Trucking company Marten Transport Ltd. has reported net income of $7.7 million, or 23 cents per diluted share, for the third quarter of the year, down slightly from $8 million, or 24 cents per diluted share, from the same time in 2013.

Operating revenue, consisting of revenue from truckload and logistics operations, increased 2.7% to $171.6 million from $167.1 million over the same time period for the Wisconsin-based mainly refrigerated truckload operation.

“We increased our average truckload tractors by 70 tractors in the third quarter over this year’s second quarter despite challenging driver recruiting and retention issues across our industry. This increase was a direct result of our continuing efforts to increase our dedicated services and to appropriately compensate our drivers for their non-driving detention time,” said Chairman and CEO Randolph L. Marten. “We also overcame the increase in driver pay combined with higher tractor and trailer depreciation and adverse development in insurance and claims to improve our truckload profitability.”

According to the company, costs associated with rail service interruption and delay issues continue to constrain its intermodal operations, which had an operating loss of $151,000 for this year’s third quarter compared with operating income of $769,000 for the same period of 2013.

“We are increasing our intermodal rates accordingly, and expect our intermodal operations to benefit from the market’s continuing tight capacity once rail service improves,” said Randolph L. Marten.

More information is on the Marten Transport website.