Werner Enterprises Inc., Omaha, Neb., reported its eighth consecutive year-over-year quarter of higher operating revenues and earnings for the third quarter ended Sept. 30, 2003.

Operating revenues increased 10% to $368.0 million compared to $336.1 million in third quarter 2002. Net income increased 22% to $20.5 million compared to $16.8 million in third quarter 2002.
On Sept. 30, 2003, Werner issued a five-for-four stock split, in the form of a 25% stock dividend.
"During third quarter, demand for our services was a little better than third quarter a year ago," said Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Clarence (C.L.) Werner. "We experienced slight improvement in the freight of our diversified group of retail and consumer products customers, which amounts to about 60% of our total revenues. Manufacturing and industrial freight, which is about 20% of our total revenues, was flat compared to a year ago. During the quarter, we made progress by lowering driver turnover in a difficult driver market and improving our miles per truck. We once again continued to raise our revenue per total mile, achieving a 3.1% increase compared to the same quarter a year ago."
Last year, the company purchased a significant amount of new trucks with engines manufactured prior to October 2002, in addition to the normal number of new trucks required for the company's three-year replacement cycle. This pre-buy enabled the company to delay the impact of using trucks with new engines in its fleet by approximately one year and provided for additional testing time. The pre-buy trucks have been gradually placed in service over the past year, with the last group of these trucks being placed into service during the current quarter.
As of Sept. 30, 2003, the average age of the company-owned truck fleet is 1.6 years.
Werner is continuing ongoing testing of the new truck engines, in particular the Caterpillar ACERT engines and the Detroit Diesel EGR engines.
The company took delivery of approximately 325 new trucks with Caterpillar ACERT engines in third quarter 2003. Werner plans to take delivery of about 300 new trucks with Caterpillar ACERT engines and 200 new trucks with Detroit Diesel EGR engines in fourth quarter 2003. Final decisions on truck purchases for 2004 have not been made at this time. Management may decide to extend the average age of its truck fleet.