Meyers Transport closing its doors opportunity for others business

Meyers Transport will be closing this month. Photo by Lindsey Cooke, QNet News.

By: Olivia Timm and Lindsey Cooke

BELLEVILLE – After almost a century, Meyers Transport will be closing down later in the month, affecting both customers and other local trucking companies in the Belleville area.

Meyers Transport announced on Monday that it is closing. Rob Haggarty, president of International Truckload Services in Belleville and close friend of the Meyers, says Belleville consumers will be missing out.

“People around here, they’re going to lose that local touch, and now they’re going to be dealing with a company from Toronto, or Montreal or Seattle. Meyers is going to be missed, and that’s why customers reached out to us, because we’re local, we’re family.”

Meyers Transport Head Office location in Belleville. Photo by Lindsey Cooke, QNet News.

Meyers’ line of business is LTL, meaning Less Than Truckload. In trucking industry terms, that means it delivers smaller shipments than companies like Haggarty’s which offers truckload delivery.

“The LTL business is a very difficult business model. You’re competing against UPS, Federal Express, Purolator. You’re competing against giant companies, and it’s really hard to compete from a technological standpoint. It really makes it hard for the smaller companies to compete.”

Haggarty says that for small-town trucking companies like his the future is still bright. He’s hopeful that his company will continue to flourish.

“We’re a family-owned business just like Meyers. We like to think we run it as a family business. Our employees are like family, and we like to think our customers get a lot out of that. We always have to adapt with our customers to stay ahead of big-time competition.”

Haggarty and his team at ITS have already had six Meyers employees reach out to them for job opportunities.

“They’re saying, ‘Meyers is closed, can you help us?’ and we’re saying ‘Yes, we think we can.’ We’re taking applications and resumes and we hope to hear from more, because we’re looking to expand and there’s some excellent employees over there. Hopefully we can get some over here as Meyers winds down their operations.”