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Manufacturing activity in the Chicago region improved in January, the Institute for Supply Chain Management-Chicago said Monday.

Oil rose in early trading Monday to more than $90 a barrel after jumping almost $4 from a two-month low Friday on concerns over unrest in Egypt, Bloomberg reported.

Consumer personal spending increased in December for the sixth consecutive month, the Commerce Department said Monday.

While I fully support the Ohio Trucking Association’s stance on limiting speeds to 65 mph or lower, I still am a proponent for same-speed roads because split speeds promote obvious obstacles to safety on the roads.

A few stories in this edition of Transport Topics illustrate quite well the current state of the national economy.

Profits increased sharply at most of the eight publicly traded truckload carriers that issued earnings reports last week, with gains coming mostly through rate increases rather than volume growth in the uneven, but modestly growing, freight market.

Federal regulators last week proposed a rule to require tank truck carriers who haul flammable liquids to either retrofit their existing tankers to protect their wetlines or install a system to purge product from those lines.

Trucks account for only 7% of the miles traveled in the nation’s urban areas but they shoulder 29% of the costs that urban traffic congestion produces annually in wasted time and fuel, according to the annual Urban Mobility Report from the Texas Transportation Institute of Texas A&M University.

President Obama said during his State of the Union address that the federal government should “redouble” its efforts to upgrade the nation’s infrastructure, a message met with praise from industry and labor groups.

More than two dozen retail and shipper organizations, including the National Industrial Transportation League and the National Retail Federation, have urged congressional leaders to advance legislation that repeals the antitrust immunity that ocean liner carriers have enjoyed since 1916.