UPS Freight, a less-than-truckload carrier serving North American markets, continues to improve productivity. The company has reduced transit times this year on nearly 1,000 traffic routes connecting Southwestern and Southeastern metropolitan areas to points across the United States. Those improvements follow enhancements to more than 8,000 routes in 2007.

"UPS Freight is on a path to create a combination of reliability, technology and speed that no other competitor can match," says president Jack Holmes. "We are aggressively rolling out improvements in all areas of the business to keep pace with the evolving needs of our customers. This latest round of lane enhancements comes on the heels of a new on-time performance guarantee and freshly integrated shipping and visibility technology."

Similar network improvements, in a phased plan, will be made throughout other regions of the country later this year.

"There are clear customer benefits here," Holmes said. "The expedited times allow customers to reduce the inventories they're carrying. And the introduction of more direct routes also means that less handling of the freight is required." Read more.