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Transportation has yet to experience any major transformation from Blockchain, yet certain blueprints and ideas keep flowing from published articles. There seems to be no end in sight for the changing price of a Bitcoin, and new cryptocurrencies seemingly emerge every month. Is there a permanent home for cryptocurrency and its underlying Blockchain technology in Transportation?

When Blockchain was introduced to me by Timothy Leonard, CTO at TMW Systems, I immediately thought of a Lego set tucked away in my son’s closet. As I listened and researched, I quickly learned that my initial analogy helped my financial mind understand a very complex technical concept.

Ten years ago, the iPhone took nearly 200 years of technological progress in communication and put it the palm of your hand. Apple essentially boiled down the history of electric machines used for communication that began with the telegraph and evolved into the internet, and reduced to a small, sleek gadget that one could operate with a fingertip. Ten years later, the smartphone is probably the most widely-used communication object on the globe, but one day, and it will be sooner than you think, we’ll view smartphones in the same way we now think of fax machines and car phones, which seemed fairly revolutionary in the 1980s.

We’re a mobile society. As we approach the end of this decade, mobility means no longer being tethered to a desk. From the dock to the coffee shop or at a truck stop, trucking mobile apps are changing the ways of our workforce.

TMW had the fortune of publishing observations from ten important guest bloggers. Each has expertise in areas that matter to the transportation industry. Each brought new or differing perspectives to our readers. Did you miss one? Take a closer look at the key topics, which include technology and its role in: Capacity, Driver Shortage/Recruitment, Network Analysis, Customer Satisfaction, Cash Flow and more. Read one, some or all for wide-reaching views telling more of what’s going on around us.

Staying competitive in today’s building materials industry is a never-ending challenge. Meeting customer expectations, controlling costs and managing inventory during fickle construction market cycles are key to staying ahead of one’s competition. These are perennial challenges, as vital to the operation of lumber yards of old as they are to suppliers today.

With few exceptions – the most notable being a vehicle braking system – friction is not a good thing.

By Thomas A. Balzer, CAE

When I started representing the trucking industry in 2006, my very first meeting was about the truck driver shortage and the high turnover rates in the industry. Even back then, I thought the problem was an industry perception issue. Today, 11 years later, we are having the same discussions, and it has remained a perception issue. Kevin Burch, president of Jet Express, Inc., and the current chairman of the American Trucking Associations, has devoted his tenure to improving the perception of the industry. Everyone in the industry should adopt the same passion for improving the image of trucking as Kevin; our futures may literally depend on it.

There’s a revolution going on. Headlines are saying it. Shippers are experiencing it. And your business is likely being affected by it, in ways both large and small.

Here’s how one company helps staff stay up to date and in the know.

Consider the well-known adage if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. A reasonable idea, perhaps – but would modifying the maxim slightly benefit the people who rely on smartphones, mobile electronics and regularly updated software options and allow them to more successfully do their jobs? Yes, says Mike Kelley, Chief Information Officer for Mesilla Valley Transportation (MVT), who offers the alternative: if it ain’t broke, make it better.