Transportation Update

October, 2009

EDITORIAL FEATURES
FoodBusinessNews – October 27 issue features Digestive Health and Hispanic
Market
Food Logistics – November/December issue features Top 100 Software and
Hardware Solution Providers in the Food Industry and Packaging Trends
Land Line – December/January issue features How to Safeguard Your Load and
You
Logistics Management – November issue features 2009 NITL Executive of the
Year Award and Annual Customs Update
Modern Materials Handling – November issue features Top 20 Warehouses and
Annual Trending Study
Overdrive – November issue features Add 2 MPG and Wireless Headphone Sets
Over The Road – November issue features Enhance Your Financial Liquidity
Pulling Profitable, No-Touch Tanker Loads
Purchasing Magazine – November issue features Annual Trucking Report: The
Road Ahead in 2010 and Career Guide
Transportista – November issue features Add-Ons that Pay Off and Alternative
Heating
Transport Topics – November 16 issue features People in Trucking – Intermodal
and distributed at the National Industrial Transportation League
Trucker’s Connection – November issue features Increasing Profit Margins: You
Can Make it Happen
Truckers News – November issue features Truck Driving Schools and Painting a
Truck

NEWSPAPER SPECIAL SECTIONS

Arizona Republic Transportation/Driver October 4

Las Vegas Review Journal Warehouse/Production November 12

CONFERENCES AND SEMINARS

American Trucking Association’s 2009 Management Conference & Exhibition
October 4–7
Las Vegas, NV

Truck Show Latino

October 17–18
Pomona, CA

National Industrial Transportation League

November 14-18
Anaheim, CA
Intermodal Association of North America
November 14-18
Anaheim, CA

LAYOFFS
Carrier Corp.'s campus in DeWitt, NY will lose some 170 jobs over the coming year
and a half when the company closes a parts warehouse. Employees were notified
that the Replacement Components Division warehouse, which handles replacement
parts for heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment, will close by the end of
next year. Syracuse.com

GE Transportation is cutting more than 1,500 jobs in northwestern Pennsylvania.

The company announced Tuesday that it would make permanent 1,200 temporary
layoffs that were announced in February at its factory near Erie, which makes electric
locomotives. In addition, 230 hourly jobs and 50 salaried jobs are being cut there.
Another 200 people are losing their jobs at an engine plant in Grove City.
Phillyburbs.com

Hawker Beechcraft has issued another 240 60-day layoff notices to employees,
according to paperwork filed with the state. Since August 21, Hawker Beechcraft has
issued 783 layoff notices, according to state records. Before the latest series of cuts,
the company had announced 2,800 layoffs, about 29% of its work force, since
November when it employed 9,790, including 7,700 in Wichita. Wichita Tribune Eagle

Mercedes-Benz plans to cut an additional 200 jobs at its Alabama auto assembly
plant by the end of this year, part of the latest effort to bring production in line with
slumping global demand. Officials at the German automaker's plant in Vance, AL met
with employees Tuesday to announce a new series of cutbacks that will go into effect
next year. The plant now employs about 3,000 people and will offer buyouts, as well
as retirement and early retirement packages, with the goal of cutting 200 jobs
through that process. Birmingham News

Midwest Airlines has informed the state it will put 26 more pilots and 33 more
flight attendants on furlough in October. In a layoff notice filed with the Wisconsin
Department of Workforce Development, Midwest said the furloughs are expected to
begin October 31. The furloughs stem from Republic Airways Holdings Inc.'s
acquisition of Midwest on July 31. Republic is replacing Midwest's fleet of Boeing
717s with Embraer 190s. The new furloughs are in addition to the company's
previous announcement it is laying off 40 pilots and 55 flight attendants.
Biztimes.com

United Airlines has furloughed another 290 pilots, part of previously announced
plans to shrink its work force. United has said it aims to shrink its work force by
7,000. It has been making periodic furloughs and, in some cases, layoffs to move
toward that goal. The new furloughs bring the total number of United pilots out of
work to 1,164, according to the United branch of the Air Line Pilots Association. Bay
News
TRENDS

FMCSA Examines Safety Fitness

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is developing a safety-
oriented initiative that aims to identify unsafe carriers and drivers and to hold them
accountable for “sustained performance by regularly determining their safety
fitness.” As the term “safety fitness” implies, the FMCSA will track not only driving
records but also records related to a driver’s health “to focus attention on driver
physical qualifications.” Ultimately, if enough information is gathered, every carrier
and driver will receive a safety rating.

Given the potential impact of the rating on carriers once the initiative is
implemented, fleet managers, safety directors and recruiting directors have yet one
more reason to be concerned about the health and wellness of their drivers, as well
as their drivers’ safety records. Here’s a summary of a report on the initiative:

About 5,500 people die each year as a result of crashes involving large commercial
trucks or buses, and about 160,000 more are injured. While the fatality rate for
these crashes has generally decreased over the last 20 years, the decline has leveled
off in the most recent years. FMCSA shoulders the primary federal responsibility for
reducing these crashes, fatalities and injuries and recognizes the need to make
improvements if it is to achieve further substantial safety advancements.

A key FMCSA effort to improve motor carrier safety is implementing the agency’s
Comprehensive Safety Analysis 2010 (CSA 2010) initiative. Through CSA 2010,
FMCSA expects to reduce motor carrier crashes, fatalities and injuries by using better
ways to identify unsafe carriers and drivers; assessing a larger portion of the motor
carrier industry and holding carriers and drivers accountable for sustained
performance by regularly determining their safety fitness; and expanding the range
of interventions to be used with carriers and drivers that fail to comply with safety
requirements. After two years of planning, testing and assessment, the initiative is
expected to be fully implemented in 2010.

FMCSA expects that CSA 2010 will provide safety benefits by enabling the agency to:
(1) increase its reach by assessing whether most motor carriers and drivers are safe
and holding them accountable by regularly determining their safety fitness; (2)
enhance its investigative and enforcement actions through the greater use of less
resource-intensive interventions; and (3) improve its ability to identify safety
deficiencies through better use of data. Under CSA 2010, all carriers – and
eventually all drivers – with sufficient safety data available will receive a safety
rating that is periodically updated. Currently, FMCSA is able to provide safety ratings
for relatively few carriers and for no drivers.

CSA 2010 will employ a progressive array of interventions that can be tailored to
match the severity of the safety problems they are intended to correct. CSA 2010
intends to use new data -- such as information from police accident reports about
driver-related factors contributing to a crash and by improving existing data sources
(for example, using its database of licensed commercial drivers to identify all drivers
with convictions for unsafe driving practices as well as the carriers they work for) --
to enable a more precise assessment of safety problems.
CSA 2010 will support evolving and new enforcement and compliance efforts. For
example: (1) carriers from Canada and Mexico that operate in the United States
under open border agreements will be rated under CSA 2010 in the same way as
U.S. carriers; (2) violations found through audits of new entrants -- a program that
FMCSA is working to strengthen -- will be used in the CSA 2010 safety measurement
system; and (3) data sources related to drivers' health -- such as drivers’ confirmed
positive test results for controlled substances or alcohol -- will be developed to focus
attention on driver physical qualifications, a key FMCSA policy area.