October was a depressed month for freight and the economy in general. The number of shipments and freight expenditures both declined from September, by 3.5 and 2.6 percent, respectively. This marks only the second time this year that both indexes declined in the same month. (Shipment volume in April dropped 3.5 percent, but expenditures fell only 1.6 percent.) The 16-day federal government shutdown is partly to blame for the declines, but prior to the shutdown the economy was already exhibiting signs of a cool down.

Armstrong and Associates Inc. has released the 21st edition of Who's Who in Logistics, its guide to third-party logistics providers.

There is frustration from the Freight Transport Association, which has complained that, whilst its members who operate road haulage fleets are spending hundreds of thousands of pounds retrofitting existing equipment to improve visibility in order to lessen the danger to cyclists, the pace of change from the relevant authorities to allow better designed heavy goods vehicles has been lamentably slow.

Clean Energy Fuels Corp. announced that it has placed a purchase contract on property where it hopes to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) fuel terminal in Jacksonville, Fla. This would be the first LNG facility on the Eastern seaboard to specifically supply LNG for the maritime, heavy-duty trucking and rail industries.

ShockWatch, a vendor of tools for supply-chain monitoring, has introduced the TrekView Data Management System (DMS) for control of temperature-sensitive products.

CaroTrans International, a global non-vessel operating common carrier and freight consolidator, has inaugurated direct less-than-containerload (LCL) export service from Los Angeles to Suva, Fiji.

Looking at safety statistics, it's easy to conclude that the loading dock is one of the most hazardous areas of your operations. A quarter of all accidents occur there. The majority of these accidents result in the dreaded back injury that, according to OHSA, ultimately ends up costing U.S. companies upwards of $80bn dollars annually.

Foxfire, a warehouse management software provider, recently announced the availability of Foxfire Inventory Pro, a cloud-based inventory management software for small to mid-sized businesses.