USA Truck Inc., Van Buren, Ark., has announced base revenue of $96.8 million for its first quarter ended March 31, 2006, an increase of 7.0 percent from $90.4 million for the same quarter of 2005.

Net income increased 26.1 percent from $2.7 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2005, to $3.4 million for the same quarter of 2006. Diluted earnings per share increased 3.4 percent from $0.29 for the quarter ended March 31, 2005, to $0.30 for the same quarter of 2006.
Robert M. Powell, chairman and CEO of the company, said, “We are pleased to have posted our largest first quarter net income and diluted earnings per share in our public history, particularly in what was arguably the most difficult quarter that we have seen, in terms of freight demand since 2003.
“Sluggish shipping volumes, particularly among our retail customers, and more unmanned tractors hampered miles per tractor per week, which decreased 8.4 percent. While we were able to grow our tractor fleet by 8.6 percent and our base revenue per mile by 4.3 percent, the empty mile factor increased by 0.9 percentage points to 9.6 percent. As freight demand decreases, the empty mile factor generally increases. Thus, the empty mile factor is a strong indicator of freight demand. We are also continuing to study the impact that the Department of Transportation's Oct. 1, 2005 hours of service rule change had on our miles per tractor per week. We believe the rule change is a step backward for the industry in terms of both safety and asset productivity."