ATRI reports cost of trucking notches record in 2021

From Transport Topics.

Soaring prices for diesel fuel, rising maintenance costs and higher wages for drivers pushed the price of operating a truck up 12.7% in 2021 to $1.855 per mile — the highest level on record — according a report released Aug. 10 by the American Transportation Research Institute.

The study, called “An Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking,” determined that higher fuel prices were the biggest contributor to the gain, up 35.4% compared with 2020. Repair and maintenance costs spiked by 18.2% compared with 2020 and driver wages continued their upward trend of the past several years, rising 10.8% compared with 2020. On a cost-per-hour basis, costs increased to $74.65.

“Costs across the board are going up, and we are seeing that reflected in the carrier’s costs,” ATRI President and CEO Rebecca Brewster told Transport Topics. “Certainly, one of the big impacts in this year’s data is fuel costs, and we have seen the driver shortage challenges reflected in the driver wage and benefit data. This might be described as death by a thousand cuts, but certainly, where you see bigger jumps like fuel, driver costs — that is where the fleets are really feeling the pain.” Brewster noted total driver compensation is now $0.809 per mile, 10% higher than it was in 2020.

“It’s a perfect storm of everything, unfortunately,” added ATRI Senior Vice President Dan Murray. “We’ve seen fuel prices go up, we have seen parts and labor going way up. Some of that is because the supply-demand curve, in particular those coming in from Southeast Asia, fewer parts means more value or money for each part.”

The ATRI report found that even when fuel costs are removed from the equation, the marginal costs of trucking increased by 10 cents per mile between 2020 and 2021, from $1.338 to $1.438. The group said the overall findings provide a specific breakdown of numerous line-item measures related to trucking, specific by fleet size and sector. This, ATRI said, allows for tailored benchmarking of the actual operational expenses of operating a truck. The survey incorporated 2021 data culled from 173,000 truck-tractors, 552,000 trailers and more than 14.6 billion vehicle-miles traveled.

See the complete article online at Transport Topics.