OTA Winter 16-17

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23 Issue 1 | 2017
to the annual list and reflects the industry’s collective frustration
with increasing and often costly regulatory requirements.
Truck parking moved up this year to fourth place overall on the
top issues list. The growing scarcity of available truck parking
creates a dangerous situation for truck drivers who are often
forced to drive beyond allowable HOS rules or park in
undesignated and, in many cases, unsafe locations. ATRI’s
Research Advisory Committee similarly identified truck parking
as the top research priority for ATRI in 2015 and since then a
number of research activities have commenced at ATRI focused
on identifying solutions to the truck parking challenge.
The Economy rounds out the top five concerns on the list.
Stagnant economic growth in the fourth quarter of 2015, as well
as slow growth thus far in 2016 caused concern over the state of
the nation’s economy to climb three positions to fifth overall. This
has generated significant concern among industry stakeholders,
who for the past two years have ranked the economy much lower
in the list of annual concerns, thanks to the strong post-Great
Recession period between 2011 and 2014.
The drop in ranking to sixth place for FMCSA’s Compliance,
Safety, Accountability (CSA) program signals some good news for
the industry. With the passage of the FAST Act in December 2015,
a number of trucking industry concerns with FMCSA’s regulatory
framework were addressed, at least temporarily. Among the
reforms included in the FAST Act were a study of CSA data
accuracy and reliability, removal of carrier CSA scores from
public view and a requirement that FMCSA initiate a pilot
1. ELD Mandate
2. Hours-of-Service
3. Cumulative Economic Impact of
Trucking Regulations
4. Truck Parking
5. Economy
6. CSA
7. Driver Shortage
8. Driver Retention
9. Transportation Infrastructure/
Congestion/Funding
10. Driver Distraction
2016
Top Industry Issues
program to review non-preventable crashes. As such, CSA fell out
of the top five issues for the first time since its addition to the
survey in 2010. However, the industry still has issues with
elements of CSA and as such, it retained a top 10 ranking in the
2016 survey.
The workforce issues of the Driver Shortage and Driver Retention
ranked lower on the 2016 list than in recent years, most likely
reflecting concern over the softening freight market. However,
despite the lower ranking this year, it is unlikely that either issue
will drop out of the top ten list for the foreseeable future until real
solutions are identified for the industry’s staffing challenges.
Though the passage of the FAST Act provided some much needed
funding for transportation infrastructure and specifically for
freight-focused projects, there is still significant concern in the
industry over the state of the nation’s transportation
infrastructure and how to generate long-term, secure funding for
the transportation system. ATRI research quantified the cost of
congestion to the trucking industry at nearly $50 billion in 2014.
This is another issue that is likely to stay in the top ten ranking for
years to come.
The final issue in the top ten ranking this year was Driver
Distraction, a concern which impacts the safety of all motorists on
the road. According to 2014 statistics, 3,179 people were killed, and
431,000 were injured in all vehicle crashes involving distracted
drivers. Further, 13% of distracted driving crashes were directly
attributed to cell phone use. The top ranked strategy for addressing
distracted driving was to encourage harsher penalties and more
aggressive enforcement of distracted driving violations for drivers
of all vehicle types.
The annual survey was launched in late-July 2016 and was open
for responses through mid-September. Based on the timing of the
2016 survey, a large majority of the responses had been received
by ATRI when FMCSA and NHTSA issued the speed limiter rule
on August 26, 2016. Given industry reaction to the proposed
rule—which seeks input on three different speed limiter settings
at 60, 65 and 68 miles per hour—it is likely that the rule may have
been selected by survey respondents as one of their top concerns
had the timing of the survey been more in line with the issuance
of the proposed rule.
The 2016 report, Critical Issues in the Trucking Industry, is
available from ATRI’s website at . The report
includes the results of the annual survey from its beginning in
2005, providing an indicator of rising, falling, and emerging
priorities in the trucking industry.
About Rebecca M. Brewster
Rebecca M. Brewster is the president and chief operating officer
of the American Transportation Research Institute. ATRI is the
trucking industry’s not-for-profit research organization whose
primary mission is research to advance the trucking industry’s
safety and productivity.