19 Best Books on Transportation Business

From humble beginnings, FedEx has literally revolutionized the way business is conducted. Not too long ago, overnight shipping was barely an option for even the largest companies. Today, thanks to FedEx, it’s available to every living room start-up. With annual revenues of $30 billion, more than 250,000 employees, 600 aircraft, and 70,000 surface vehicles, FedEx handles nearly six million shipments a day in two hundred countries. FedEx has become a household name, and has been named one of the top ten of America’s Most Admired Companies by Fortune magazine.

But it wasn’t always easy. From his inside vantage point as the company’s first general manager and chief operating officer, Roger Frock reveals the remarkable details of how Fred Smith and his team endured their tumultuous early years—fraught with a seemingly unending series of legal, financial, and operational crises that continually threatened the company’s ability to stay in business—and, in the end, created an entirely new industry.

Frock chronicles the dramatic last-minute saves and turnarounds the company engineered from its inception to the present. He entertains with stories of the trials and tribulations of the company’s early struggles and victories—from Pilots using personal credit cards to fuel planes, to the courier who hocked his watch to put gas in his delivery van, and, one of the most memorable episodes, the time that founder Fred Smith literally gambled the company’s last remaining funds to keep the planes flying.

Frock’s story introduces all the players—FedEx’s resourceful and resilient leaders and employees—and shows how these remarkable individuals gave Fred Smith’s original concept wings and, through flexibility, creativity, and commitment, made a fledgling startup into one of the great success stories in modern business. Changing the Way the World Does Business is an inspirational tale for leaders and entrepreneurs everywhere.

You definitely want to have a good guide on everything you need to succeed in the trucking business industry. This book will keep you out of trouble in all facets trucking business. The trucking industry has the luxury of being able to recover from small miscues, but not many of books out there go the the length this book goes to discuss matters Trucking. In this book you’ll learn.!

• Define The Role Of The Broker And Agent
• Here’s How The Industry Works
• Why Get Operating Authority
• Financial
• Shipping Own Product
• More Home Time
• Region And Customers
• The Money In Trucking
• Abide By The Industry’s Standards
• Satisfy The Steps To Become An Agent
• Understand The Industry’s Work Environment
• Familiarize Yourself With Industry Terms
• Build The Steps To Become A Broker
• Consider The Big Picture
• What You Can Expect
• Mechanical Problems
• Regulatory Problems
• Financial Problems
• Communication Problems
• What To Spend (Or Not Spend) Money On
• Good Investments
• Bad Investments
• Step Nine Discover Self Pace & Time Management Success

Dynasties of the Sea is the first book to examine one of the most powerful forces in global trade and economic development: world shipping and the magnates who drive the industry.

Operating from Monaco to Hong Kong, London to Athens, Singapore to Oslo, shipowners and their financiers have changed the world in every way.

From transporting agricultural products from Brazil to Africa and the Middle East, to delivering Australian iron ore to China, to carrying Middle East crude oil to Asia and the Americas, to carrying almost every article of clothing you are wearing and every electronic device in the world, shipowners have enabled global economic development and helped raise the global standard of living.

While ocean shipping remains one of the most important businesses in the world, it is also one of the most volatile. Affected by such imponderables as weather and political upheaval, shipowning cultures have maintained their commitment to an industry that has endured for centuries – and will continue to endure for centuries to come.

Profiles include Jim Tisch, Loews Corporation; John Fredriksen, Frontline Ltd.; Angeliki Frangou, Navios Maritime Holdings; Peter Evensen, Teekay Corporation; Philippe Louis-Dreyfus, Louis Dreyfus Armateurs Group; Wilbur L. Ross, Jr., WL Ross & Co.; Dagfinn Lunde, DVB Bank; Morten Arntzen, Overseas Shipholding Group, Inc. and more.

The candid and detailed first-person profiles that comprise Dynasties of the Sea provide critical insight into the psychology of today’s generation of shipping magnates, from how they view risk – politically, economically and environmentally – to what they see transpiring in the world tomorrow.

