The surge in acquisitions keeps building, as truckload carrier Transport America, acquired last year by TransForce, buys logistics company Optimal Freight.

The acquisition of Hazen Final Mile gives TransForce and same-day logistics subsidiary Dynamex a longer reach in e-commerce shipping markets.

Canadian competition authorities gave a green light Wednesday to a deal that makes the biggest trucking operator in Canada — $2.9 billion TransForce — substantially bigger.

Fresh from acquiring U.S. truckload carrier Transport America, Canadian trucking giant TransForce is offering nearly C$500 million for Contrans, a publicly owned Woodstock, Ontario-based holding company specializing in bulk, flatbed, and tank trucking.

Canada’s largest trucking operator, TransForce, will purchase U.S. trucking company Transport America for $310 million, including the assumption of $150 million in debt held by the Eagan, Minnesota-based carrier, the companies said today.

CRST International started 2014 by acquiring BESL Transfer, a flatbed trucking company in Cincinnati. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Vitran is putting a buffer between its profitable Canadian trucking operations and any unwelcome suitors, adopting a “shareholder rights plan” designed to slow or ward off any unsolicited bids.

Matthew Moroun just may have made the trucking deal of the decade, if not the new century. For only $2 million and the assumption of about $30 million in debt, the vice chairman of CenTra and son of trucking magnate Manuel “Matty” Moroun hopes to pick up the U.S. operations of $703 million Toronto-based Vitran.

Vitran will review an offer for its Canadian business from trucking giant TransForce. Will there be a bidding war for the company?

TransForce reported its net income in the second quarter of 2013 was C$26.6 million (about US$25.8 million), versus C$34.1 million in the second quarter of 2012.

TransForce has indirectly disposed of 500,000 common shares of Vitran Corporation, representing 3.05 percent of the issued and outstanding common shares of Vitran.

TransForce, one of the largest North American trucking operators,

North American trucking company TransForce has acquired about 1.8 million common shares of less-than-truckload operator Vitran Corp., representing 10.75 percent of the issued and outstanding common shares of Vitran.