LTL news: ODFL opens up new service center in Altoona, Pennsylvania

Less-than-truckload (LTL) transportation services provider Old Dominion Freight Line (ODFL) said this week it has opened a new service center in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

Last week, the company announced the opening of a Madison, Wisconsin-based service center.

ODFL officials said that the opening of this new location is spurred by significant growth in this region, adding that it plans to hire 14 new employees to work in this facility and plans to hire ten more in the next year.

ODFL now has 215 service centers in the United States and now has seven based in Pennsylvania, where its trucks move more than 1.2 million tons of freight per business day.
They also said that this expansion is part of a $100-$120 million investment focused on real estate purchases and expansion projects in 2011.

“[We] opened the new Altoona, Pa. terminal to enhance our service product and offer our customers faster, damaged free handling of their freight,” said Bob Rice, ODFL service manager for the new Altoona location. “The new terminal will enable customers to get their freight to their own customers in less time and with less handling of their products.”

The area now served by Altoona, was previously handled though ODFL’s Harrisburg, Pa., facility, said Rice, who added that being located in closer proximity to customers reduces the distance the freight has to travel and results in earlier delivery times.

Although ODFL’s customers have always been able to talk directly to a customer service person in person, the ‘local’ contact is now conducted in many cases with friends or neighbors, explained Rice.

“Now when a customer calls into the terminal, they many times will know the person they are talking with,” he said.  “The concept of local coverage also enables quicker response time to our customers’ needs.”

What’s more, this new service center is located along the Interstate 99 corridor in central Pennsylvania and is in close proximity to Interstate 70 and Interstate 80, which will enable ODFL to provide direct, next-day service to locations that previously needed a two-day shipping window.

Along with continuing to open up new service centers, ODFL also recently announced it has rolled out a new 3PL unit—Vault Logistics. And in June it added three new Taiwanese ports—Taichung, Keelung, and Kaohsiung—to its Pacific Promise offering, a less-than-container load (LCL) service between ODFL and various ocean carriers.