What issues are most important to the trucking sector right now?
As it has done for 20 years, the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) has answered that question with its annual Critical Issues In The Trucking Industry report, with the 2024 version released just last week.
Supply Chain Digest Says...
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Truckers would also like to see efforts to push local and regional governments to reduce the regulatory burdens limiting the construction and expansion of truck parking facilities.
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To produce the report, ATRI conducted a large-scale survey using its own contact database (36,000+ contacts), ATRI’s regular Sirius/XM radio shows, major trucking industry trade press, truck driver groups and through the 50 State Trucking Associations.
The 2024 survey launched August 26, 2023 and remained open for responses through September 27.
The 2024 survey asked respondents to select their top three choices from a list of 26 critical issues (same number as last year), and subsequently rank their top three preferred strategies that correspond to each selected issue. Once again, this year write-in responses were allowed for both the top issues and the strategies.
Impressively, over 3700 industry stakeholders across North America submitted survey responses. Motor carrier executives and personnel represented 45.9% of total respondents, followed by professional truck drivers at 31.3% and other industry stakeholders, including industry suppliers, driver trainers, and law enforcement, at 22.8%.
ATRI developed the Top 10 list using a formula that assigned weighted values to respondents’ rankings of issues facing the industry. An issue ranked by a respondent as most important received three points, wnhile an issue ranked second received two points and an issue ranked third received one point.
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Across all respondents, the US economy was selected as the top industry concern in 2024, making it two years in a row that issue top the list, as the freight recession continues on.
The lack of available Truck Parking maintained its position as the second ranked issue, followed by Lawsuit Abuse Reform. Closely related to that, Insurance Cost/Availability rose eight spots this year to be the fourth overall concern. Rounding out the top five once again this year was Driver Compensation.
See graphic from the report below:
Source: ATRI
What do truckers, drivers and other stakeholders recommended be done about these key issues?
(See More Below)
On the economy, truckers recommend that government identify and promote reforming / repealing ineffective and burdensome regulations that increase industry costs without providing benefits. 51.2% of respondents believe the best strategy for mitigating the negative impacts of the economy is to lessen the industry’s regulatory burden.
On the second ranked issue, lack of truck parking, respondents would like to advocate for a dedicated federal funding program to increase truck parking capacity at freight-critical locations.
They would also like to see efforts to push local and regional governments to reduce the regulatory burdens limiting the construction and expansion of truck parking facilities.
On the third ranked issue of Lawsuit Abuse Reform, respondents promote state-level reform to cap damages paid to plaintiffs in truck-involved crashes. State-level reform to put limits on the amounts that can be awarded to plaintiffs for non-economic damages is the preferred strategy of the majority (64.8%) of respondents.
For Insurance Cost and Availability (the fourth ranked issue), respondents recommended developing a framework for potential upfront insurance premium reductions when drivers and carriers adopt proven safety technologies.
Driver Compensation retained its number five ranking in this year’s survey, and among truck drivers, it ranked second overall.
Surprisingly, the top recommendation from respondents was to quantify the economic impact of compensating truck drivers for all hours worked, including detention time and congestion delays.
It’s an interesting report as always. It is available here: Critical Issues in Trucking 2024
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