I’m a words guy. Always have been. I tend to pull up the calculator app when even simple math goes beyond double digits. But as the Nobel laureate John Nash said, “You don’t have to be a mathematician to have a feel for numbers.”
And that’s the basic perspective behind our annual “Trucking by the Numbers” report. It’s not about the current business school mania for metrics, nor created in the belief that measuring is the same as understanding. Because it’s so central to daily life, trucking must navigate an immensely complex combination of economic, political and even social forces. Confusing numbers for knowledge in this complex environment would be a great disservice to those of you devoted to the daily activities that keep this industry moving.
It’s amazing just how much trucking-related numerical information you can uncover once you start exploring public sources maintained by the various federal departments, bureaus, agencies and administrations. Whether it’s earnings by job title and state, fuel consumption and mileage by vehicle type, workdays lost to accidents by occupation, or price forecasts for mainstream and alternative energy sources, you can find the information in the federal electronic vaults if you wade through the bureaucratic jargon long enough.
Companies and associations that service trucking as well as fleets themselves are also major collectors of data, and many make much of that data available via reports, whitepapers and other documents. Again, the range is enormous, if not intimidating to the non-statistician or fleet executive looking for usable insight into their business.
Recognizing that numbers can only provide useful insight if properly presented, we spent weeks crawling through reports, spreadsheets and databases looking for numbers that illuminate hidden or underappreciated facets of this immense industry. Then we organized them into general categories where the different elements can by juxtaposition extend insights. And we also carefully designed the graphics to make the information as clear as possible.
Our report starts with some basic numbers intended to highlight the scope of trucking’s size and impact on our economic activity. It’s one thing to say trucking is big, but it’s a lot more impressive to recognize that it moves almost 75% of all freight in this country with a value of nearly $17 trillion. Forecasting is another valuable tool derived from data-driven reporting, offering perspectives on fleet investment and diversification plans, as well as quantifying potential shifts in freight patterns.
Moving into territory that straddles economic and operational impacts, you’ll find both historic and forecast employment data related to trucking overall, as well as more specific information on drivers. The industry’s asset investments are represented by sales figures for both new and used trucks.
It’s common knowledge that fuel is a fleet’s highest non-labor operational cost, but if you want to know just how much fuel trucking uses, and in what forms and at what cost, we’ve collated and presented that data from a number of sources.
We combed through mountains of safety-related data collected largely by federal sources to surface a few things that might surprise you about when and where truck accidents happen. And, finally, we took advantage of the controversial federal CSA reporting system to look at key results from the most recent roadside and safety inspections.
Overall, it was a lot of work, but I’m convinced it was worth the effort if only to remind us that the purpose of collecting all this data is to use it to gain useful insights and new perspectives.
