Trade using surface transportation between the United States and its North American Free Trade Agreement partners Canada and Mexico was 13.8 percent higher in September 2011 than in September 2010, totaling $77.7 billion, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics of the U.S. Department of Transportation. The value decreased 3.3 percent in September 2011 from August 2011; month-to-month changes can be affected by seasonal variations and other factors.

BTS, a part of the Research and Innovative Technology Administration, reported that the value in September 2011 rose 35.7 percent in two years from September 2009 and 8.3 percent in three years from September 2008. The value in September increased by 22.8 percent when compared to September 2006 and increased by 83.0 percent when compared to September 2001. Imports in September were up 71.3 percent since September 2001, while exports were up 99.0 percent.

U.S.-Canada and U.S.-Mexico surface transportation trade both increased compared to September 2010, with U.S.-Canada reaching $46.1 billion, a 14.7 percent increase, and U.S.-Mexico reaching $31.6 billion, a 12.5 percent increase. Michigan led all states in surface trade with Canada at $6.0 billion, a 9.6 percent increase from September 2010. Texas led all states in surface trade with Mexico at $11.1 billion, an 8.4 percent increase from September 2010.

The TransBorder Freight Data are a subset of official U.S. foreign trade statistics released by the U.S. Census Bureau. New data are tabulated monthly, and historical data are not adjusted for inflation. Surface transportation includes freight movements by truck, rail, pipeline, mail, Foreign Trade Zones and other modes.

The APS Resource E-Saver LED Lamp is designed to fit into most existing dock light housings to provide maximum illumination throughout a truck trailer or a facility. The durable lamp – which uses 27 watts for reduced energy costs and has a 50,000-hour lamp life – is built to withstand dock impact, while its LED technology helps keeps the lamp head cool to save facility cooling energy.

Grote Industries has introduced its new LightForm Emergency Egress Lighting Film. The new product employs Grote’s LightForm to enhance vehicle safety, the company says.

Until now, Grote says transit vehicle manufacturers and transit authorities have had few options for exit demarcation. Grote’s says its new lighting film provides all of the advantages of adhesive exit markers with the added benefit of being powered. The film is said to provide the kind of bright illumination that can help lead disoriented passengers to safety, even in dark or hazy conditions.

“LightForm Emergency Egress Lighting Film is easy to install, and unlike traditional lighting fixtures, requires no lens or bezel,” says Steve Green, business development manager for LightForm. “The highly advanced, thin-film, solid-state lighting device easily resists water and concussion and will function properly even after significant trauma. The product is so robust that it will continue to operate even after sustaining significant damage.”

Because it’s a film, Grote’s new lighting product can conform to the shape and contours of virtually any door or exit and its aggressive adhesive backing allows it to adhere to nearly any surface material, the company says. LED brightness is consistent throughout the length of the product and multiple modules can be daisy-chained together, minimizing wiring and harness routing issues. Grote says the lamps don’t extend into the passenger space, so they pose no hang-up risk or obstacle to egress, and they come in a variety of traditional colors including red, blue, green, amber and Grote LED WhiteLight.

“In an accident, a traditional lamp could dislodge or fragment, becoming a source of injury,” Green says. “Because LightForm Emergency Egress Lighting Film is paper thin and super lightweight, it can’t shatter, significantly lowering the potential for this egress lamp to cause injury.”

The new lighting film comes standard in a 12-volt version. Custom voltages and a 24-volt product version are also available.

Wabco Holdings will supply its adaptive cruise control to Yutong in China, the world’s largest manufacturer of buses, as part of an expanded long-term agreement to furnish advanced safety technologies. It marks the first adoption of ACC technology on a commercial vehicle in the Chinese market.

Series production will start in the first quarter of 2012 with Wabco ACC as a standard feature on Yutong’s range of high-end buses, which includes luxury, intercity, urban, light and hybrid electric buses. Yutong buses are in service in 27 countries.

Wabco’s ACC automatically adjusts the vehicle’s speed to maintain a preset distance to the moving vehicle ahead. It reacts with acoustic and visual warning, engine control and, if necessary, partial braking. It is said to improve vehicle safety as well as driver effectiveness and comfort.

Wabco will also continue long-term to supply Yutong with electronic stability control and electronic braking systems as standard features for series production on Yutong’s range of high-end buses.

“We greatly value Wabco’s technology portfolio as it strongly supports our ‘Super Safety’ program comprising ACC, ESC and EBS as standard features on high-end Yutong buses,” says Tang Wang, deputy director of technology, Yutong Bus Company. “We are also proud to be the first bus maker in China to equip vehicles with ACC, and as a result, the safety controls on our premier products are the most advanced in the Chinese market.”

