This paper concerns the recent development of large international firms in the logistics and transport industry. Our work is based on an historic comparison of the American and French market for logistics and transport activities along the twentieth century. We retrace three important period, the first period from the end of the first world war to the seventies is marked by the growing competition between rail transport and road haulage, and by the equally growing regulation in the various freight transport activities. The second period form the end of the seventies to the middle of the nineties is a turning point period for the transport sector: international trade become more liberalized, deregulation of the transport sector occurs, new technologies are diffusing, and many shippers are adopting just in time form of organization. We show that as a consequence of these transformations, in a third period running from the middle of nineties through these days, many transportations firms react by adopting a new form of organization more internationalized and more integrated
