Motor carriers and drivers see different priorities when it comes to issues facing the trucking industry, a new study by the American Transportation Research Institute has found.
Listing its annual top 10 issues for trucking, motor carriers listed the driver shortage and driver retention as the top two while drivers feel hours of service and the shortage of parking are the top two critical issues.
One year after the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s electronic logging device regulation was implemented, three related issues — hours of service, truck parking and the ELD mandate itself rank first, second and third with drivers. With motor carriers, HOS ranks third.
“If the driver shortage is No. 1 and driver retention is No. 2 for carriers, then they better care about what’s on the drivers’ list,” ATRI President Rebecca Brewster told Transport Topics. “I think it’s interesting when the shortage shows up on the drivers’ side of the equation, personally, because that means they are feeling the effects of there not being enough drivers to go around.”
The need to train and hire more qualified drivers is not new. The shortage has been a top-three issue in 12 of the 14 years ATRI has conducted its survey.
“Carriers are impacted on a grander scale — versus drivers — with the challenging recruiting environment. Their pain is manifested through the absence of drivers for their trucks and/or turning down business due to a lack of enough drivers,” said Jeremy Reymer, founder and president of DriverReach, an Indianapolis-based driver recruiting and management company. “Drivers, on the other hand, are responding to the survey from their perspective. They are experiencing challenges with issues that impact them directly, such as truck parking and hours of service.”
ATRI received more than 1,500 responses from a wide variety of motor carriers and commercial drivers. The report includes prioritized strategies to address each of the top 10 issues.
Full TT story here