Industry News

Trucks on the open road, southwest US
Eric S. — Getty Images

The world changed nearly overnight due to the ­novel coronavirus pandemic and governments’ responses to it, but analysts postulate it will take a long time to return to a semblance of normalcy.

Some changes that have occurred within the trucking industry might pass quickly as com­munities ­reopen and business revives, but others are expected to remain in place for a long time, or even permanently.

The pandemic’s effects on commercial transportation and logistics are clear, running the gamut from health and safety to operational and economic.

Industry participants and analysts say the fluid situation makes it difficult to predict what the transportation environment will be like in six months — much less years from now — but certain long-term trends already are starting to emerge.

CCJ‘s Indicators rounds up the latest reports on trucking business indicators on rates, freight, equipment, the economy and more.

Employment in the for-hire trucking industry grew by 2,500 jobs in June, according to the Department of Labor’s monthly Employment Situation Report. According to the DOL, trucking has added jobs every month since October, save for a dip in April.

Up a cool 25,000 jobs from the same month last year, employment in the for-hire trucking industry totaled 1.4774 million

A petition to the U.S. DOT asking for a reprieve from ELD compliance for small carries with clean safety records has been denied, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association announced Tuesday.

OOIDA filed the exemption request last November, less than a month before the deadline by which drivers were required to begin using an electronic logging device. The association requested that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration allow small businesses, defined as those with less than $27.5 million in annual revenue, to continue using paper logs for to record duty status if they had no at-fault crashes and did not have a safety rating of Unsatisfactory.

Shippers concerned about tightening US truck capacity may need to broaden their search for space to put freight.

Large US truckload carriers are clawing back their own capacity by cutting trucks from their fleets, but a rise in the number of motor carriers at the other end of the for-hire trucking scale is adding to overall available capacity.

The question for shippers is can they access that capacity and, for larger shippers, is that capacity actually usable? In addition, will the arrival of the electronic logging mandate in December choke that growth?

As we all know, trucking is in the midst of a digital revolution of sorts; with the industry experiencing all sorts of disruptive effects as a result (go here and here for more on that).

But here’s the thing: are the human beings caught up in all of this “digitization” happy about it? And are they looking forward to more of it? That’s a key point for as I’ve noted in this space before, people will play a critical role in making this “digital transformation” a success.

If the transportation funding proposal unveiled this week by Gov. Jerry Brown and state legislative leaders simply contained the gas tax hikes and vehicle fees outlined in their press releases and statements, then of course lawmakers should support the proposal. The state’s infrastructure needs far outpace the revenue collected in fuel taxes, which California has relied on for

The driver turnover rate at large truckload fleets fell to its lowest point since 2011 in the fourth quarter of 2016, according to the American Trucking Associations’ quarterly turnover report. The turnover rate at large fleets, those with more than $30 million in annual revenue, fell 16 points to 71 percent in 2016’s final three months.

ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello cites the year’s choppy freight environment for the dip in turnover rates. “As inventory levels throughout the supply chain are drawn down to more normal levels, and freight volumes recover, we should see turnover rise along with concerns about the driver shortage,” he says.