Improving the efficiency and safety of truck transportation while reducing its environmental damage is the focus of an international conference next week at the University of Michigan. The school's Transportation Research Institute is hosting the "Building the Policy Options Roadmap" conference Tuesday and Wednesday. The school says "technical experts and public policy officials from around the world will lay out practical and workable options for ensuring economically viable and socially responsive U.S. commercial truck transportation." Sponsors ...

The nation's largest publicly traded trucking company will ask for $1 billion in aid from the federal bailout fund, as creditors come knocking and business continues to sink, media reports said Friday. If approved, YRC would become the first trucking company to get help from the bailout fund, officially known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. But analysts say the chance of YRC getting any bailout money is slim. The company also ...

Looking for signs of economic recovery? Try counting the number of trucks on the road. Trucks carry almost all the manufactured and retail goods in the country — from refrigerators to lumber, detergents to toys. Many economists gauge how fast assembly lines are running, and how much consumers are buying, by the volume of goods hauled by trucks. But the most recent earnings reports show trucks are not carrying enough yet to indicate recovery is ...