When it comes to delivering breaking news, there is no beating the power and immediacy of the internet. It’s why Today’s Trucking and Truck News introduced online news services as early as 1998, when we counted ourselves among the first Canadian business-to-business magazines with independent websites.

Each website secured multiple national awards for the work in the years that followed. Headlines expanded to include email newsletters and multimedia content. Webinars and social media opened new conversations with you, our readers. The publications themselves, once fierce competitors, actually began to share editorial resources in recent years after Today’s Trucking purchased Truck News.

The next step in that evolution – arguably the most important step – will take place this January.

Forty years after publishing its first printed page, and about 20 years after posting its first online story, the eastern and western editions of Truck News will completely shift to an online presence. TruckNews.com itself is being extensively redesigned to incorporate new tools to enhance the reader experience. There will be more columnists, more videos, more extensive coverage of every topic you can imagine.

It will also become the official website for Today’s Trucking magazine.

Today’s Trucking will remain the printed business magazine of Canada’s trucking industry, focusing on insights and issues, maintenance and operational strategies, and profiles of those who keep the trucking industry rolling forward. We’ll become the home for printed pages of TruckTech magazine. French readers will continue to be supported by our sister publication, Transport Routier, and those who speak Punjabi and Hindi can turn to Road Today.

In other words, the pending change will combine the best of the print and online worlds.

The approach reflects your own changing readership habits, of course. A recent Magazines Canada study and our own internal research has confirmed that the decision makers in our industry, a group that tends to be over the age of 45, remain committed to print magazines. But when it comes to specific information like industry news, they turn to our digital platforms. There’s also no question that the next generation of industry leaders will be even more likely to turn to digital feeds for their industry news.

In the process, all the names that you have come to know and trust will now become one of the largest trucking-focused editorial teams in North America. You will soon see more bylines by James Menzies, Derek Clouthier, and Abdul Latheef in these very pages. (Astute Today’s Trucking readers may have seen some early signs of that in recent months.) And Today’s Trucking readers will see familiar names at TruckNews.com as we begin to host content such as the Ultimate Test Drive videos on that platform.

Looking for regional suppliers or career opportunities? Printed versions of that advertising will shift to a new section within Today’s Trucking as of this February.

These are exciting times for those of us who tell your stories. Now we’re going to have even stronger tools to do that.

Be sure to sign up for the digital newsletters available through TruckNews.com. You won’t want to miss what’s coming.