A recent report by the American Transportation Research Institute showed that the national economy is the trucking industry’s No. 1 concern as 2023 comes to a close.
Between Aug. 28 and Sept. 29, the ATRI, a nonprofit research group covering the trucking industry, surveyed more than 4,000 people involved in trucking, asking them to rank their top three concerns out of 26 listed.
More than 47% of respondents were industry executives; 29% were drivers. The remaining 23% were law enforcement members, suppliers and driver trainers.
The economy was also the No. 1 concern of trucking executives but was seventh among drivers. It was a rough year for trucking as inflation raised costs and a freight recession cut into profits.
The ATRI said operational costs for trucking increased by more than 21% in 2022 and they are expected to remain high.
The No. 2 concern was truck parking; fuel prices ranked third. Parking was the No. 2 concern for drivers and eighth for executives; fuel costs were fifth for executives and third for drivers.
The drivers’ top concern was — hold onto your hats — their compensation. Driver compensation did not make the executives’ top 10 but ranked fifth on the overall list.
While compensation increased for drivers in recent years because of the driver shortage — the industry’s No. 4 concern — the ATRI said the freight recession has affected compensation this year. Another related factor, and one researched in another ATRI report, is the effect of traffic congestion on driver compensation.
The ATRI said congestion in 2021 cost the industry $94.6 billion and 1.27 billion hours in lost productivity. That is the equivalent of 460,000 drivers sitting in traffic and not driving for one year.
Idle hours are unpaid hours. Drivers want to get paid for their time behind the wheel.
It is hoped that the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act, federal legislation passed and signed by President Joe Biden in 2021, will provide funding to alleviate traffic congestion.
Truck parking is another rising concern that is getting federal notice. The ATRI said that there is just one parking spot for every 11 truck drivers on the road. That becomes a pressing concern for drivers, who are restricted by hours-of-service regulations. The more time spent trying to find a place to park means less time delivering freight; it is also a safety issue when trucks are forced to park in alternate spots such as interstate exit ramps and the like.
The sixth overall concern was lawsuit abuse reform (third among executives and unranked by drivers), followed by distracted driving (10th among executives and unranked by the drivers themselves). Driver retention, delays at customers’ facilities and zero-emission vehicles rounded out the top 10.
Zero-emission vehicles were the seventh-biggest concern of executives because they are the ones who have to deal with aggressive state and federal initiatives to replace diesel engines.
For the first time, the ATRI collected enough input from members of law enforcement to list their top three concerns. About 5% of the survey respondents were in law enforcement.
Not surprisingly, the law is concerned with issues that affect safety. No. 1 was distracted drivers, with the ATRI citing a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration statistic that more than 3,500 people were killed in 2021 because of distracted drivers.
It is important to point out that distracted driving does not refer to just truckers; car drivers who are distracted make truck drivers nervous.
Law enforcement’s next two concerns were hours-of-service regulations and driver training standards.
Sign up for Daily E-news
