Today’s Pickup: Congestion costs industry $63.4B

Good morning. Hope the roads are clear where you are today. As it turns out, that is not often the case for many of us. The American Transportation Research Institute reported that congestion on U.S. roadways cost the trucking industry $63.4 billion in 2015 and resulted in 996 million hours of lost productivity, which is equal to 362,243 truck drivers sitting idle for an entire year.

Did you know?

According to the Diesel Technology Forum, it would take the emissions from 60 trucks today to equal the emissions discharge from just one truck in 1988.

Quotable:

“Congestion-related costs continue to rise and impact our supply chains. A five-minute delay for each UPS vehicle, every day, costs UPS $105 million annually in additional operating costs.”

Rich McArdle, president of UPS Freight


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Brian Straight

Brian Straight leads FreightWaves' Modern Shipper brand as Managing Editor. A journalism graduate of the University of Rhode Island, he has covered everything from a presidential election, to professional sports and Little League baseball, and for more than 10 years has covered trucking and logistics. Before joining FreightWaves, he was previously responsible for the editorial quality and production of Fleet Owner magazine and fleetowner.com. Brian lives in Connecticut with his wife and two kids and spends his time coaching his son’s baseball team, golfing with his daughter, and pursuing his never-ending quest to become a professional bowler. You can reach him at bstraight@freightwaves.com.