TRUCKING: Big New System

Among the important things which war is bringing the U.S. is a trucking system with 24,400 miles of routes, 3,500 vehicles and 179 terminals in 129 cities, from Massachusetts to Louisiana. Its name: Associated Transport, Inc., a merger (by exchange of stock) of eight firms which last year had a combined gross revenue of $25,000,000.

ICC, which previously turned down similar merger plans out of fear of monopoly, last week approved this merger over the protests of Thurman Arnold. ICC’s reasons: elimination of 13,506 miles of duplicating truck routes (saving tires and gasoline in an area where gas is scarce), elimination of freight interchanges, thereby speeding shipments (now more than half defense materials) as much as 24 hours between New England and the South.