XPO Logistics announces additional LTL expansion plans

Greenwich, Conn.-based freight transportation services provider XPO Logistics announced today it has taken steps to further expand its less-than-truckload (LTL) network and increase its customer service capacity, opening two new LTL terminals. And it also said that it has increased production capacity at its trailer manufacturing facility and plans to open four new fleet maintenance shops in the first quarter.

The new LTL terminals are comprised of 26 new doors at a cross-dock terminal in Sheboygan, Wisconsin and 24 new doors at a cross-dock terminal in Texarkana, Arkansas, XPO said. The new fleet maintenance shops are scheduled to open at terminals located in Ohio, Florida, New York and Nevada. And it added that equipment upgrades will be made to its Searcy, Arkansas-based LTL trailer manufacturing facility, with XPO planning to nearly double and annual number of units produced in 2022.  

These expansion plans follow XPO’s October 2021 opening of a Chicago Heights, Illinois-based 264-door terminal to accommodate high volumes and ongoing growth, coupled with XPO’s North American LTL strategic actions, which were rolled out in the fourth quarter of 2021, including:

• expanding its North American LTL door count by 900 doors, or approximately 6%, by year-end 2023;
• further improving network flow with targeted initiatives;
• continuing to implement accessorial charges for detained trailers, oversized freight and special handling;
• expanding the 2022 graduate count at its US driver training schools, approximately doubling the 2021 count; and
• to significantly increase the number of units produced at its trailer manufacturing facility

What’s more, XPO’s LTL network, which is one of the largest in the United States, has roughly 21,000 employees, 291 terminals, and handled 13 million shipments in 2021. For calendar year 2020, the most recent year, for which data is available, XPO was the third-highest carrier by revenue, according to data provided to LM by SJ Consulting.

“The strategic actions we initiated in the fourth quarter began showing results in a matter of weeks, giving us good traction for the execution of our plan in 2022,” said Mario Harik, acting president, less-than-truckload, and chief information officer of XPO Logistics, in a statement. “Our investments in this high-ROIC business will benefit customers across our national LTL platform.”

XPO Chief Strategy Officer Matt Fassler told LM in late 2021 that LTL is benefiting from a few different transcendent tailwinds.

“One of them…is the outsourcing of transportation broadly,” he said. “In a tight market visibility through technology helped to drive our business, and that is true in brokerage and it is true in LTL. LTL deals more so with the industrial economy than with the consumer economy, and the consumer piece is growing within LTL. And the industrial economy is recovering. It was sluggish for a while, really, even before Covid. With Covid, the industrial shutdown was more dramatic than the consumer shutdown. The industrial economy slowed down, and it has now been revving up, which is also a good thing for XPO LTL and will continue to be, I think, into next year. I think the recovery in the industrial economy really has legs.”