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Corporate-owned truck fleets are facing growing pressure to justify their in-house freight operations as manufacturers and retailers target transportation expenses in response to the sharp nationwide downturn in sales.

California environmental regulators have approved a new standard that will require a 10% reduction in the carbon content of transportation fuels by 2020 and encourage a transition to nonpetroleum-based fuels.

Truck tonnage fell in March to its lowest level in seven years, as it declined 12.2% below the levels recorded one year earlier, according to an April 27 report from American Trucking Associations.

A federal judge last week issued a preliminary injunction blocking many of the provisions in the clean trucks plans of the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, including the controversial ban on independent drayage owner-operators at Los Angeles.

Manufacturing in the U.S. improved last month but still showed overall contraction, the Institute for Supply Management said Friday.

Oil closed the trading day Wednesday near $51 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange following an Energy Department report that showed gasoline inventories declined last week, Bloomberg reported.

Canadian transportation firm Mullen Group Income Fund said its first-quarter profit dropped 37.8% to C$31 million or 38 cents per unit, from C$49.8 million, or 62 cents per unit, a year ago.

McLeod Software said Wednesday that it had purchased Intergrated Logistics Execution Network Systems, or iLENS, a logistics software company.