LTL carriers look to last-mile service to stimulate sagging revenue growth

© Tirakhov Andrey

The ever-reliable DC Velocity reported at the end of last week that US less-than-truckload (LTL) carries were increasingly looking to break into final-mile logistics, which typically involves business-to-consumer activities spurred by e-commerce growth and is in relative health compared with the LTL business, which is currently in the depths of a rate war. But it is not an easy transition for many, involving as it does an entirely new customer base that has very different ideas about service levels than many LTL carriers will generally be used to. But for those firms which have a network with spare capacity that could be leveraged for last-mile services, the rewards can be rich.