Our History

Augusta Transportation, Inc. (ATI) was founded in 1967 by Mel Rhodes and the late Jack Coley. The company began operations in January 1968. The primary business at that time was loading railroad trailers for a single corporation in Augusta, draying the loaded trailers to the piggyback ramp located at Fifth Street and Gordon Highway, and loading the trailers onto rail cars. Throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s, ATI expanded into local drayage for several major companies operating in the Augusta area and were contracted with the piggyback ramp to load and unload trailers.

However, in 1986, the two major ramp companies consolidated intermodal operations into larger ramps and closed their Augusta operations. These railroad decisions coincided with the deregulation of interstate trucking, which allowed ATI to begin draying trailers from the Atlanta, Macon and Savannah ramps in Georgia and the Charlotte ramp in North Carolina. Concurrently, ATI began to diversify into over-the-road trucking in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. In 1988, ATI moved to their current location at 940 Molly Pond Road. A shop was added for truck maintenance and a bulk fuel tank was installed to provide on-site truck fueling. ATI now provides transportation services primarily in the southeast, stretching as far west as Arkansas and as far north as West Virginia.

Over the years, the nature and demands of the transportation business in and around Augusta have changed significantly. Augusta Transportation's ability to adapt to these changes has been a major reason for the company's history of successful operations.