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Spot shortages appearing as freight volume increases, says ATA
A spike in cargo volume could produce a driver shortage and would expose bottlenecks on key freight corridors, the chairman of the American Trucking Associations warns.
Hundreds of drivers left the industry during the lengthy trucking recession that started in mid-2007, Tommy Hodges said Monday in an address to the annual convention of the International Warehouse Logistics Association in Coronado, Calif.
"They left with a bad taste in their mouth," Hodges said, and many of those drivers will not come back to trucking even though U.S. unemployment remains high. He indicated that spot shortages are beginning to appear, citing the case of a North Carolina fleet operator who can't find enough drivers.
Motor carrier executives today, however, are more worried about the 4,493 trucking company failures and 174,000 trucks that were taken off the road during the recession. The industry is still facing an over-capacity problem and an economic environment in which it has little pricing leverage.
Nevertheless, volume is starting to pick up, and despite attempts in Washington to encourage a shift of freight from highways to intermodal rail, freight volume is projected to increase at least 30 percent in the coming decade. It is possible that a driver shortage could become the industry's biggest problem, Hodges said.
Aging infrastructure could further reduce trucking capacity by causing excessive delays on freight corridors. Hodges said planners have identified 57 critical bottlenecks across the country which, if not corrected, will affect goods movement.
ATA supports additional funding for freight infrastructure. Hodges noted that the federal gasoline tax that is used for highway repairs and expansion has not been increased since 1993. Compared to 1993, a dollar generated today by the gas tax will buy only 40 cents in infrastructure development.
U.S. Rep. James Oberstar, chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, continues to press for a highway authorization bill that would raise $550 billion. The highway authorization bill that expired last year raised $256 billion. Oberstar's bill is ready, but it has reached a stalemate in Congress, Hodges said.
Contact Bill Mongelluzzo at bmongelluzzo@joc.com.
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The only bottlenecks that will exist will be in those corridors that lack adequate competitive intermodal rail service. Mr. Hodges wouldn’t be familiar with that since his territory from both LTL and Truckload Days, namely Middle Tennessee, is plagued by having only one Class I railroad serving Nashville.
CSX is a non-factor in traffic between its Nashville ramp and the west coast, probably because as one customer told me years ago, it takes them 3 days to get a box from Memphis to Nashville.
Once enough shippers and consignees develop the discipline and the ability to adjust their production, shipping, and receiving schedules to use the rail/intermodal alternative vs. over-the-road, the driver shortage will not be a factor as the freight will be where it belongs on the long-haul, that is on the rail.
Nashville and Middle Tennessee could be a far greater player in traffic to and from the west coast if one or both of the western superpowers (BNSF or UP) were given trackage rights to/from Nashville over the CSX Memphis-Nashville line. This would also take trucks off I-40 in that lane in much the same manner that the Crescent Corridor efforts being started by Norfolk Southern will do so as well.
The driver shortage will end when the discipline shortage ends.