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This Opinion piece appears in the Dec. 16 print edition of Transport Topics.

The Presidential Youth Fitness Program announced by the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition during a recent function in Washington, D.C., provides a model for fitness education that includes the use of a health-related fitness assessment and educational and motivational tools that support educators and encourage students to adopt an active lifestyle.

The adoption of natural gas as a transportation fuel continues to pick up speed. It is no surprise to me: I spent more than 30 years in the waste business and was the CEO of Republic Services, which is now the nation’s second-largest waste services provider, when the industry began to consider transitioning from diesel, a fuel we had used for decades. I understand the challenges in making the decision to switch to natural gas.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration enforcement mechanism dubbed Compliance, Safety, Accountability has been the topic of much discussion and controversy since its launch in 2010.

Although new hours-of-service rules include changes that will alter the way trucking companies do business, carriers opting to approach them armed with change-management programs will find they have an edge when it comes to meeting the revised rules’ challenges.

Independent studies have confirmed that anomalies and flaws exist in the relationship between crash likelihood and a trucking company’s BASIC scores as calculated under the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Compliance, Safety, Accountability program.

 Despite what may be a less than favorable public image, virtually every significant truck safety innovation over the past 30 years originated within the trucking industry.

The Canadian Trucking Alliance, that country’s national trucking group, along with the provincial trucking associations, celebrated Canada’s National Trucking Week this year on Sept. 2-8. The weeklong observance honored the 400,000 Canadian men and women who keep the country’s freight moving.

Many carriers, beset by both the weak economy and pricing competition from brokers and third-party logistics providers, are seeking new ways to win, keep and better serve customers. Business lines such as home delivery, warehousing and alternative mail are adding to — or replacing — revenues cut by the economy and the competition.