Louisville's annual Mid America Trucking Show (MATS) has been traditionally oriented toward the heavy-duty market, but this year, if you could get past the dot-coms and electronic gadgets, the bulk of the hardware announcements were related to medium duty applications. We'll take a look at some of the medium duty developments announced as part of this year's Medium Duty Construction Truck Roundup.
As the nation's economy moves through the current paradigm shift from the "bricks & mortar" to the virtual world, medium duty delivery fleets are expanding to take over steps in the supply chain that used to be managed by the end-consumer. Add this to the current saturation of new heavy trucks in the truckload and LTL fleets and you begin to see why OEMs have a new appreciation for the medium duty market.