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Pretty much everyone knows tires are second only to fuel among operating costs for fleets. What's new is how the industry will deal with the potential for tire failures on autonomous trucks.

Freight and logistics always have depended on the human touch, but technology is getting smarter and many brokers wonder if their efforts will become unnecessary.

Jeff Tucker, CEO of Tucker Company Worldwide, reviews lessons learned and offers current advice relative to the capacity crunch of 2017.

The 12 months I’ve spent as chairman of American Trucking Associations provided a whirlwind of great experiences and key victories for trucking. They also provided some career highlights.

Transparency is a valuable and sought-after trait for all of today’s top industry players, especially now that things such as business integrity and proactive problem-solving sometimes are baseline requirements of today’s consumer.

We keep seeing signs that things are looking up for the trucking industry. Most of the relevant economic indicators are favorable for trucking. Commodities are getting stronger, oil rig counts are increasing and the housing recovery is persisting. At the same time, small businesses are feeling a greater sense of optimism, and improvements to the tax code may boost entrepreneurialism. Low unemployment rates ultimately will lead to higher wages, giving consumers more money to spend and putting more goods on trucks.

The recent announcement that Knight Transportation and Swift Transportation are merging is a much bigger and industry-changing event than realized. It comes on the heels of another major development: the public offering by Schneider. In three years, these two deals will be viewed as having set in motion a number of mergers and acquisitions at a pace never witnessed before in the truckload and intermodal industry.

There is nothing fun about not getting paid for the loads you have hauled. But unfortunately, every small trucking company and owner-operator will encounter clients who sometimes take 45 to 60 days — or longer — to pay.

Trucking can always use more technology. That’s one reason we see so many tech startups in the industry these days.

The American trucking industry depends on drivers: a simple statement but one that bears repeating. As president of American Trucking Associations, I have the great privilege of representing 3.5 million professional truck drivers, working on their behalf in Washington to make our industry better, to make their jobs easier.