DHL has extended coverage of its morning deliveries in Europe. Increasing demand for morning deliveries led the company to expand to reach 80% of business addresses in Europe before noon, up by 6% from the end of 2006.

DHL Express reaches all of Germany and 90% of the businesses in the UK, Belgium, and the Netherlands before noon. Significant improvements were also made in 2007 in the Nordic countries and in Eastern Europe.

It now offers its 9:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. express services in 40 European countries and territories. It also offers close-of-business services.

"Earlier this year, we invested in service upgrades for deliveries to the United States. Now we are pushing our capabilities for morning deliveries in Europe to set a new benchmark," said Thomas George, managing director, marketing and sales, DHL Express Europe.

Also expanding premium services in Europe is Ryder System Inc. The new Internet-enabled service provides worldwide management of time-critical deliveries, says the company. The service is based at the company's Transport Management Centre in Düsseldorf, Germany and is managed on a 24/7 basis by Ryder's Shipment Planning & Execution Team.

The Transport Management Centre already offers shipment planning and execution of standard shipments, freight bill audit and payment, and carrier procurement. The new offer provides customers with a more comprehensive, added value service, says Ryder.

"Ryder has invested in personnel and infrastructure to bring together a pool of experts in road and air freight," says Nicolas Kuehnel, manager of the Transportation Management Centre Europe. "The multi-lingual team allows Ryder to address customer requests in their local language," said Kuehnel.
In Singapore, Menlo Worldwide LLC announced acquisitions and expansions in key Asia Pacific markets helped the Con-way Inc. subsidiary position for growth. Menlo has earmarked over $6.5 million for facility expansions and upgrades in Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia. This follows recent acquisitions of Singapore's Cougar Express Logistics and Shanghai-based Chic Holdings. Through these acquisitions, Menlo says it has grown the number of operating sites it has in the Asia Pacific from 13 to 155 and its number of employees from 350 to over 2,000. Warehouse capacity has also gone from 300,000 square feet to 3.5 million.

Back in North America, Ryder System Inc. completed its previously announced acquisition of Pollock NationaLease, one of Canada's largest privately owned commercial truck leasing and rental companies. It also acquired Pollock's transportation-based logistics operations.

Ryder acquired Pollock's fleet of nearly 2,000 vehicles, six service centers and nearly 200 contractual customers.