Here are some of the most talked about transportation, supply chain and logistics topics from October 2015: Road Congestion. The Department of Transportation (DOT) released its annual National Freight Strategic Plan with some interesting results. Road congestion costs motor freight carriers $27 billion per year in lost time and extra fuel costs.

From a supply chain perspective, using oversized packaging is not beneficial. Many companies have utilized one-size-fits-all boxes for their LTL shipments without realizing how dimensional weight systems work and how the package affects shipping costs. Typical e-commerce packages consist of 40% air and filler, leaving LTL trailers extremely light. But this ignorance costs shippers a lot of money: in January 2015, FedEx and UPS shifted to dimensional weight pricing for all packages.

A recent study by Honeywell and YouGov indicates the substantial impact e-commerce demands have on warehouse design and technology adoption. The survey respondents included hundreds of logistics, DC and IT professionals across the US and Europe. The survey predicts that adoption of mobile and voice-recognition solutions will increase in the next five years. The technology provides distribution centers with order fulfillment accuracy and the ability to quickly satisfy customer service requests.

Visibility is a buzzword in the logistics environment; it represents the real-time status of supply chain processes. Nancy Marino, from Columbus Consulting, believes that today’s businesses need to go beyond visibility to full transparency. In her interview to SupplyChainBrain, she claims that consumers want to know where their order is at every point in the supply chain and that requires more than supply chain visibility. What does it mean for companies — to go from shipment visibility to true transparency and put its supply chain under analysis?

The American Trucking Association (ATA) recently released a freight transportation forecast, predicting growth through the year 2026. According to Forecast, overall freight tonnage will grow 25.5% from 2013 to 2025 and freight revenues will surge 72%.

The holidays are upon us! This week’s major demand: Thanksgiving dinner; a tradition, celebrated by 250 million Americans, who all eat the same meal, each year, on the fourth Thursday of November. The tradition of Thanksgiving can only take place when supply chain demands are met and timely logistics take place.

New Juniper Research has shared interesting insight on the current and future state of e-commerce: global online retail sales are estimated to reach $1.7 trillion by the end of 2015, which is 17% higher than 2014’s total. Among the factors that propel e-commerce growth are public Wi-Fi deployment, 4G and LTE rollouts, and social media’s trend of “buy” buttons.

Shippers can’t rely solely on attracting drivers and carriers by paying higher rates during the capacity crunch. Carriers have the privilege to choose which shippers to work with, based on facilities, dependable schedules and flexible contracts. A shipper might assume they’ve proposed an attractive freight rate, but if the facility doesn’t provide restrooms and parking lots for the drivers, it might be more difficult to secure space for your shipments.

Because of low oil prices, fuel surcharges are relatively low, which helps ease the cost of transportation for shippers. Current carrier pricing is better than it has been in years, but this trend won’t last.

Carriers are selective about what freight they haul. They’re taking steps to ensure equipment and personnel are utilized to maximum potential. Due to a lack of drivers, capacity is shrinking and it’s harder for carriers to haul the large amounts of freight that they used to.

Fuel Price: Impact on Logistics The oil prices, mainly due to increased output from North American fracking, has dropped significantly in the past few months. Oil affects just about every industry in the US economy, especially freight transportation.

Here is a quick summary of some of the most talked about transportation, supply chain and logistics topics from September 2015: