Market at a Glance

Trucking serves as a barometer of the U.S. economy, representing 72.2% of tonnage carried by all modes of domestic freight transportation, including manufactured and retail goods, according to the American Trucking Association (ATA). Trucks hauled 10.93 billion tons of freight in 2021. Motor carriers collected $875.5 billion, or 80.8% of total revenue earned by all transport modes.

The For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index published by the ATA shows that demand increased 0.5% in September after rising 2.1% in August. In September, the index equaled 118.8 versus 118.2 in August.

Compared with September 2021, the index increased 5.5%, which was the thirteenth straight year-over-year gain. In August, the index was up 6.7% from a year earlier. Year-to-date through September, compared with the same period in 2021, tonnage was up 4%.

“The latest gain put tonnage at the highest level since August 2019 and the third highest level on record,” said ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello.

But increased demand for freight transportation continues to be met with driver shortages. The ATA estimates that the current driver shortage rose to 80,000 in 2021 – an all-time high for the sector and that figure is expected to double by 2030. To keep up with growing trucking demand over the next decade, trucking firms will need to hire one million new drivers to close the gap caused by demand for freight, projected retirements in the sector, and other issues, according to the ATA.

The total cost of trucking operations also grew by 12.7% in 2021 to $1.855 per mile, the highest on record, according to recent data from the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI).

Leading contributors to this increase were fuel (35.4% higher than in 2020), repair and maintenance (18.2% higher than in 2020), and driver wages (10.8% higher than in 2020). On a cost-per-hour basis, costs increased to $74.65.

Insurance costs are also up on average. Overall, smaller trucking fleets — those with 100 or fewer trucks — spend more on average, about 4.9 cents more per mile than fleets with more than 100 trucks. While larger fleets spent less than smaller fleets on insurance premiums per mile, the advantage was offset by higher out-of-pocket incident costs per mile for large fleets, the ATRI says.