Commentary

The newspaper world in Washington was better off when Richard A. Lawrence decided not to pursue a career in electrical engineering.

Plenty of U.S.

It’s rarely pleasant to watch U.S.

Q: I’ve read your previous articles about cases where shippers pay a broker, the broker doesn’t pay the carrier, and the carrier then demands payment direct from the shipp

Q: We have a carrier who is using a factoring company for its freight bills. We, of course, ordinarily remit payment to the factoring company, not the carrier.

The less-than-truckload industry is facing numerous challenges to achieve growth and profitability. The most common concerns cited are overcapacity and too many large competitors.

Potential flashpoints are on the horizon in 2011, whether from the CSA 2010 driver safety regulation or the container lines’ hoped-for withdrawal from chassis services.

There’s a broad consensus in the U.S. transportation world that there is, well, broad consensus in the U.S. transportation world on the need for infrastructure investment.

A funny thing happened on the way to writing several big deficit-cutting reports – the authors suggested slicing a trade finance program that helps shrink the deficit.

No one can say that Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., is soft on security.

It’s amazing how much can happen in three short weeks – or three long ones if you’ve been traveling across the Pacific Rim from Portland, Ore., to Shenzhen to Hong Kong to Singapore

With President Obama’s national focus on exports, U.S. exporters need to beware the risks of “dumping” their products in foreign markets.

Q: I thought the Aug. 23-30 column interesting enough to offer a comment. As a freight forwarder, I’ve been in the same situation as the party asking your advice.

If the momentum China has shown coming out of the financial crisis signals a new Asia-centric economic order, the emergence of the intra-Asia container market is one important marker of that developme

After nearly two years of tortured debate in the shipping world over freight transport prices, you can forgive carriers across the modes if they’re a bit surprised over the latest trend in holid

Many freight transportation carriers say they've learned a lesson from the cheap shipping that nearly killed off large swaths of the industry, and their retailing customers have learned a lesson as we

Q: My company is involved in a situation you’ve covered before, wherein we as a transportation broker contracted with a carrier to transport a shipment.

If you attend the Intermodal Association of North America convention in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., this week, you’re likely to hear plenty about current intermodal affairs.

President Obama looked properly chastened, even shaken, the day after this month’s elections provided such a stunning rebuke to his administration.

Addressing last month’s Western Cargo Conference, Customs Commissioner Alan Bersin said some surprising things.

GUANGZHOU, China — Based on the information I’m seeing about the container capacity outlook, if I were a logistics director I would be preparing my chief financial officer for add

Teamsters at ABF Freight System rejected a 15 percent wage cut in May, convinced the company could improve its bottom line without labor concessions.

In the near future, reasonably priced oil may be a thing of the past.

Nobody doubts the U.S. must get better at exporting. Although there is “generic” support for the concept in Congress and from the public, when it comes to specifics, the U.S. struggles.

I’ve read several articles on H.R. 6167, the House bill designed to re-regulate the ocean carrier industry.

You won’t be hearing many elegies from Memphis lamenting Rep. James L. Oberstar’s departure from Congress.

Spot container rates are trending downward. The post-holiday slack season is starting, and even rail intermodal traffic seems to be losing some of its steam.

Regulation Overload

In a meeting almost two years ago with several shipping security experts, including a couple of government officials and air cargo executives, several of them pointed to the gap between regulations in

Q: I’ve read your past articles on the practice of “off-bill discounting,” and I know you have addressed the requirement that carriers show a notation on the bill “that a reduc

For years, transportation industry leaders have questioned the degree to which government really understands freight. Recently, Sen.

Each segment of trucking has its own approach for capturing the shipment characteristics used to bill customers for the cost of its transportation service.

Shenzhen, China — Not many competitors in the rough transportation market would think of FedEx as a company that wants to “co-exist in a peaceful environment.” But that’s how t

Q: I have a potential shipper customer who called today with a question regarding shipping and the law.

Much has been written about how container lines survived the financial crisis by slashing capacity and jacking up rates to reverse a 2009 collapse in rates and volumes that pushed some carriers to the

While my personal preference in warm beverages is tea, rather than coffee, I am sorry to note that many of my fellow citizens have taken to calling their new political movement the “Tea Party.&r

Regulating Rail

The current economic upturn may be giving some shippers good reason to breathe a long-awaited sigh of relief, but it is also presents them with a variety of head-scratchers.

The Transportation Intermediaries Association and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association are supporting legislation aimed at protecting brokers and carriers from fraud in the marketplace f

Some analysts are upgrading truckload stocks, and transport analysts warn that sometime next year there may be such a colossal squeeze on trucking capacity that some freight may not be able to move, p