FreightWaves Today | October 13

SPEAKER_1 (0:35)

We're gonna FreightWaves Today, it is Tuesday, and it is the diesel data, which Julie, I think prior to really this last run up in diesel, it was sort of an uninteresting, you get these episodic things in freight where diesel becomes a big conversation. But really, if you go back to the exception of that really strange period during COVID, where we had negative oil prices, and then all of a sudden we had this massive surge, long as we've been doing this for 10 years, diesel was one of those things that nobody really cared about, and nobody wanted to talk about. But we did a survey a couple years back about how trucking companies are thinking about diesel, and they said it wasn't a top priority, but that's changed really, particularly this year, and has become probably the most important part of the entire freight conversation due to the fact that diesel prices are at record highs. Now, interesting enough, I was listening this morning to Bloomberg Radio, and they were talking about the fact that they're expecting more attacks on energy infrastructure headed up to the primary elections, which take place just in three weeks. And the expectation is that that's going to continue to put pressure on really the polls, it's going to create pressure on the administration.

And therefore, we're going to have continuation of just problems that will exist in the energy infrastructure.

Julie (1:59)

So other parties outside of the United States who have vested interest in the elections, you...

SPEAKER_1 (2:05)

Well, Iran wants, they do, and arguably, they want Trump to... They don't want the Republicans to win because they think that that can change the direction of input pressure on the administration.

Question is, Russia and Ukraine is also some noise. I think people that are in geopolitical circles have argued that Russia and China just want chaos.

They actually don't have a preference of which party is in Congress or which party is in power. They just want absolute chaos, which is interesting because there's a lot of conversations historically that a lot of Russia's sympathy towards the Trump administration existed. There's maybe some evidence to support that, but then also on the other side, there's evidence to support the fact that there was people that were also Russian bots that were just trying to create hate and havoc, and a lot of it is just wears on human psyche. In fact, there was a big drone attack that happened this weekend, that when the drone attack happened, I don't know what's going on with our screens here, but when the drone attack happened, there was a loss of Russian bots, bot traffic actually on X deteriorated.

Julie (3:20)

So lots of- Changed some of our algorithms. Yeah.

SPEAKER_1 (3:24)

So really interesting conversations, a lot to talk about. We're going to talk about cross-border, another geopolitical issue, but let's get into the headlines.

Julie (3:34)

We kick things off with a major AI expansion designed to let fleet managers build their own custom safety tools. San Diego-based Netradyne on Tuesday expanded its lineup of AI agents running on its Netradyne intelligence platform, adding a campaign agent for driver coaching, a builder that lets fleet managers create their own agents, and conversational answers drawn from live fleet data.

The capabilities are available to direct Netradyne customers in the US and Canada. Netradyne says customers created more than 250 agents within a month of release. The new campaign agent turns coaching into a competition, letting managers choose safety priorities and driver groups, while the agent runs scoring, daily standings, and driver updates. Managers can also build custom agents by describing in plain language what it should do, such as compiling a short list of drivers for recognition or preparing fuel efficiency coaching packs.

Over in the cross-border sector, a severe driver shortage and aggressive visa restrictions are squeezing truck capacity, even as freight demand remains soft. Logistics provider Trafix is warning that North American cross-border trucking capacity is expected to remain constrained into 2027, despite softer freight demand. US authorities have withdrawn visas from approximately 25,000 Mexican freight drivers, according to Mexican Trucking Association, CANACAR, cited in a CH. Robinson report. Many Mexican drivers are in their 50s and 60s, while younger workers are reluctant to enter the profession because of security concerns and relatively low compensation. On the Canadian side, Trafix's Toronto-based regional director says rates on some corridors have climbed 25% to 35% over roughly the past month to month and a half, as carriers struggle with imbalanced freight flows and return load challenges.

Finally, the freight industry's annual moment to confront a hidden epidemic is arriving tomorrow.

Freight Fraud Awareness Day returns October 14th, with advocates across transportation and insurance pushing for open dialogue about criminal schemes, industry impacts and available prevention resources. This marks the third annual Freight Fraud Awareness Day, with supporters including Verified Carrier, Truck Stop, Northland Insurance, Travelers, GenLogs, Freight Validate and FreightBytes. Andrei Drotenko, President of Strategic Relations at Verified Carrier, says the campaign allows participants to discuss incidents without revealing safeguards criminals might exploit. Retired Los Angeles County Sheriff's Detective Gerardo Pachuca warns that cargo theft has been exploding, with some criminals understanding legitimate operations before turning that experience against businesses.