Regular Overdrive readers will recall Overdrive Extra contributor "Long Haul Paul" Marhoefer's distillation of his own participation in MIT's Dr. David Correll's podcast panel discussion with working drivers about barriers to driving-hours utilization that are pretty well familiar to anyone moving freight on the nation's highways. As noted in Marhoefer's commentary, Correll poked a bit at claims of an industrywide "driver shortage" in attempts to understand how something (drivers, in this case) can be viewed as both "scarce and under-utilized" at the same time.
Citing an average drive-time figure of 6.5-7 hours daily, based on ELD data analysis he and fellow researchers had performed, Correll sought answers from Marhoefer and other haulers in the podcast conversation, which touched on parking difficulties and more.
[Related: Truckers "scarce and under-utilized at the same time" -- how can that possibly be?]
What didn't air were Correll's team's ultimate conclusions about the biggest area where supply chains can improve to drivers' benefits. Those subsequently got very-high-profile treatment in a Congressional hearing where, taking the ATA's recently 80,000-drivers-short trumpeting at face value, Correll told legislators that number by his estimation could be reduced to zero with less than 20 minutes of added achievable drive time in an average day.
Truckers know well the best place to find that time. That's right -- at the docks, where delays run rampant. Results for our surveying of owner-operators about barriers to utilization follow.
Correll's follow-up podcast further channeled the voices of Marhoefer, Desiree Wood and Mark Cavanaugh, and plenty in the way of research findings, to show where shippers and receivers can make hay on reducing "waiting time at their facilities." That's in addition to where the things in control of carriers play into all of it at the dispatch level. It's worth a listen, or sharing with the well-intentioned among shipper/receiver warehouse traffic managers (not to mention dispatchers), but of course, when time allows:
