Increasingly, shippers need accurate motor carrier performance information. Carrier selection and performance evaluation programs, carrier certification programs and quality management programs all require accurate performance information. Traditionally, shippers do not have much experience in formally gathering and measuring such information. For those shippers and carriers who do measure performance, no standardized measuring and reporting rules exist within industry. Over the years, the accounting profession has established standardized financial performance information reporting rules based on user needs. The process used by the profession involves input from information users, exposure drafts that summarize information needs, and proposed measuring and reporting rules. Exposure drafts are criticized, modified, and recirculated. This iterative process continues until users accept rules. In an attempt to establish standardized carrier performance measuring and reporting rules, this study completes the first iteration of this process. This study examines the information needs of vehicle assemblers in Canada and the United States. This work is conducted while examining the feasibility of standardized measuring and reporting within this industry segment. From this research, the study suggests industry recommendations and future research needs. This study finds that vehicle assemblers generally have similar performance information needs but go about meeting these needs with different measurements. These information needs exist on two tiers. Popular delivery service attributes are on the first tier, while infrequent freight damage and loss, billing and service availability attributes are on the second tier. Although interest exists among vehicle assemblers to explore standardized carrier performance measures, barriers such as carrier performance evaluation program confidentiality stand in the way.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

This study is designed to gain a better understanding of the decision process of freight shippers who use commercial truckers. Pursuant to this study, it is possible to gather some insights into the phenomenon of the selection of a trucking company to transport goods. Planning is essential to the attainment of goals in any type of firm, and that is especially true in the volatile environment of commercial trucking. Development of the external environment of trucking is prerequisite to the planning process and essential to the attainment of goals. The external environment of a trucking firm is generally represented by economic, social, and political influences, which extend specifically to the nature and tendencies of its markets, i.e., the shippers.

Increasingly, shippers need accurate motor carrier performance information. Carrier selection and performance evaluation programs, carrier certification programs and quality management programs all require accurate performance information. Traditionally, shippers do not have much experience in formally gathering and measuring such information. For those shippers and carriers who do measure performance, no standardized measuring and reporting rules exist within industry. Over the years, the accounting profession has established standardized financial performance information reporting rules based on user needs. The process used by the profession involves input from information users, exposure drafts that summarize information needs, and proposed measuring and reporting rules. Exposure drafts are criticized, modified, and recirculated. This iterative process continues until users accept rules. In an attempt to establish standardized carrier performance measuring and reporting rules, this study completes the first iteration of this process. This study examines the information needs of vehicle assemblers in Canada and the United States. This work is conducted while examining the feasibility of standardized measuring and reporting within this industry segment. From this research, the study suggests industry recommendations and future research needs. This study finds that vehicle assemblers generally have similar performance information needs but go about meeting these needs with different measurements. These information needs exist on two tiers. Popular delivery service attributes are on the first tier, while infrequent freight damage and loss, billing and service availability attributes are on the second tier. Although interest exists among vehicle assemblers to explore standardized carrier performance measures, barriers such as carrier performance evaluation program confidentiality stand in the way. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

Air pollution is a threat to the environment and human health. Freight trucking in particular is the main source of freight transportation emissions. Heavy-duty trucks emit large amounts of toxic air pollutants that cause serious diseases and harm public health. In addition, heavy-duty trucks emit great amounts of greenhouse gas (GHG), which is the leading cause of global warming. Despite increased environmental restrictions on air pollution and rising trucking greenhouse gas emissions in the past decades, no economic study has examined the potential GHG and air pollution reductions in the trucking sector and the associated private abatement costs to the industry. This study accounts for GHG emissions and toxic air pollutants in measuring and evaluating efficiency and productivity for the trucking industry in the 48 contiguous states. Moreover, the private costs of abatement to the industry were also estimated. When only GHG was incorporated in the production model, the results showed that each state could expand desirable output and reduce GHG by an average of 11 percent per year between 2000 and 2007. The Malmquist-Luenberger productivity indexes showed that omitting or ignoring GHG in trucking service production yielded biased estimates. On the other hand, due to increased environmental regulations, most of the toxic air pollutants decreased dramatically between 2002 and 2005. The analytical results showed that inefficiency decreased during this period. The private costs of abatement averaged $73 million per state in 2005. When GHG and six toxic air pollutants were incorporated in the production model, the estimated private abatement cost was $76 million per state, which was equivalent to 0.7 percent of the industry output in 2005.

