Transport Corp. of America Inc. has announced revenues for the fourth quarter 2002 of $69.2 million, compared with 2001 fourth quarter revenues of $68.8 million.

The company, based in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, provides a wide range of truckload freight carriage and logistics services to customers in the United States and Canada.
Fourth quarter's net loss was $1.3 million or $0.18 per diluted share, compared with a 2001 fourth quarter net loss of $454,000, or $0.06 per diluted share.
Michael Paxton, chairman, president and chief executive officer, said, "We have made significant progress during my first year at Transport America in achieving our strategic priorities and positioning the company for success.
"While the loss of our largest customer was clearly unfortunate, we have been able to maintain year-over-year growth in customer-paid miles in each quarter of 2002. Our customer-paid miles increased by 3% during the fourth quarter and by 4.4% for the entire year."
"While we are not yet satisfied with our overall cost structure, we have made tremendous progress in 2002 by reducing our total cost per customer-paid mile by 4.1 cents, excluding impairment charges. During the fourth quarter, deadhead miles decreased from 12.9% in 2001 to 10.2% in 2002, a 270 basis point improvement."
He said miles per tractor increased during the fourth quarter of 2002 by 6.5% over fourth quarter 2001 and revenue per tractor per week improved by 5.7%.
"Transport America has historically achieved revenue per customer-paid mile significantly in excess of its competitors with similar lengths of haul," Paxton said. "This was done by refusing to book lower priced backhaul freight and waiting for higher-priced spot-market freight opportunities. The downside of this strategy was significantly lower tractor and trailer utilization, which led to higher operating costs. This strategy worked well during the 1990s as demand for truckload capacity exceeded supply; however, when the macro-economic factors reversed, the high-priced spot-market freight opportunities disappeared.
"For the past two years, Transport America has seen a decline in its overall revenue per loaded mile of almost five cents, which brings our overall rates in line with those of our major competitors. With our current rate structure, we can now compete effectively in the market for new business. We will also actively pursue rate increases in 2003 in order to address the industry-wide issues of increased equipment and insurance costs."
For the year ended Dec. 31, 2002, Transport America announced revenues of $273.2 million, compared with 2001 revenues of $274.6 million. Prior to unusual charges reported in the first quarter, the net loss for the year was $1.0 million, or $0.14 per diluted share, compared with a 2001 net loss of $352,000, or $0.05 per diluted share. Including the first quarter asset and goodwill impairment charges, the company reported a net loss of $20.4 million, or $2.81 per diluted share for the year ended Dec. 31, 2002.