Is There a Truck Driver Shortage or a Utilization Crisis?

The American Transportation Research Institute, the trucking industry’s not-for-profit research institute, unveiled its annual Top Industry Issues report on October 6, 2019, and for the third year in a row, a shortage of drivers is the top-ranked issue for trucking fleets.

A recent study from the American Trucking Associations (ATA) estimates that at the end of 2018, the country needed 60,800 more over-the-road drivers to meet demand, and the shortfall could increase to 100,000 in five years.

By David Correll, Research Scientist at MIT CTL

The industry cites many reasons for this perennial problem, but an overlooked cause we are studying is that — somewhat perversely — the existing driver workforce is not getting enough work. Moreover, our initial findings suggest that a relatively small increase in the number of working hours could make up for the current shortfall in driver numbers.

Leaking hours

At the core of the driver shortage crisis is that interest in the job of moving things by truck isn’t keeping up with demand. The lack of interest is reflected in the job’s demographics. The ATA estimates that the average age of over-the-road drivers is 46 years old, and the average age of new drivers under training is 35 years old.

There is much speculation about why the job has become less attractive. One oft-quoted reason is that truck driving is a difficult job, with a work-life balance that is unacceptable to many younger people. Another issue is inadequate pay especially compared to other opportunities such as driving for Uber or Lyft. Also, as more people spend more time and money on schooling, they are less likely to see truck driving as a job that will give them the financial return they need to recoup their investments in education.

All of the above reasons, along with several others, could be true — but another reason that tends to attract less attention is that drivers are unable to work enough hours.

Truck drivers don’t get to drive all day. Based on industry data and conversations with logistics professionals, we estimate that over-the-road drivers spend about 6.5 hours per working day driving their vehicles. By law, they can drive for 11 hours — and it isn’t by choice that drivers leave three to four money-making hours on the table each day. Surprising amounts of time are spent waiting to be loaded and unloaded by shippers and consignees.

There are about 1.8 million truck drivers working in the United States. Assuming that the ATA’s most recent estimate of a 60,800 shortfall in driver numbers is accurate, the workforce deficit amounts to 3.4%.

One way to close this deficit is by hiring new drivers, and several efforts are underway to recruit more people. Another approach is to secure more money-making hours for the existing workforce. To make up the 3.4% deficit in the current population of 1.8 million drivers who drive an average of 6.5 hours per day, we would have to increase their driving hours to 6.7 hours per day on average — an increase of 0.2 hours or 12 minutes.

The question is — where can these extra 12 minutes come from?

Find me 12 minutes

We are currently studying this question and welcome the participation of carriers. Our initial research looked at the working practices of about 1500 over-the-road drivers over a two-year time frame. Based on these initial results, three working hypotheses have emerged to explain where drivers lose revenue-earning hours.

First, it appears that weekends matter. While drivers are leaving three to four hours per day on the table during weekdays (the least number of hours on Tuesdays), on Sundays and Mondays, four to five hours are abandoned. Perhaps this finding reflects weekend staffing levels at DC’s and warehouses across the American supply chain network (note that previous research has tied lower weekend assignments to drivers quitting, especially for loads hauled 700 miles or more).

The second hypothesis concerns the system for setting appointments for trucks at cargo handling facilities.

There are two main distinctions in the taxonomy of driver appointment types: pickup and drop off, or live load and drop-and-hook. Live load is when a truck waits at each location to have cargo loaded or unloaded. Drop-and-hook is when a truck driver simply drops one trailer off in a yard and hooks his or her cab up to a different one before getting back on the road. Maybe the numbers of hours drivers lose vary according to the type of appointment at cargo facilities? Intuitively, live-load appointments appear to show higher average duration time than drop-and-hook equivalents. However, when pickup and drop off are compared, pickup is considerably longer. Why is this? Anecdotally, I’ve heard two reasons. The first reason relates to the way ELDs (electronic logging devices) are used in practice. Much of the time before arrival is attributed to the load when it is assigned to truck drivers by dispatchers. Secondly, pickup moves need to be staged much more than drop off moves. Consequently, sometimes the cargo is not ready yet, and the drivers are compelled to sit and wait.

Another possible source of missing hours is that the weakest links in the supply chains served by trucks diminish driver utilization. Some destinations show far longer appointment duration times than do others. Reducing these so-called dwell and detention times can make a shipper a ‘shipper of choice’. Some poorly run facilities can ruin utilization for an entire tour (in this context ‘tour’ means time between mandated 34-hour resets).

In addition to these working hypotheses, we are looking at the time taken to find parking spaces and to navigate traffic congestion as possible drains on drivers’ productive time.

Functional knowledge

In the final analysis, we’re only looking for 12 minutes! However, to gain that time requires a comprehensive understanding of the roles truck drivers play in the US economy. Acquiring that knowledge, and using it to increase the number of revenue-earning hours for drivers, will yield multiple benefits.

The Truck Driver initiative at MIT CTL is carrying out an in-depth analysis of truck drivers’ working schedules. We are looking for carriers interested in sharing their data with us so we can shed light on where drivers’ hours are lost and how this issue can be addressed. For more information, please email David Correll (dcorrell@mit.edu).

image credit: https://flic.kr/p/JZHfxG flickr_truckpr