The Freight Fright

May 01, 2019 at 08:50 AM CST
Right now, companies are in the midst of what Gail Rutkowski, executive director of the National Shippers Strategic Transportation Council, describes as the most “volatile and tumultuous” transportation marketplace she has seen in her career spanning more than three decades. Double-digit rate increases in freight and tightening capacity all contributed to transportation “barging into the C-level boardroom,” she says. The American Transportation Research Institute released a report estimating that shippers lost $74.5 billion in 2016 due to delays on the national highway system. The lost productivity is equivalent to 425,533 commercial truck drivers sitting idle for one working year and the delays averaged $6,478 per truck. Freight volume will only continue to increase, too, with the American Trucking Associations estimating a 35.6 percent volume increase by 2029.

May 01, 2019 at 08:50 AM CST

Right now, companies are in the midst of what Gail Rutkowski, executive director of the National Shippers Strategic Transportation Council, describes as the most “volatile and tumultuous” transportation marketplace she has seen in her career spanning more than three decades. Double-digit rate increases in freight and tightening capacity all contributed to transportation “barging into the C-level boardroom,” she says. The American Transportation Research Institute released a report estimating that shippers lost $74.5 billion in 2016 due to delays on the national highway system. The lost productivity is equivalent to 425,533 commercial truck drivers sitting idle for one working year and the delays averaged $6,478 per truck. Freight volume will only continue to increase, too, with the American Trucking Associations estimating a 35.6 percent volume increase by 2029.