Congestion costs trucking industry 1.2 billion hours

by Truck News

ARLINGTON, Va. – Traffic congestion in the U.S. cost the trucking industry US$74.5 billion in 2016, a 0.5% increase over the previous year.

That’s according to new research from the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI). The research group relied on a variety of data sources, including its unique truck GPS database to calculate the delay on the National Highway System (NHS), which totaled 1.2 billion hours of lost productivity.

That’s equal to 425,533 truck drivers sitting idle for a working year.

Nearly 87% of congestion costs occurred on just 17.2% of the NHS segment miles, ATRI reported. Texas and Florida were the states with the highest congestion costs.

“Perhaps no other issue has as great an impact on this nation’s supply chain as traffic congestion. In the face of growing and pervasive congestion, not only does the trucking industry lose billions annually but ultimately the consumer pays the price through higher prices on the shelf,” said Benjamin J. McLean, Ruan Transportation Management Systems chief executive officer. “Doing nothing to address the state of our nation’s infrastructure will create a significant impediment to the growth of our economy.”

The full report can be downloaded from TruckingResearch.org.


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