EnRoute- March 18, 2021

• By: Shannon Davison
• On: 03/18/2021 16:09:17
• In: EnRoute

TOP STORIES

The U.S. Department of Labor has proposed withdrawing the Trump Administration's Independent Contractor rule, which was set to take effect on May 7. FULL STORY
 
The American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) released a new report detailing the costs of deploying and operating a tax on national vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and was identified as a top research priority by ATRI's Research Advisory Committee in 2020.  FULL STORY

TECHNOLOGY TRENDS

Heavy Duty Trucking's editors have announced the HDT 2021 Top 20 Products, honoring the best new or significantly improved products of 2020. FULL STORY
 
Cummins announced that the ISX12N+Endurant HD N natural gas powertrain is now available for heavy duty customers, which is a combination of the ISX12N near zero natural gas engine and the Endurant HD N 12-speed automated transmission from Eaton Cummins Automated Transmission Technologies. FULL STORY
 
Noregon Systems has developed TripVision Uptime to help fleets better predict in real time when an asset is going to break and schedule out vehicle downtime. FULL STORY
 
Isuzu recently added new advanced safety technology to N-Series diesel trucks for the 2022 interim model year, designated as model year 2022i. FULL STORY
 
Navistar announced that it will offer wider availability and ratings for its A26 engine in its International severe service trucks this year and longer maintenance intervals for the Cummins B6.7 and L9 engines. FULL STORY
 
Hino Trucks announced its will produce medium- and heavy-duty Hino trucks with Cummins engines for sale in North America and accelerate its development of battery-electric trucks. FULL STORY

BRIEFLY

PENSKE TRUCK LEASING has built a new state-of-the-art facility to support its growing customer base in Calgary, Alberta which will supplement Penske's three additional facilities in the area and is now nearly fully staffed and offers commercial truck rental, full-service truck leasing and contract truck fleet maintenance and PENSKE TRUCK RENTAL has selected Avaamo's voice-driven intelligent virtual assistant (IVA) for its phone-based truck rental central reservations call center to further enhance Penske's truck rental reservation process by phone and drive efficiencies in its call center operations. . . THE FORD F-600 SUPER DUTY CHASSIS CAB was named Work Truck's Medium-Duty Truck of the Year for 2021 by Work Truck as the truck that best fit their fleet requirements, including application effectiveness, durability, quality, servicing, maintenance, and lifecycle costs. . . GREAT DANE recently selected IntelliChief for accounts payable (AP) automation, leveraging IntelliChief's integration with Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne in a new partnership that will provide Great Dane with the tools to streamline, standardize and automate invoice processing across its nine manufacturing plants and twenty sales branches. . . BRIDGESTONE CORPORATION recently celebrated its 90th year in business. . . KENWORTH recently announced that it will offer the new 15-inch Digital Display system as standard equipment on Kenworth T880 and W990 models. The fully digital, high-definition display already is standard on the recently launched Kenworth T680 Next Generation. . . The GEOTAB MARKETPLACE will now feature OrigoSafeDriver which is a cell phone safety solution to prevent distracted driving and also Vnomics'True Fuel solution which coaches drivers on fuel efficient driver practices and measures real-time fuel consumption. . . NAVISTAR is launching a new aftermarket product line, Diamond Advantage Diesel Parts, to provide aftermarket parts for light- and medium-duty Class 2-5 diesel engines and engine components which will include Ford Power Stroke Diesel, GM Duramax, and Dodge Ram Cummins.

PEOPLE

Bridgestone Retail Operations has named ROBERT JOHNSON vice president of store operations. . . RANDY DEBORTOLI has been named chief engineer of product validation engineering for Daimler Trucks North America (DTNA). . . Goodyear recently appointed RYAN PATTERSON as president of its Asia Pacific business unit, in charge of integrating recently acquired Cooper Tire.

NUMBERS

Diesel fuel prices have hit highest national average since 2018. FULL STORY
 
ACT Research reported that the freight-generating sectors of the economy are the strongest sectors at the start of 2021, with carrier profitability expected to rise to record levels this year, and backlogs filling rapidly. FULL STORY
 
Class 8 orders remained impressive in February for the fifth consecutive month coming in at 44,000 units, a 3% increase over the previous month and 209% jump compared to February 2020, according to FTR Intel. FULL STORY
 
FTR reported Friday preliminary U.S. net trailer orders continued to moderate in February, falling 23 percent month over month to 23,100 units. FULL STORY

TRALA ANNOUNCEMENTS

Still Time to Register for TRALA's 2021 Hybrid Annual Meeting

Don't forget to register to attend TRALA's 2021 Hybrid Annual Meeting which is scheduled to take place April 11-14, 2021. TRALA is offering an in-person meeting at the JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort and Spa in San Antonio, Texas or a live, virtual meeting that attendees can join from the comfort of their home or office.
 
You may visit TRALA's 2021 Annual Meeting website by clicking here to view additional information. If you have any questions, please contact TRALA's Shannon Davison at sdavison@trala.org or Jennylynne Bowman at jbowman@trala.org.