USA Truck Inc., based in Van Buren, Ark., has record quarterly base revenue of $97.1 million for the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2005, an increase of 14 percent from $85.2 million for the same quarter of 2004.

Net income increased 40.4 percent from $3.0 million for the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2004, to $4.3 million for the same quarter of 2005.
Base revenue increased 12.1 percent from $335.9 million for the year ended Dec. 31, 2004, to $376.6 million for the year 2005. Net income increased 109.5 percent from $7.4 million for the year ended Dec. 31, 2004, to $15.6 million for the year 2005.
Robert M. Powell, chairman and CEO of the company, said, “We are pleased to report our strongest fourth quarter since 1998. Robust demand for freight services helped produce 14 percent growth in base revenue this quarter, which outpaced the 10.0 percent growth in our average tractor count. The additional growth was made possible by a 5.3 percent improvement in our base revenue per total mile, and continued strong performance in the areas of weekly tractor utilization and empty miles. Base revenue per mile for our traditional freight operations in which we used our own tractors increased by 5.7 percent.
“That revenue performance and the continued success of our benchmarking cost control program resulted in a 91.1 percent operating ratio, which is 1.8 percentage points better than the comparable quarter and our best fourth quarter performance since 1998.”