USA Truck Inc. on Thursday, April 19, announced base revenue of $97.8 million for the quarter ended March 31, a decrease of 1.8 percent from $99.7 million for the same quarter of 2011. The Van Buren, Ark.-based company incurred a net loss of $4.9 million compared to a net loss of $2.7 million.

“Our results were mixed in the first quarter,” said Cliff Beckham, president and chief executive officer. “Since last August, we have been concentrating on driving sequential improvement in key performance metrics as the first step in building sustained, acceptable financial performance. For the first quarter, several of these metrics continued to improve, while our SCS and Intermodal segments also progressed.”

Beckham said the improvements in certain operating metrics were offset by an increase in unmanned tractors and higher fuel prices. “Our overall financial performance remained approximately the same as the third and fourth quarters of 2011,” he said. “The pace of improvement in our one-way domestic truckload business is behind our expectations. We are not yet achieving optimal operating efficiencies from our network, which we must attain in order to most effectively improve yield and profitability.”

Beckham said velocity improvement will require a combination of reducing unmanned tractors, continuing to optimize the network and enhancing the proficiency of the company’s customer service, load planning and fleet management personnel. “As we look ahead in 2012, we have pushed out our expectations for improvement over 2011 into the second half of the year,” he said.