Long-haul trucks have been described as sweatshops on wheels. The typical long-haul trucker works the equivalent of two full-time jobs, often for little more than minimum wage. But it wasn’t always this way. Trucking used to be one of the best working-class jobs in the United States.  

The Big Rig explains how this massive degradation in the quality of work has occurred, and how companies achieve a compliant and dedicated workforce despite it. Drawing on more than 100 in-depth interviews and years of extensive observation, including six months training and working as a long-haul trucker, Viscelli explains in detail how labor is recruited, trained, and used in the industry. He then shows how inexperienced workers are convinced to lease a truck and to work as independent contractors. He explains how deregulation and collective action by employers transformed trucking’s labor markets–once dominated by the largest and most powerful union in US history–into an important example of the costs of contemporary labor markets for workers and the general public.

When The Machine That Changed the World was first published in 1990, Toyota was half the size of General Motors. Twenty years later Toyota passed GM as the world’s largest auto maker. This management classic was the first book to reveal Toyota’s lean production system that is the basis for its enduring success.

Authors Womack, Jones, and Roos provided a comprehensive description of the entire lean system. They exhaustively documented its advantages over the mass production model pioneered by General Motors and predicted that lean production would eventually triumph. Indeed, they argued that it would triumph not just in manufacturing but in every value-creating activity from health care to retail to distribution.

Today The Machine That Changed the World provides enduring and essential guidance to managers and leaders in every industry seeking to transform traditional enterprises into exemplars of lean success.

Start Your Own Transportation Service shows readers how to create a revenue stream by thinking outside the traditional transportation box. Features information on how to start businesses in the areas of ridesharing, executive car service, special events, medical transport, and pedicab/party services. The personal transportation business is the hottest trend in the service industry, offering riders an alternative to traditional taxi, bus, and shuttle services. The perfect business for the entrepreneur, a transportation service allows business owners to go as big or as small as their market allows, from a single-car rideshare service to a full-fleet operation with multiple drivers. Featuring Entrepreneur’s trusted branding and strategies, this title gives readers the keys to success.

Truckload Transportation: Economics, Pricing and Analysis covers every facet of truckload pricing including the truckload business model, one-way pricing concepts, dedicated fleet pricing and design, and bid response analysis. The book covers all the primary truckload transportation concepts such as capacity and balance, utilization, length of haul, empty miles, and revenue per mile. The book provides an in depth review of all forms of dedicated pricing including fixed-variable, utilization scales and over-under. The dedicated pricing chapters also cover special topics such as shuttle pricing, short haul pricing, and mileage band pricing. The book also includes four detailed case studies in bid response analysis, a detailed chapter on network analysis, and a special chapter of truckload transportation concepts specifically for truckload shippers.

The commercial airline industry is one of the most volatile, dog-eat-dog enterprises in the world, and in the late 1990s, Europe’s Airbus overtook America’s Boeing as the preeminent aircraft manufacturer. However, Airbus quickly succumbed to the same complacency it once challenged, and Boeing regained its precarious place on top. Now, after years of heated battle and mismanagement, both companies face the challenge of serving burgeoning Asian markets and stiff competition from China and Japan. Combining insider knowledge with vivid prose and insight, John Newhouse delivers a riveting story of these two titans of the sky and their struggles to stay in the air.

Elly Blue’s Bikenomics provides a surprising and compelling new perspective on the way we get around, where we live, and how we spend our money. The book provides an unflinching look at the real costs of transportation and roads, for households and society at large, and shares the success stories of people, businesses, organizations, and cities that are investing in two-wheeled transportation. The multifaceted North American bicycle movement is revealed, with its contradictions, challenges, successes, and visions. Bikenomics does for transportation what The Omnivore’s Dilemma did for food. Whether or not you ride a bicycle, reading this book will forever change the way you see the world around you.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of Garbology explores the hidden and costly wonders of our buy-it-now, get-it-today world of transportation, revealing the surprising truths, mounting challenges, and logistical magic behind every trip we take and every click we make.

