When the economy begins to turn next year, Costello said it will be good for the survivors. “Truck capacity will tighten fairly quickly once a recovery commences, but until then it will be difficult for fleets,” Costello said…

June through December for-hire loads show decreases in all trucking sectors, with tanker and flatbed sectors taking the worst hits at approximately 20 percent declines each. Dry van for the same time period was down more than 15 percent and reefer posted less than a 5 percent decrease.

Source:   http://www.etrucker.com/apps/news/article.asp?id=75630

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Excerpt:   Wine enthusiasts such as Colman and winemakers are increasingly becoming aware of the impact their favorite beverage has on the environment, from the pesticides and fertilizers used to grow wine grapes, to the greenhouse gases released while transporting the wine from the vineyard to often far-reaching locales…

Miles and transportation method aren't the only consideration though, as packaging can influence transportation efficiency. Transporting heavy glass bottles uses much more fuel, and therefore has a bigger impact, than lighter glass or other alternative packaging, which some winemakers are turning to.

"You're starting to see more wines coming out now in alternative packaging — bag-and-box format, box tetrapack, boxed wine, and even some distributors now are producing wines in plastic bottles — and the only reason is because it's lighter," Colman said.

(Despite the stigma of boxed wines, Colman said he thinks they can gain acceptance because they also give the consumer more bang for their buck, as he wrote in a New York Times op-ed this summer.)

Source:   http://www.usnews.com/articles/science/environment/2008/11/10/the-carbon-footprint-of-wine.html

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Excerpt:   The wine business is on a mission to gauge its emissions of greenhouse gasses as pressure builds from regulators and markets in California and worldwide to emit less of the compounds blamed for global climate change.

Agriculture as a whole is low on the list of economic sectors the California Air Resources Board is targeting initially for mandatory reporting of 2008 emissions starting next year, as part of the phase-in of Assembly Bill 32, called the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006…

That move is part of three pilot water- and energy-efficiency programs offered by the California Public Utilities Commission and Pacific Gas & Electric Co., including a footprint calculation by Portland, Ore.-based Ecos.

The company convinced a major supplier of its tens of millions of glass wine bottles annually to switch to laser etching of bottle date stamps instead of toxic UV ink, according to Mr. Boller. The company also is persuading wholesalers, distributors and trucking companies to reduce their footprints.

Source:   http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/article/20080121/BUSINESSJOURNAL/521220199/1209

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Excerpt:   A Napa wine trucking company backed by wine  mogul Jess Jackson took delivery Tuesday of two first-of-their-kind hybrid trucks expected to substantially reduce emissions and diesel fuel use. VinLux Fine Wine Transport, a joint venture between the Jackson Family Wines and Biagi Brothers wine trucking company, said it expects its two new Peterbilt hybrids to be at least 30 percent more fuel efficient than similar vehicles…

The company will begin using the hybrids today to deliver wines from its Napa warehouse to restaurants and retailers in San Francisco. The company has 35 other trucks making deliveries from two warehouses to 9,000 accounts in California…

``This is exactly the type of innovation needed to reduce diesel exhaust,'' Lynn Terry, deputy director of  the California State Air Resources Board, said in a statement. ``By scaling up the hybrid technology to be practical for this workload, Peterbilt has given industry access to the strength of diesel engines but with the added ability to apply it precisely when needed.'' Diesel engines account for 70 percent of the dangerous particulate in the state's air, according to Dimitri Stanich, board spokesman.

The board is preparing to implement strict regulations on diesel trucks as early as 2010. The new hybrids cost about 40 percent more than a basic diesel truck , but the fuel savings should offset the extra cost in about 3 years, Tunt said. The diesel savings could be between 1,450 and 1,800 gallons per year per vehicle, he said, or $7,000 to $9,000 at current diesel prices. The company purchased the hybrids not just to save money but because it fits with its philosophy of using cutting edge technology to deliver better service.

Source:   McCallum, Kevin.  "Hybrid Trucks Hit Road to Deliver Wine."  Press Democrat, The (Santa Rosa, CA).  13 Aug. 2008: Access World News.  NewsBank. University of Texas at San Antonio, John Peace Library. San Antonio, TX. 1 May 2009  

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Excerpt:   A total of 785 trucking companies with a combined fleet of about 39,000 trucks went out of business in the third quarter, bringing the number of company trucks idled in the first nine months of 2008 to more than 127,000, or 6.5% of the industry, reported Donald Broughton, trucking analyst and managing director of Avondale Partners.

"Never have more trucks been pulled off the road in a shorter period of time than in the first three quarters of this year," Broughton wrote in his third-quarter analysis of the trucking industry.

That has pushed tens of thousands of drivers who had been on company payrolls out to compete for slices of the smaller cargo pie with the nation's independent owner-operator drivers, who were already struggling. It's the reason for the desperately low bids facing Rini of Grand River, Ohio, and other truckers.

Source:   http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jan/07/business/fi-nutruckers7?pg=1