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Mergers and acquisitions among transportation and logistics firms last year totaled 1,291, topping the previous record set in 2007 and reaching a 20-year high, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers' quarterly report on M&A activity in the global transportation/logistics industry.

However, total deal value in '07 plummeted to $83 billion, only about half of the 20-year high of $164 billion reached in '06 primarily because of several large deals consummated that year, the report states. Deal value associated with passenger-air targets declined in favor of trucking, passenger-ground and shipping targets.

Financial investors accounted for nearly 45 percent of deal volume, up from 2006's 40 percent, so the tightening of credit markets "did not play as big of a factor as originally anticipated with regard to their activity in the transportation and logistics industry," according to the report.