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Manufacturing activity in the New York region rose this month at the fastest pace in almost two years, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said Tuesday.

Crude oil fell Monday morning for the second day in a row, reaching $68.02 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, Bloomberg reported.

Con-way Inc.’s truckload subsidiary said Monday that it has begun to offer short-haul service for shipments of less than 600 miles.

Alliance Parts, Daimler Trucks’ private-label parts unit, said it has partnered with ArvinMeritor, Troy, Mich., to provide remanufactured brake shoes for commercial vehicles in North America.

I believe there are a lot of carriers engaged in “sport trucking” as described in the story “Pace of Fleet Failures Slows as Banks Delay Foreclosures.” Trucking companies that “aren’t doing it for a profit” will hurt only themselves in the end and make it bad for the rest of the industry — both shippers and carriers.

At the very least, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration needs to provide the freight transportation industry sufficient time to respond to its proposal to fix the clearly broken Unified Carrier Registration agreement.

While sales of new Class 8 trucks continue to languish, several used truck dealers said they have noted recent “sporadic” increases in business that they believe could signal a market bottom. However, they added that financing problems were restricting sales.

Less than a week after the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration proposed more than doubling registration fees for motor carriers and brokers, American Trucking Associations and several other groups urged the agency to extend its short 15-day comment period.

For trucking fleets that operate different vehicles for an array of uses, an important challenge is to equip each one with the correct tires.