Low rates, online transportation boards, electronic logs and over-capacity are a few of the issues causing concern in the transportation business.

Of course, high on the list of concerns for any truck driver is the rate they are paid today to haul that load. Hauling goods, especially fresh produce, is one of the more dynamic commodities in the American free enterprise systems. The rate to haul a product from the production area to the receiver seemingly changes hourly with many factors weighing in. Chief, of course, is supply and demand.Allen Lund

"We have an over capacity situation right now," said Allen Lund of Allen Lund Co. Inc. in La Canada, CA.

Speaking in early January, he said there is a lot of equipment available and not a lot of loads so the rates are falling. Several other truck brokers echoed the same sentiment. Paul Kazan of Target Interstate Systems, New York City, said lack of loads are causing a downward pressure and the low fuel costs are also allowing truckers to accept loads for a lower rate, which also puts downward pressure on rates.

Each of the truck brokers interviewed noted that the supply and demand situation may look a lot different several months down the road if California truly gets a lot of rain this spring from the El Nino and more acreage is planted for summer harvest. It has been well documented that as much as a half a million acres of prime farmland was fallowed over the last couple of years because of the drought. If all those acres get planted and harvested, there will be quite a few more loads.

Lund said it is difficult to predict what the future will bring but he believes there is some overcapacity in the industry, which will continue to put downward pressure on the rates. In addition, he said the expansion of the Panama Canal to larger ships, which is expected to open in April, will undoubtedly divert some ships from the West Coast to the East Coast. That should mean there will be fewer hauls going from the West Coast to the East Coast, another factor that could lower truck rates. Lund said even if only 10 percent of the ships go through the canal rather than off-load in the West that will have a significant impact on demand for trucks.

On the other hand, Robert Silva of A.T.S.'s office in Salinas, CA, said the advent of electronic logs for truck drivers (coming in 2017) will increase travel times and might create some shortages. The electronic logs will prevent drivers from driving more hours than the law allows. As it is commonly known that many drivers skirt some of the hours of operation rules, Silva said it could take a solo driver 24-36 more hours to make the cross country trek. The longer haul will mean fewer trips per year and a great demand for team drivers, which can make the trip that much faster. He expects a shortage of team drivers and a greater demand for that service, which could drive rates up.

Another modern innovation that has come to the commercial trucking industry is an Uber-type situation as well as websites that have loads listed that allow a trucker to go online and find his own loads. Kazan is not a fan of these ╥conveniences╙ and does not appear overly worried that they will hurt the truck broker business in the same manner these independent drivers have hurt the cab companies. He said one of the biggest drawbacks is the speed in which most produce receivers pay their transportation bill. While Target Interstate pays its drivers 50 percent of the freight rate at pickup and the final 50 percent at delivery, the broker often waits 30 days or more before the bill is paid by the receiver. "Truckers can't operate like that. If they could, there wouldn't be any truck brokers," he quipped.

Lund said the "Uberization" of the big rig hauling industry is a hot topic of conversation but he does not expect it to have a huge impact. He said logistics companies such as his provide a host of services that would be hard to duplicate when picking a trucker via an Uber-like app on the phone. "We have 12 people in our office verifying at all times that the truckers are who they say they are and their [Department of Transportation] numbers are accurate. You have to do that or you are inviting lawsuits. Who's going to do that," he said. "Hauling a load from California to the East Coast isn't the same as picking up a person and talking him down the street to another address."

The longtime broker believes those Internet-based systems will have very few takers in the fresh produce industry. "It may work for short hauls of dry goods but not in the produce industry," he predicted.