Operations

Your June 18 Pre-Trip: Could Uber-like app replace truck drivers?

June 18, 2015

Here are five things worth knowing today: 1. Amazon is working on an Uber-like mobile app that would use regular people to deliver goods to customers, according to a report in Our Windsor. According to Marc Wulfraat, president of MWPVL International, a logistics consulting firm, “the move makes sense economically.” “With the surge in e-commerce sales, not just Amazon, Wulfraat said trucking companies will run out of people to do the work in the next decade,” the report says. Our Windsor has more.2. Another deadline looms for the nation’s highway trust fund, and Congress still isn’t close to a permanent solution. The Detroit News reports, both Democrats and Republicans favor a long-term funding bill, but they can’t figure out how to pay for the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. One of the most unpopular ideas to resolve the problem is raising the federal gas tax. Another idea under consideration is charging drivers a vehicle mileage tax.3. A U.S. district court judge in San Francisco said Wal-Mart violated California’s minimum wage law by failing to pay its truck drivers for certain tasks, such as waiting in line to load or unload cargo, or for the time it takes to fuel or wash a truck, according to the Fresno Bee. Judge Susan Illston wrote that “Under California law, the drivers must be paid for all the time that they were subject to Wal-Mart’s control,” according to the report. Back pay for those unpaid tasks could add up to $100 to $150 million, the Bee said.4. The project to expand I-95 at Exit 14 in Norwalk, CT, is nearly finished, according to the Norwalk Daily Voice. An additional southbound lane will open within the next month. According to the report, Gov. Dannel Malloy told reporters: “It’s going to make a significant change up and down 95, south of where we are, as well as north of where we are, because that’s what a chokehold this area has represented for the last 15 years since Exit 8 got completed in Stamford.”5. Sharpsburg, PA, police are looking for the driver of a large truck or tractor-trailer that crashed into a senior center and then took off early this morning. According to Seattle PI, no one was hurt, and police believe it was a large truck or tractor-trailer based on the extent of the damage.

About the Author

Cristina Commendatore

Cristina Commendatore was previously the Editor-in-chief of FleetOwner magazine. She reported on the transportation industry since 2015, covering topics such as business operational challenges, driver and technician shortages, truck safety, and new vehicle technologies. She holds a master’s degree in journalism from Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut.