While Roadway began with an owner-operator model and primarily focused on truckload shipments, by the mid-1940s, it had shifted entirely to company-owned vehicles and mostly to less-than-truckload (LTL) shipping.

[2] Its parent RSI continued to diversify its holdings through the 1980s and the 1990s, starting with the acquisition of Viking Freight, a large western US regional carrier.

By 1991, RSI was the third largest freight carrier in the US[6] and joined the Dow Jones Transportation Average, replacing Pan Am.

[9] In April 1994, Roadway Express was one of 23 large trucking companies, including behemoths Consolidated Freightways and Yellow Freight, impacted by a nationwide strike of the Teamsters Union.

[11] Following these losses due to the strike, the profitability balance between Roadway Express and RSI's regional carriers (all non-union) tipped heavily in favor of the smaller companies.

[13] Roadway Express grew quickly after it had been spun off and reported profits of US$21.8 million on US$2.2 billion revenue in its first year of independence.

[2] It became a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ in 1996[3] and acquired Reimer Express, a Canadian LTL carrier, in 1997 for an initial payment of US$15 million.

[20] Two years later, Yellow Roadway bought major but financially troubled US freight carrier, USF Corp., and its subsidiaries for US$1.5 billion.

[23] Roadway Express ceased independent operations in March 2009 when it was merged with Yellow Transportation to create YRC Inc., a single national LTL carrier.