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Quote of the Day

Judging from the following famous quotes, the sweet smell of success involves a lot of sweat:

• The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.
-- Vince Lombardi (NFL Hall of Fame coach)

• Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.
-- General George Patton

• Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
-- Albert Einstein

• The road to success runs uphill.
-- Willie Davis (NFL Hall of Fame player under Lombardi)

ATA economist optimistic about recovery

The American Trucking Associations' advance seasonally adjusted (SA) For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index increased 0.4 percent in March, following a revised 0.3 percent decrease in February. The latest improvement put the SA index at 109.2 (2000=100), which is the highest level since November 2008. The not seasonally adjusted index, which represents the change in tonnage actually hauled by the fleets before any seasonal adjustment, equaled 116.4 in March, up 19.1 percent from the previous month.

Compared with March 2009, SA tonnage jumped 7.5 percent, the fourth consecutive year-over-year gain and the largest increase since January 2005. For the first quarter of 2010, SA tonnage was up 4.9 percent compared with the same period last year.

ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello said that he is getting more optimistic about the motor carrier industry's recovery. “Freight is moving in the right direction and I continue to hear from motor carriers that both the demand and supply situations are steadily improving.” Costello attributed the first-quarter improvement in tonnage to the growing economy and to a slight inventory build after some sectors slashed inventories by too much in 2009.

Costello added: “For most fleets, freight volumes feel better than reported tonnage because the supply situation, particularly in the truckload sector, is turning quickly.”

Trucking serves as a barometer of the U.S. economy, representing nearly 69 percent of tonnage carried by all modes of domestic freight transportation, including manufactured and retail goods. Trucks hauled 10.2 billion tons of freight in 2008. Motor carriers collected $660.3 billion, or 83.1 percent of total revenue earned by all transport modes.

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