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Transportation in the News Time for Asia’s ports to rebuild Is the freight recession upon us…again? Freight payment verses freight settlement LM Viewpoint: Shippers at a crossroads Driver turnover hits a new low…in a good way More Transportation News The Benefits of Shared Transportation & Supply Chain Networks In this new digital issue, the editors of Logistics Management have gathered four feature articles designed to help mangers break away from traditional, “transactional” relationships and move toward integrated provider partnerships for freight transportation. All Resources A combination of recently released economic indicators and second quarter earnings reports from freight transportation and logistics sectors continue to lend credence to the thesis that a freight recession may no longer be imminent, but has actually arrived. On the economic indicator side, we find a still sluggish GDP. In fact, the United States Department of Commerce recently reported that second quarter GDP only expanded by 1.2%. In other words, it barely moved the needle and certainly fell short of meeting the 2.5% that many analysts were predicting. Various reports cited still high inventories as the primary culprit for the low GDP, with the second quarter marking the fifth consecutive quarter that low inventories have quelled GDP growth in a meaningful way. The theme of inventory overhang has been cited often in this space and in the pages of Logistics Management as a major factor for depressed economic growth for some time. And, when this tends to be the case, it typically results in lower transportation volumes. Last fall, YRC Freight suggested that elevated inventories were forcing supply chains to be more cautious, a situation that lead shippers to opt for smaller shipments moving in fast-cycle logistics systems to refill products—rather than reordering large quantities of products to fill early stock-outs. It’s hard to say […]