“We continue to pioneer new technologies for advanced safety and driver effectiveness as demonstrated by Yutong’s choice of Wabco’s ACC to further strengthen their leading position in the bus market in China and internationally,” says Leon Liu, WABCO President, Asia.   “Commercial vehicle manufacturers in China are increasingly attributing further value to vehicle and road safety, and as a result, they are growing their adoption of highly advanced technologies. This trend is a driver for increasing Wabco content per vehicle through specially developed, locally adapted systems and products.”

The U.S. biodiesel industry has set a new record for annual production, according to the latest U.S. Environmental Protection Agency figures. The industry has produced more than 802 million gallons of biodiesel in plants from Florida to Iowa to Washington, the figures show, more than doubling last year’s production of about 315 million gallons and breaking the previous record of about 690 million gallons set in 2009.

The new record comes as a federal tax incentive for biodiesel was reinstated this year, and as the incentive is in danger of expiring on Dec. 31 without congressional action. “I can say without question that this tax credit has helped us grow our production and hire new people, and it will play a big role in our growth going forward,” says Gabe Neeriemer, president of Patriot Biodiesel in Greensboro, N.C. “It will affect how many people we can hire, how much feedstock and equipment we buy, how many truckers we put to work delivering fuel.”

Patriot Biodiesel says it was forced to temporarily suspend operations when the tax credit expired in 2010. With the incentive restored this year, the plant not only is back online but also is expanding production to about 5 million gallons per year and hiring a half dozen new employees. “This incentive is working, and particularly in this kind of economy when politicians say they’re doing everything they can to create jobs, I can’t imagine why Congress would allow it to expire,” Neeriemer says.

This year’s increased production has supported more than 31,000 jobs – up from fewer than 13,000 last year – while generating at least $3 billion in GDP and $628 million in federal, state and local tax revenues, according to a recent economic study conducted by Cardno-Entrix. Biodiesel also is reducing U.S. reliance on foreign oil, reducing tailpipe pollution and greenhouse gases emissions and bolstering economic and national security by diversifying our fuel supply, the National Biodiesel Board says.

“This tax incentive is without a doubt stimulating production of biodiesel and creating jobs,” says Anne Steckel, NBB vice president of federal affairs. “We’re clearly seeing that from our members across the country .We have a little over a month before it could expire again, and it is past time that Congress step up and pass an extension to keep this industry’s momentum going.”

TransChicago Truck Group, headquartered in Elmhurst, Ill., recently delivered two Freightliner Cummins-powered compressed natural gas-fueled trucks to Exel, part of the Supply Chain division of Deutsche Post DHL. “Having completed more than 50 CNG-powered units distributed nationally, we are excited to have units now running in the Chicagoland area,” says Mark Stamper, TransChicago general sales manager.

The Illinois Clean Diesel Grant Program assisted with funding. “After two years of working with Exel and the Illinois Clean Diesel Grant Program, we are extremely excited to be a part of the future of our industry,” says James Balkonis, TransChicago vice president of service operations.

Doug Cayce, TransChicago president, recognized that CNG is a large part of the future of commercial transportation in the United States and got behind the program two years ago by being one of the first in the area to install an onsite CNG fill station. “Alternative fuels are clearly the responsible direction we need to take as an industry striving to achieve a greener environment,” Cayce says.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has granted an temporary exemption period to allow commercial motor vehicle operators to use trailer-mounted electric brake controllers that monitor and actuate electric trailer brakes based on inertial forces developed in response to the braking action of the towing vehicle.

Each tow vehicle normally is equipped with a brake controller in the towing vehicle that applies the trailer brakes when the driver applies the towing vehicle’s brakes. Tow vehicle brake controllers usually are aftermarket devices that are manually adjustable to increase or decrease the amount of electric brake force applied to the trailer wheels to adjust for wet or dry road conditions and loaded or unloaded trailer condition. Electric brakes on commercial trailers will not operate unless the tow vehicle has a brake controller.

Innovative Electronics’ exemption application argued that technology developments in electronics have allowed the development of a self-contained electric brake control device that is mounted directly to the trailer, enabling it to monitor and actuate the brakes based on inertial forces developed in response to the braking action of the towing vehicle. The device is essentially an electric surge brake controller, with the electric power for the brakes provided by the tow vehicle, but the braking action of the trailer is controlled by the electric controller mounted on the trailer.

