“Carriers with operations in high reporting states may find it harder to maintain good CSA 2010 scores than those who operate in states where reporting is low,” Abbott said.

According to Abbott’s presentation, states that most consistently report truck accidents to FMCSA are Indiana, Kansas, Missouri and New Jersey; those four states report between 80 percent and 90 percent of truck crashes. The lowest proportion of reporting comes from Florida and New Mexico, which report fewer than 30 percent of such incidents, and Mississippi, which reports between 30 percent and 40 percent. The same information shows that variations exist among other major trucking states, such as California at 50 percent to 60 percent, Ohio at 40 percent to 50 percent, Pennsylvania at 70 percent to 79 percent, and Texas at 60 percent to 70 percent.

Abbott also said the formula for arriving at a CSA 2010 safety score is flawed. At its most basic, he explained, the formula divides the number of carrier violations by the number of U.S. Department of Transportation-registered trucks in the fleet – without regard to miles actually driven. “That can hurt efficient carriers with high equipment utilization because they travel more miles and do more work with fewer trucks,” Abbott said. Conceivably, Abbott said, a carrier could improve its safety score under CSA 2010 simply by adding trucks to the fleet.

State reporting data was gathered and published by the Transportation Research Institute at the University of Missouri.

The national average retail price of a gallon of diesel rose for the fourth consecutive week, this time climbing 0.4 cents to $3.078 for the week ending Monday, April 26. The price, which has increased 32.2 cents since Feb. 15, is 87.7 cents higher than the same week last year, according to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). This week’s price is the highest since Nov. 3, 2008, when it was $3.088.

Regions tracked by the DOE saw a mix of price increases and decreases. The biggest increase, 2.8 cents, was found in the Rocky Mountains, where prices climbed to $3.137; and the smallest increase, 0.2 cents, was found in New England, where prices climbed to $3.105. The biggest decrease, 0.8 cents, was found in the Lower Atlantic, where prices fell to $3.025, the nation’s least expensive diesel by region; and the smallest decrease, 0.3 cents, was found in the Central Atlantic, where prices fell to $3.186.

The nation’s most expensive diesel by region, $3.211, was found on the West Coast, where prices climbed 0.8 cents. California, which the DOE tracks separately for its weekly update, saw a price decrease of 0.1 cents to $3.227; that price is 90.7 cents higher than the same week last year.

The DOE’s monthly short-term energy outlook projects that diesel will average $2.95 this year and $3.12 in 2011; last year, diesel averaged $2.46 a gallon. Oil averaged $81 a barrel in March, almost $5 higher than the previous month; the DOE forecasts crude to average above $81 a barrel this summer, just under $81 for the year, and then increase to $85 by the fourth quarter of 2011.

Daimler Trucks North America announced this week that it has secured more than 10,000 orders for new vehicles equipped with selective catalytic reduction (SCR) emissions technology to meet 2010 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency emissions standards.

SCR-equipped trucks reduce emissions to near-zero levels of NOx and particulate matter as measured at the tailpipe while improving fuel economy up to 5 percent compared to EPA 2007 engines. Every new Freightliner Cascadia, Coronado and line of M2 business-class medium-duty vehicles now are available with Detroit Diesel BlueTec or Cummins SCR emissions equipment.

BlueTec SCR is an evolution of SCR technology developed and extensively tested by Daimler, and is Daimler’s solution for meeting the 2010 EPA emissions standards on all Detroit Diesel engines. “Our customers are already benefitting from the technology,” says David Hames, DTNA general manager of marketing and strategy.

Decisiv Inc., provider of an advanced Web-based technology designed to connect fleet managers with internal and external service locations, announced at the American Truck Dealers Convention & Expo that dealer service locations using the Decisiv Service Management Platform (DSMP) have surpassed $500 million in transactions on an annualized basis.

“The open, flexible nature of the Decisiv Service Management Platform provides solutions for dealers and service locations and truck and component manufacturers,” says Dick Hyatt, president of Decisiv. “The result is a rapidly growing volume of service business. The real value for service locations actually far exceeds $500 million annually when warranty and no charge operations are included.”

DSMP was developed in partnership with many of North America’s top truck and component manufacturers and service networks. It is currently in use by hundreds of fleets and service providers under the brand names Diamond Estimating System and ServicePartner at International dealerships, MVASIST at Volvo Trucks North America and Mack Trucks dealers, DSMP at Freightliner and Detroit Diesel Allison service locations, QuoteIt at W.W. Williams service locations and Prevost.ASIST at Prevost repair facilities.

Castrol Heavy Duty Lubricants announced that a new generation of its Labcheck used oil analysis program will be launched for both off-road and on-road customers. Castrol says its heritage oil analysis programs were built to provide unique tools and applications that allowed customers to manage their equipment and operations at peak efficiency levels. Sample evaluations were based on Castrol’s 30-plus years of actual industry experience, analytical insights and work with component OEMs.

The company says the next generation of Labcheck promises to deliver a new Web-based program with advanced levels of functionality to provide customers with more hands-on flexibility when selecting the severity of equipment applications and choosing application-specific equipment analysis.

“To determine our target for the next generation of Labcheck, we truly engaged and listened to our customers,” says John Gebhard, Castrol Heavy Duty Trade marketing manager. “We understand that each customer is unique and each uses the Labcheck program differently to create their own competitive advantage. Castrol Labcheck continues to be an industry leader in used oil analysis, but our customers have been confined by certain limitations of the program.

“Moving forward, we’re proud to announce that the next generation of the Labcheck program will provide our customers with unprecedented latitude to analyze their fleet assets. Most importantly, Labcheck will continue to provide the security earned by Castrol’s unique history of safely delivering extended service and total operational efficiencies.”

SKF has announced the availability of its Price Cutting booklet – the first of several in the SKF Distributor Economic Series.

Written for automotive and heavy-duty aftermarket distributors, the Price Cutting booklet offers tips for maintaining a healthy business and improving overall profitability. The booklet is currently available through the new SKF distributor portal located on the SKF VSM Web site at www.vsm.skf.com.

“The SKF Distributor Economic Series is geared at providing distributors with the knowledge and tools to maintain profitability no matter what the economic scenario may be,” says Katie Noga, manager, marketing communications, SKF USA, Inc. “We are pleased to offer this literature on-line and encourage distributors to visit the distributor portal on the SKF VSM Web site to take advantage of these invaluable resources.”

Mahle Clevite Inc. announced the second phase of its Launchpad online catalog. The company says Phase II introduces an all-new look and includes the addition of search options for piston rings and filters, as well as additional search options for light- and heavy-duty applications.

The Web-based catalog included an electronic ordering function tied directly into customer accounts. Mahle Clevite says the Phase II enhancements allow the user to search and order parts available for light- and heavy-duty applications, and select the parts to be included in the search (i.e. pistons, gaskets, piston rings and filters), all through one user experience.

“The features in Phase II of Launchpad were driven directly from the needs and wants of our customers,” says Todd Campau, team coordinator II – data management. “Mahle Clevite is committed to being at the forefront of electronic capabilities. As a product of this initiative, Launchpad will continue to evolve in relation to customers’ requisites.”

Phase II now includes the full Mahle Clevite product line of gaskets, pistons, piston rings and filters, and allows the user to utilize the search wizard to look up by year, make, model or engine for both light and heavy-duty applications; view and print digital images and part and package specifications; utilize the comprehensive interchange search; add parts viewed in the online catalog directly to the online ordering tool, mahlecleviteorder.com; and view the latest new number announcements and product obsolescence.