Canadian Trucking Alliance CEO David Bradley recently painted a picture of the trucking life in Canada to an American audience, explaining that despite many similarities, the two industries are still quite distinct.<\/p>\n
Bradley was in Nashville this week giving a presentation at the joint PeopleNet\/TMW user conference. He covered the challenges, regulations and future of Canadian trucking while comparing it to the environment in the U.S.<\/p>\n
As Truck News<\/em> reports:<\/p>\n [otaTextBox padding=\u00a0\u00bb20″]<\/p>\n Challenges<\/u><\/p>\n The first major challenge that Bradley noted during his seminar titled \u2018Trucking and Logistics: A Canadian Perspective\u2019 was rates.<\/p>\n \u201cIn terms of the major challenges for carriers and the things that associations are least capable of dealing with, while most truckers are always fixated, are on rates,\u201d he said. \u201cThat has been a reflection of the fact that for the most part over the last three decades the industry has suffered from excess capacity. In Canada and in the US, it\u2019s the same with low barriers to entry, there always seems to be too much supply versus the amount of freight that\u2019s being generated. There has been the odd period of time where things have been close to equilibrium\u2026but that has been an issue for us. Rates have been much slower compared to cost increases. That\u2019s the bane of the trucking existence I think.\u201d<\/p>\n Another challenge Bradley noted is one that both the US and Canada suffer form today \u2013 the driver shortage.<\/p>\n According to recent studies and estimates, Canada will be short 33,000 drivers by the year 2024. Bradley said that there are a number of reasons for the shortage and admitted that compensation is always a large part of the problem.<\/p>\n \u201cIn Canada there\u2019s been very little real growth in driver wages over the last two years,\u201d Bradley said. \u201cSo in any market where there\u2019s a shortage of something, wages should go up, but they have been held back by the excess capacity that we face. underemployment in Canada, it\u2019s still been very difficult for industry to employ younger people into transportation.\u201d<\/p>\n But the biggest reason for the shortage, according to Bradley, is that the workforce is aging rapidly.<\/p>\n \u201cThe average age of a truck driver in Canada\u2026is just shy of 50 years old by a recent calculation,\u201d he said. \u201cOne third of the drivers are over 50 years old and will be retiring in 5-10. We are losing tens of thousands of drivers per year to leaving the industry.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd we\u2019re not the only industry facing an aging workforce\u2026but we\u2019re not in the game in terms of attracting younger people. We\u2019re not getting those young people in the industry. And the number of drivers under 30 is shrinking every year.\u201d<\/p>\n Regulations<\/u><\/p>\n When it comes to regulations and the pace of changing technologies, Bradley said that Canada and the US are both a step behind.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re talking about ELDs like this is some new fandangled thing, at least we have been in Canada,\u201d he said. \u201c But CTA was the first association in North America to support mandating ELDs. We\u2019re also the first to mandate speed limiters and the US just recently announced this regulation. But while we were ahead of the game in the industry with ELDs\u2026Canada has just announced finally that they will be moving mandating ELDs.\u201d<\/p>\n The US has already set a date for compliance (December 18, 2017) and Bradley said he doesn\u2019t believe that Canada will finalize the ELD rule in time to meet the American timetable, rather Canada will see a 2018 compliance date instead.<\/p>\n Bradley expressed that he also wished that more rules like ones surrounding ELDs and speed limiters could be harmonised between the two countries. But admitted this is difficult with how Canada delegates transportation regulations.<\/p>\n \u201cThe other problem we have in Canada is unlike in the US where the federal DOT establishes regulation for interstate trucking, in Canada the federal government has delegated the administration of interprovincial or extra provincial trucking to the province,\u201d he said. \u201cSo any changes that we want to make, we have to have all ten provinces and three territories on side. So it\u2019s a like constitutional conference every time we try to make the slightest change to a Canadian regulation.\u201d<\/p>\n Bradley said that this has prevented Canada and the US from reaching truly North American standards on things like safety features and weights and dimensions.<\/p>\n \u201cCanada doesn\u2019t speak with one voice,\u201d he said. \u201cNow the US doesn\u2019t really pay much attention to us anyone but if we\u2019re ten voices, it\u2019s difficult to get anything done.\u201d<\/p>\n Future<\/u><\/p>\n In terms of the future of trucking, Bradley predicted that smart trucks will become even smarter are more safety technologies will become required on Class 8 vehicles.<\/p>\n \u201cAll those lane departure systems and those sorts of things that are become standards on new cars,\u201d he said, \u201cit\u2019s just a matter of time before they are mandatory on trucks. And for all those drivers who will email and Tweet that this is the end of the world for life as they know, it\u2019s not a recognition that there aren\u2019t good drivers and that they aren\u2019t skilled. But just that there is a segment of drivers out there where it wouldn\u2019t hurt to have some supplementary system to help their own level of skill.\u201d<\/p>\n He added that he believes that semi-autonomous trucks will be on the road sooner than anticipated but added that he doesn\u2019t believe these \u2018cool\u2019 trucks will solve the driver shortage problem.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that for those drivers who think that this is a way for industry to solve the driver shortage, it\u2019s not,\u201d he said. \u201cEven in the semi-autonomous trucks, there are lots of things that drivers still have to do to be productive. I think the job may change a bit, but I don\u2019t see it as a solution in the foreseeable future of the driver shortage.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/otaTextBox]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Canadian Trucking Alliance CEO David Bradley recently painted a picture of the trucking life in Canada to an American audience, explaining that despite many similarities, the two industries are still…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":562,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,44,28,62,54],"tags":[716,30,523,270,134,21,73,33,727,206],"class_list":["post-2014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-conditions","category-environment-fuel","category-labour-hr-driver-shortage","category-operations-safety","category-technology-equipment","tag-autonomous-vehicles","tag-capacity","tag-david-bradley","tag-demographics","tag-driver-skills","tag-economy","tag-elds","tag-freight-market","tag-rates","tag-recruitment"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}