Transportation dominates our daily existence. Thousands, even millions, of miles are embedded in everything we do and touch. We live in a door-to-door universe that works so well most Americans are scarcely aware of it. The grand ballet in which we move ourselves and our stuff is equivalent to building the Great Pyramid, the Hoover Dam, and the Empire State Building all in a day. Every day. And yet, in the one highly visible part of the transportation world—the part we drive—we suffer grinding commutes, a violent death every fifteen minutes, a dire injury every twelve seconds, and crumbling infrastructure.

Now, the way we move ourselves and our stuff is on the brink of great change, as a new mobility revolution upends the car culture that, for better and worse, built modern America. This unfolding revolution will disrupt lives and global trade, transforming our commutes, our vehicles, our cities, our jobs, and every aspect of culture, commerce, and the environment. We are, quite literally, at a fork in the road, though whether it will lead us to Carmageddon or Carmaheaven has yet to be determined.

Using interviews, data and deep exploration of the hidden world of ports, traffic control centers, and the research labs defining our transportation future, acclaimed journalist Edward Humes breaks down the complex movements of humans, goods, and machines as never before, from increasingly car-less citizens to the distance UPS goes to deliver a leopard-printed phone case. Tracking one day in the life of his family in Southern California, Humes uses their commutes, traffic jams, grocery stops, and online shopping excursions as a springboard to explore the paradoxes and challenges inherent in our system. He ultimately makes clear that transportation is one of the few big things we can change—our personal choices do have a profound impact, and that fork in the road is coming up fast.

Discover how you can earn $35 to $60 an hour driving seniors to medical appointments. This fast-growing service business is needed every day in every town and you can get started on a shoestring. One in five seniors does not drive and many of those may be forced to stay home due to lack of transportation and miss a medical appointment or be unable to shop for groceries. A private senior transportation service helps those seniors get around easily.In addition, the federal government now requires that state medicaid programs cover the cost of transportation to medical appointments. This has created even more opportunities for local senior transportation businesses.A senior transportation can be started with very little money – if you have a reliable car and a cellphone, you’re almost there. The rewards are great – not just in dollars and cents – but in helping seniors live better lives by helping them enjoy their independence as long as possible. That’s priceless.What is an N.E.M.T. vehicle? Unlike some specialized medical transportation vehicles – like an ambulance – a basic senior ride service does not require a special vehicle to transport seniors. There are far more seniors who are able to walk and just need a ride on a regular basis. NEMT is short for non-emergency medical transport. The name means exactly that – unlike an ambulance, your vehicle, whether a car, SUV or minivan, is an NEMT vehicle if you are taking passengers to and from medical appointments. You won’t need to buy an expensive new van or specialized equipment, because you can focus on where there is a steady demand – transporting seniors who are able to walk. ( The medical term is “ambulatory”)The opportunities are wide open in this fast-growing field, and so is the potential for an above-average income that’s recession-proof. At current rates, a six-figure income is not uncommon for full-time drivers.If you’ve always wanted to be your own boss, running a business that makes a positive difference in people’s lives every day, and are a caring person, take the first step by reading my step-by-step guide. The advice you’ll find in the book will give you a head start, reduce risk, and cut startup costs. So you can get started right away, the book also contains a list of major transportation brokers who hire local drivers in all states.

In April 1956, a refitted oil tanker carried fifty-eight shipping containers from Newark to Houston. From that modest beginning, container shipping developed into a huge industry that made the boom in global trade possible. The Box tells the dramatic story of the container’s creation, the decade of struggle before it was widely adopted, and the sweeping economic consequences of the sharp fall in transportation costs that containerization brought about.

But the container didn’t just happen. Its adoption required huge sums of money, both from private investors and from ports that aspired to be on the leading edge of a new technology. It required years of high-stakes bargaining with two of the titans of organized labor, Harry Bridges and Teddy Gleason, as well as delicate negotiations on standards that made it possible for almost any container to travel on any truck or train or ship. Ultimately, it took McLean’s success in supplying U.S. forces in Vietnam to persuade the world of the container’s potential.