Volvo Trucks: A Trucker's Pride   The North American trucking industry is in decline. By 2014, the United States is projected to be short 110,000 drivers (Wikipedia). The hardest hit segment is the long-haul sector, due to the difficult lifestyle of the long-haul trucker. Drivers experience long periods of time away from home, mediocre pay, and “miserable” working conditions. In order to revive the struggling industry and refresh the lifeblood of our civilization, the long-haul trucker lifestyle must be made more appealing. This project is a study into how to make the North American Long-Haul trucker lifestyle appealing to future trucker generations through both interior and exterior design.   In-depth research found that emotional needs of American long-haul truckers are not being met.  Emotional needs are directly linked to the concept of “quality of life”. Therefore, increasing the trucker’s quality of life would help truckers meet their emotional needs and thus help revive the North American trucking industry. Through interviews and questionnaires, pride was determined to be the key emotional need of the American Trucker. These interviews revealed that the best method to appeal to this key emotional need was to rethink the exterior form. It was decided that a design sculpture should be used to illustrate the concept of emotionally appealing transportation. For the interior design, research showed that a trucker’s fundamental human needs were not being met aboard the truck. Expanding the living space on-board and providing truckers access to their basic human needs allow people to truly live life on the road.   The Volvo Vision Long-Haul (VLH) helps future truckers take pride in themselves and their lifestyles. Pride comes from the aesthetics of assertive strength and the confident stance of the vehicle. A higher seating position gives drivers a commanding view of the road and the use of noble materials helps drivers feel they live in a quality environment. Onboard, the Volvo VLH maximizes interior space, providing enough room for a trucker to live life on the road.  To meet basic human needs, the truck has a shower and toilet onboard, along with a kitchen complete with stove and sink. The lofted bedroom offers feelings of exclusivity and expands upward when the vehicle is parked. This unique expanding space is accessed via a spiral staircase, which stores neatly away when not in use. The Volvo VLH meets the emotional needs of the American long-haul trucker, making the lifestyle appealing to future generations.

M.Com. (Economics) / The objective of this study was to obtain information that will enable the identification of the role, nature and magnitude of private road freight transport in the South African economy. The underlying rationale was the lack of information in this regard in South Africa. Information about private road freight transport was obtained on a sectoral basis by means of a literature analysis and an empirical investigation.

What is home? Is it simply a place, or is it something more than that? What is the nature of home for truck drivers? Where does it occur, and how do they create and conceptualize it? I examine the literature on home, concluding that home is not a place but rather a relationship that occurs between an individual and a place. I then draw upon autoethnographic research to communicate how truck drivers conceptualize and create home.

The U.S. trucking industry was deregulated with implementation of the Motor Carrier Act of 1980. After deregulation, increased concentration was observed in the general freight segment of the industry. The purpose of this study was to examine structural differences in general freight commodity carriers and to help explain the increased concentration. Cost functions were estimated for large and small carriers in order to see whether or not size related advantages exist. Although the hypothesis of constant returns to scale could not be rejected, significant structural differences were found between large and small carriers. The results imply that the services provided by large and small carriers are different. Presence of "economies of integration and "economies of route density" for large firms indicate the possibility of oligopoly in the general freight commodity trucking. / Graduation date: 1992

Thesis (M. S.)--Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008. / Committee Chair: Bras, Bert; Committee Member: Jeter, Sheldon; Committee Member: McGinnis, Leon. Part of the SMARTech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Collection.