NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE (AP) – The American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) released a list of the top trucking industry challenges on Sunday, but what is usually most noteworthy about this list is the gap in perspective between drivers and corporate administrators.
The driver shortage was ranked as the #1 worry in a comprehensive study with over 2,500 respondents. The retention of drivers came in second, and remuneration for drivers came in third. The three issues are all related to the same thing: putting people behind the wheel of a vehicle.
However, side-by-side analysis of driver and motor carrier responses reveals significant disparities in what matters to drivers vs. management. This is unsurprising; drivers are paid to do one thing, while control is paid to use those same drivers to do something another. They do not need to share the same viewpoints.
The findings were presented at the American Trucking Associations’ annual Management Conference & Exhibition, which ATRI is a part of. The MCE conference is the first in two years.
The disparity between the two parts of the industry is most noticeable this year, as it has been in past years for truck parking. The issue of parking was tied for first place on the list of the top problems among truck drivers, along with driver remuneration. But what about the motor carriers? It didn’t even make it into the top ten.
This may be since the truck parking issue is intertwined with a slew of corporate and public sector decisions about how much space to give and how to make it happen. It is limited what a private corporation can do about it.
The disparity in the ranking of the complaints is striking, given that this issue is making drivers upset.
“We’re forcing our professional drivers to sleep on the side of the road because there isn’t enough parking,” ATRI President and COO Rebecca Brewster remarked at the MCE session on the list.
The lack of parking also puts law enforcement officers “between a rock and a hard place,” according to Hayden Cardiff, the CEO, and founder of truck management platform Idelic and a part of the ATRI-sponsored committee that conducted the research. According to Cardiff, the police’s job is to enforce laws about where trucks can and cannot park, but they also understand that drivers need to sleep and rest. Despite this, truck drivers are continually concerned about “getting a rap on the door in the middle of the night by someone trying to enforce the law,” according to Cardiff.
ATRI’s proposed solutions, presented in conjunction with its top 10 list, demonstrated a limit to what individual enterprises can do to produce extra parking. All of them involve some level of government involvement: establishing a new federal fund to build new parking lots, which failed earlier this year; encouraging local governments to reduce regulations that slow parking lot construction; and advocating for states to provide more real-time parking availability information.
Other disparities in rankings between drivers and firm employees revealed varying perspectives on the industry’s problems. For example, rising fuel prices ranked third among drivers but did not make the top ten list of carrier comments. (Drivers accounted for nearly a quarter of all responses, according to Brewster.)
According to Brewster, a large proportion of owner-operators indicated anxiety about gasoline prices in their responses to the poll. Owner-operators prefer to book rates without a fuel premium, preferring instead to secure a rate that covers the cost of diesel.
“But stability is the key,” said Hugh Ekberg, president, and CEO of carrier CRST International and a member of the ATRI study team. “For enterprises that hit customers with a fuel surcharge, the surcharge tends to smooth out some of the impacts from rising costs,” he added. When they move, they cause havoc with our cost structure.”
According to the Department of Energy/Energy Information Administration, the average retail diesel price was $2.388 a gallon a year ago. In 40 of the last 52 weeks, the price has climbed. The price is present $3.671 per gallon.
A diesel technician shortage, which came in 10th place, made the top 10 list for the first time. It was listed as the top concern by a little more than 4% of all respondents.
In its study on possible solutions to the top 10’s varied difficulties, ATRI suggested three options for addressing the demand for more diesel technicians. The first goal is to “improve technician training and placement by encouraging collaboration between motor carriers and local community colleges/tech schools.” “Conduct research to quantify the magnitude and cause of existing technician shortages and create best practices for technician recruitment and retention,” says the second goal. Working with the US Department of Labor to explicitly recruit veterans into the profession is the third option.
Among the other topics discussed, as well as panelists’ comments:
9th overall in terms of insurance cost/availability: “It’s a substantially higher expense of doing business for us.” “The majority of you are similar to us,” Ekberg remarked. “The number of accidents is decreasing, but insurance rates are increasing.”
8th overall in terms of infrastructure congestion and funding: According to ATRI’s analysis, a trip across the I-40 bridge, which spanned the Mississippi until it was shut down due to safety concerns, became an 84-minute journey.
7th place overall for detention/delay at customer facilities: According to Bill Hambrick, a driver with Werner (NASDAQ: WERN), the issue has ramifications for many other problems, including driver retention. He explained, “What it does to the driver is it causes less money and more stress, and that is what the driver has to deal with.”
Reform of lawsuit abuse: According to Brewster, this topic has not been a top ten item on the ATRI survey in ten years. “This may not be the most important problem for me, but it is the most frustrating because it doesn’t make sense,” Ekberg said of the case.
The following are the top ten issues raised in the survey:
- There is a driver shortage.
- Retention of drivers
- Compensation for the driver
- Reforming the Abuse of Lawsuits
- Parking for trucks
- Compliance, security, and responsibility
- Detention/delay at the customer’s location
- Cost/availability of transportation infrastructure insurance
- A lack of diesel mechanics exists.
