Picking my own freight baby! My journey to & of being on Schneider choice, the Adventure & Numbers!

Michelin North America Inc. cut its daily shipments of synthetic rubber from one plant by a fifth earlier this month and is at times paying double its usual price for temperature-controlled trucks, said Eric Stuch, a logistics manager at the tire manufacturer.

A new federal safety rule in December requiring drivers to track their hours behind the wheel with electronic logging devices, or ELDs, has exacerbated the problem. Prices shot up for some routes that now might take two days instead of one because of stricter timekeeping.

Analysts expect capacity to become scarcer in April, when produce shipments pick up and full enforcement of the ELD rule kicks in. Vehicles without the devices may be removed from the road.

“If this is the slow period, what happens when seasonality starts to pick up?” said Ravi Shanker, a transportation analyst with Morgan Stanley.

A Shortage of Trucks Is Forcing Companies to Cut Shipments or Pay Up