Trucking news and briefs for Thursday, Oct. 26, 2023:
Traffic congestion on U.S. highways added $94.6 billion in costs to the trucking industry in 2021, according to the latest Cost of Congestion study published by the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI). The cost of congestion in 2021 is the highest level yet recorded through ATRI’s ongoing research initiative.
ATRI utilized a variety of data sources including its unique truck GPS database to calculate trucking delay impacts from 2017 through 2021 on major U.S. roadways. While year-over-year congestion costs decreased in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they rose sharply in 2021 with a total of 1.27 billion hours of lost productivity.
ATRI said the increase in costs reflected the dramatic post-COVID economic recovery, with high GDP growth and freight demand from record levels of consumer spending in 2021.
Prior to 2021, the highest congestion cost was seen in 2018, when delays cost the trucking industry $87.6 billion. Due to the economic downturn in 2019, congestion costs dropped to $79.4 billion, and then further receded in 2020 to $77.3 billion due to reduced congestion during the COVID-19 pandemic.ATRI
The delays due to congestion equate to more than 460,000 commercial truck drivers sitting idle for one work year, and the 2021 figure represents a 27% increase from the report’s baseline year of 2016 -- an increase that is twice the rate of inflation.
