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According to the most recent Railroad Facts 2010 edition from the American Association of Railroads, approximately 9.88 Million trailer and containers traveled across the United States in 2009.  The data further breaks down to 1.64 Million Trailers versus 8.24 Million containers.   In 1990, there were just 6.2 Million of these combined assets on the railroads.  More striking, the number of containers has risen during that time from 2.75 Million to the 8.24 Million in 2009.

What does this mean?

More and more our transportation providers are moving goods from the truck to rail and back to truck again.  This means the chain of custody of those goods is changing multiple times during the trip.   It also means that our transportation system has vulnerabilities far beyond the possibility of a high jacked truck. 

How many of these containers are tracked continuously tracked through their travels?  How do we know that during the many stops along the rail passage that a...

The launch of the satellite, which is among the most powerful commercial satellites ever built, is a major step in the creation of LightSquared's next-generation network combining satellite and terrestrial technologies, the company said.  The Proton Breeze M vehicle lifted off from Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome at 12:29 p.m. EST Sunday, followed by spacecraft separation and on-schedule signal acquisition nine hours later at around 9:45 p.m. EST.  

Watch the video of the launch on YouTube here.   LightSquared is formally known as SkyTerra. 

According to a recent CBS report:  “In 2009 there were 864 reported thefts of goods from trucks or warehouses across the country - more than two per day. And 2010 is on track to be even worse.  As the economy inches toward recovery, a lot of businesses are still struggling to keep up. But an illegal industry is doing better than ever: cargo theft. Losses from these robberies add up to as much as $37 billion a year in the U.S. -- forcing all of us to pay more for everything from computers to medicine to sneakers. Chief Investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian has an exclusive look inside the criminal world of cargo hijacking.”

Watch this CBS video on the smuggling ring.  Do all your trailers have trailer tracking on them to prevent theft?

One of the great things about being at ATA Management Conference & Exhibition each year is to catch up with others in the trucking industry and hear what is on their minds. This year at ATA in Phoenix, AZ, I’ve been meeting with SkyBitz customers, trade media, other vendors, and trucking companies to ask them what they’ve been hearing and share with them what SkyBitz is up to. The overall sentiment was that growth is happening in the economy but it is slow.  Many are predicting that ATA 2011 will be at the cusp of huge growth for trucking.  Some of the hot topics I heard about from trucking companies were:

• CSA 2010 regulations in general – obviously this one is still big in the minds of the industry.
• Maintenance of equipment – the past few years of keeping belts tight has created a buildup of maintenance needs and costs.
• A possible driver shortage and mandated less hours of service would result in having to use their equipment more efficiently, which in turn means...

Sean Kilcarr from Fleet Owner wrote an interesting blog article the other day on the TrailerTail rear aerodynamic device built by ATDynamics, Inc.  One of the fleets highlighted in his article was Mesilla Valley Transportation (MVT), who has recently adopted the TrailerTail technology. 

Mesilla Valley’s CEO, Royal Jones, stated “In our industry, being more efficient means being more competitive.”   What should also be mentioned is that Mesilla has been investing in technology, especially trailer technology, for years now in order to become more competitive.  They truly understand how to apply the technology to make their operations more competitive and efficient. 

Several years ago MVT’s installed 2,400 SkyBitz mobile terminal units across its entire fleet, which provided instant visibility to all the trailers. Since deploying this technology, MVT’s fleet managers now have access to the exact location and status of every trailer within the fleet at any time. In...