A trailer using this trailer-mounted electric brake controller did not meet the “operative at all times” requirement of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, nor did they meet the “apply by a single application valve” requirement. During FMCSA’s temporary exemption period, motor carriers must meet the hydraulic surge brake requirements, substituting “trailer-mounted electric brake controller” for “surge brake” as follows:

1. Trailer-mounted electric brake controllers are allowed on any trailer with a gross vehicle weight rating of 12,000 pounds or less when its GVWR does not exceed 1.75 times the GVWR of the towing vehicle; and any trailer with a GVWR greater than 12,000 pounds, but less than 20,001 pounds, when its GVWR does not exceed 1.25 times the GVWR of the towing vehicle;
2. The GVW of a trailer equipped with a trailer-mounted electric brake controller may be used instead of its GVWR to calculate compliance with the weight ratios when the trailer manufacturer’s GVWR label is missing;
3. The GVW of a trailer equipped with a trailer-mounted electric brake controller must be used to calculate compliance with the specified weight ratios when the trailer’s GVW exceeds its GVWR; and
4. The trailer equipped with a trailer-mounted electric brake controller must meet FMCSR requirements.

For more information, go to www.regulations.gov; the docket number is FMCSA-2011-0022.

The U.S. average diesel price retreated from its notable threshold of $4 a gallon, the first time it had hit that mark since mid-May, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration. The price for the week ending Monday, Nov. 28, declined 4.6 cents to $3.964, the biggest one-week decline since a 4.7-cent dip on Sept. 26.

Nonetheless, the latest price is 80.2 cents higher than the same week last year. Before this week’s decline, the price had climbed 28.9 cents since Oct. 10 and had increased every week except for Nov. 7, when it fell 0.5 cent.

All regions tracked by DOE saw falling prices, led by a 6.1-cent decline in the Midwest, where prices fell to $3.949. The smallest decrease was 1.1 cent in New England, where the average price is $4.045.

The nation’s most expensive diesel was in California, where the average price was down 4.7 cents to $4.224. The nation’s least expensive diesel was in the Gulf Coast region, where the average price was down 4.4 cents to $3.859.

Complete diesel price information is available on EIA’s Website.

Bar’s Leaks has introduced a new cooling sealant product designed to be used during the winter months.

“In general, our customers see a spike in sales of all Bar’s Leaks cooling system stop leaks and head gasket repair products when the first big cold front moves across the United States,” says Clay Parks, vice president of strategic development for Bar’s Products. “The peak time for our customers to sell premium head gasket repair products like Bar’s Leaks Professional Carbon Fiber Block Seal Head Gasket & Cooling Sealant are the cold winter months of January and February. That’s why we encourage them to stock up to meet this seasonal demand.”

Bar’s Leaks Professional Carbon Fiber Block Seal Head Gasket & Cooling Sealant is one of the company’s newest products, and Bar’s Leaks says it was developed for professional technicians but is available to do-it-yourselfers as well.

Bar’s Leaks cooling sealant is the strongest formula available to permanently seal any coolant leak in plastic, cast iron, copper and aluminum radiators, heater cores, freeze plugs, gaskets, intake manifolds, cylinder heads and engine blocks, the company says. It repairs blown head and intake gasket leaks, seals cracked cylinder heads and blocks, stops heater core and radiator leaks, fixes leaking freeze and core plugs and stops overheating.

Bar’s Leaks says its new cooling sealant is antifreeze-compatible, so there’s no need to flush the cooling system before using it. Bar’s Leaks also says it doesn’t need to be removed at the end of the repair, which means the cooling sealant stays in the vehicle to protect the cooling system against future leaks long after the initial repair.

Bar’s Leaks formula combines liquid glass (sodium silicate) with aramid and refractory fibers. The formula is further reinforced with carbon fiber to bridge larger leaks and create a truly permanent seal that is stronger than the original head gasket itself, the company says.

Bar’s Leaks Head Gasket & Cooling Sealant also features the proprietary wetting agent Xtreme Cool, which the company says reduces the surface tension of coolant, increasing its wetting ability, while improving heat transfer and reducing coolant temperature.

Carrier Transicold’s Dual-View Temperature Display is an external temperature and status indicator that provides a reverse image in the rearview mirror so it appears correctly for drivers at a glance.

The Dual-View Temperature Display, an optional accessory, mounts on the front corner of a refrigerated trailer, behind the driver for easy visibility in the mirror. The driver can verify the temperature inside the trailer without having to leave the cab to check the unit controller, the company says. Large amber LED numerals show temperature in up to three zones in Fahrenheit or Celsius.

As a “dual-view” device, the display can be switched from reverse to normal view for yard monitoring of parked trailers. The bright display is said to be easy to read in direct sunlight and automatically dims to reduce glare for evening and night viewing.

“The Dual-View system is more than just an easy-to-read display,” says Jason Forman, senior product development manager for Carrier Transicold’s Performance Parts Group. “It provides independent verification of box temperatures via its own sensor, or sensors in multi-temp applications. It also shows refrigeration unit status ― cool, heat, defrost or warning.”

Sealed electronics protect the unit from weather and high-pressure water spray. The Dual-View Temperature Display is compatible with most Carrier Transicold and competitive trailer units, and has a two-year limited parts warranty.