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The co-chairmen of a bipartisan presidential commission created to find ways to reduce the federal deficit last week called for gradually raising the federal fuel tax by 15 cents a gallon, beginning in 2013.

Demand for logistics services is on the rise after falling sharply in 2009, as shippers look for ways to meet shifting market demand and deal with looming constraints in freight-hauling capacity.

Unfamiliar words such as “stability” and “price increases” are creeping into the less-than-truckload sector’s vocabulary these days, after a turbulent two years of rate cutting, market-share swings and some astronomical losses.

The U.S. retail diesel price average rose 4.9 cents to $3.116 last week, leaving trucking’s main fuel about a penny below its high point for the year, the Department of Energy said.

Intermodal shipments in the third quarter of 2010 erased recession-related volume losses, climbing 20% from a year ago as container shipments of imported goods surged, the Intermodal Association of North America reported.

Consumer confidence increased this month, according to the monthly Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index released Friday.

Knight Transportation said it has declared a special cash dividend of 75 cents per share.

FedEx Corp. said it expects to handle 223.3 million items between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, an 11% increase over the same period last year.

I read with interest the letter from Colin Young about keeping less-than-truckload drivers — especially the part about management thinking it should take you only so long to go from point A to point B, without taking into consideration traffic flow during different parts of the day or other unforeseen circumstances.

It just shouldn’t be this difficult. Here we are with virtually everyone involved agreeing that there is a major problem with the country’s aging infrastructure that needs to be addressed, and quickly.