ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the following individual segments within the truckload portion of the industry: building materials, bulk, general freight, household goods, heavy machinery, motor vehicles, other specialized, refrigerated, and tank. It discusses a series of challenges that all truckload carriers are currently experiencing. These challenges include: adjusting to disintermediation and the Internet economy; responding to the adoption by US firms of real-time supply chain management practices; and improving the industry's safety performance. The model of an efficient truckload carrier that emerged in the immediate post-deregulation time period disseminated throughout the industry in the 1990s and beyond. The technology of the Internet and the ability of companies to reach directly to their customers have resulted in a physical restructuring of supply chains that have relied on warehouses and retail distribution outlets. The truckload carrier segment has been anything but static in the 1987-2001 time periods as evidenced by the significant productivity gains.