Drawing on previously neglected sources, economist Marc Levinson shows how the container transformed economic geography, devastating traditional ports such as New York and London and fueling the growth of previously obscure ones, such as Oakland. By making shipping so cheap that industry could locate factories far from its customers, the container paved the way for Asia to become the world’s workshop and brought consumers a previously unimaginable variety of low-cost products from around the globe.

Published in hardcover on the fiftieth anniversary of the first container voyage, this is the first comprehensive history of the shipping container. Now with a new chapter, The Box tells the dramatic story of how the drive and imagination of an iconoclastic entrepreneur turned containerization from an impractical idea into a phenomenon that transformed economic geography, slashed transportation costs, and made the boom in global trade possible.

If you want to learn the basics of having a trucking company business, then get “How To Start a Trucking Company” which is written by a person with real life experience starting a trucking company business.

How To Start a Trucking Company is a guide designed to help anyone who is interested in starting a trucking business. In this guide you will learn how to operate your company the right way. This guide will take you step by step through the whole process, from start to finish.

Whether you decide to start with one truck or 150 trucks, you can use the information in this guide to put you on the right path. This guide discusses the first step to take after you have made the decision to open a trucking company.

You will learn how to obtain the paperwork needed to apply for your company name as well as Employer Identification Number. You will be given tips on how to advertise your company and advertise for drivers. New rules for the trucking industry are in a section called CSA 2010, giving you the new information from FMCSA and how it will affect the way most companies are operated.

Information pertaining to driver qualifications, physicals, and experience will be discussed. In this guide, you will find out how trucking software helps your company with dispatching, inventory control, personnel time sheets, drivers and equipment. This guide will show you how to obtain freight, the contract with certain customers and how to write a proposal to a company to haul their freight. Analyzing your competition is a great section that tells you how to search for the freight you want to haul and see what other companies are also moving freight for that customer.

Before you do all that is mentioned above, you must first write a business plan and calculate you start up costs. This will be discussed in detail in the first section of this guide. You will find out what the differences between S Corp, C Corp, and LLC, which will be the best for your type of business. There will information on how to apply for financing from SBA and grants from other government agencies and private financing.

By the time you get to the end of this guide, you should be able to follow each step and have your company ready to open within a month, if not sooner. Good luck!

The third edition of General Aviation Marketing and Management, although true to its original purpose, has been updated and expanded to include more guidance on the subject of FBO Management. Specifically, the line service functions of an FBO are thoroughly explored, allowing the student to understand the FBO from the ground up, and thus become a more effective FBO manager. The text also retains a marketing focus to enable the student desiring to learn about aviation marketing, the corporate pilot responsible for aircraft evaluation, and the FBO Manager seeking to enhance revenues, the opportunity to learn more about marketing in the GA industry and be more effective in this area.

An automotive and tech world insider investigates the quest to develop and perfect the driverless car—an innovation that promises to be the most disruptive change to our way of life since the smartphone.

We stand on the brink of a technological revolution. Soon, few of us will own our own automobiles and instead will get around in driverless electric vehicles that we summon with the touch of an app. We will be liberated from driving, prevent over 90% of car crashes, provide freedom of mobility to the elderly and disabled, and decrease our dependence on fossil fuels.

Autonomy is the story of the maverick engineers and computer nerds who are creating the revolution. Longtime advisor to the Google Self-Driving Car team and former GM research and development chief Lawrence D. Burns provides the perfectly-timed history of how we arrived at this point, in a character-driven and heavily reported account of the unlikely thinkers who accomplished what billion-dollar automakers never dared.

Beginning with the way 9/11 spurred the U.S. government to set a million-dollar prize for a series of off-road robot races in the Mojave Desert up to the early 2016 stampede to develop driverless technology, Autonomy is a page-turner that represents a chronicle of the past, diagnosis of the present, and prediction of the future—the ultimate guide to understanding the driverless car and navigating the revolution it sparks.