Federal Regulation of Motor Carrier Unification

Abstract

The motor carrier industry of today has progressed far from its meager beginnings during World War I. Successfully resisting railroad efforts to stunt its growth, it has assumed within the past decade a position of substantial importance and has been largely responsible for returning transportation as a whole to a competitive pattern. Throughout its development motor carriage has displayed two distinctive characteristics. Intense competition between numerous small operators has gone hand in hand with and partly contributed to the steady process of unification of small carriers into somewhat larger units. More recently, and notwithstanding the Motor Carrier Act of 1935 with its requirement that combination transactions be "consistent with the public interest," this unification trend has been proceeding at a constantly accelerated pace.