Removing shackles from more productive trucks

Removing shackles from more productive trucks On Second Thought …

Thomas Nightingale Chief Marketing officer, Con-way Inc. board of directors Transport Marketing and Sales Association nightingale.tom@con-way.com

   The year was 1982. The computer was named 'Machine of the Year' by Time. Sony launched the first consumer compact disc player and Congress passed the Surface Transportation Assistance Act to help restore the country's roads and bridges.
   In the 29 years that have since passed, technologies have made remarkable progress. Computers have become smaller, more powerful and hardwired into our everyday lives.
   How about our nation's surface transportation programs? If the state of our nation's highways ' and the policies that govern their use ' are any indication, we're still in the 1980s.
   In fact, our policies and approach to modernizing our transportation infrastructure have failed to meet transportation mobility, sustainability and safety goals, succeeding only in restricting the nation's ability to compete on a global scale.
   It's time to find ways to improve the utility and competitiveness of highway surface transportation without incurring additional costs to users. Allowing the expanded use of more productive trucks, such as longer combination vehicles (LCVs), on more of our nation's roadways is one such way to address these challenges.
   Expanded use of LCVs has been artificially restrained by a federal mandate that usurps states' rights to decide how their highways can be best used. A provision in the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) of 1991 mandates that longer-combination trucks can run only in the 17 states and on approved highways authorized at that time. No expansion has been allowed for 20 years.
   These highways are a part of the federally designated National Network. The system of highways designated for use by commercial trucks to connect principal cities and densely populated state areas has not seen a major change in more than 25 years, though smaller communities have since grown and new, more densely populated areas have emerged.
   State transportation departments are keenly aware of the limitations of their own highways, and rely on the intimate knowledge of engineers and truck safety experts to determine which roadways are best suited for more productive trucks.
   This level of knowledge is simply not available at the federal level. Putting the power back into the hands of each state can make a significant difference.
   Data from the 17 states where LCVs operate shows they have a markedly better safety record than singles and double 28-foot trailers. Better trucks and equipment, advanced safety technologies, training and intelligent law enforcement will lead to further improvements in safety performance.
   There are also efficiency benefits. One triple-trailer combination is able to carry 50 percent more freight, on a ton-mile-per-gallon basis, than a typical 28-foot double-trailer set, while using 29 percent less fuel and generating an equal reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
   Taken together, when you consider the effect of fewer trucks on the road, reduced environmental impact, the controlled conditions under which LCVs are permitted to operate, the proven safety performance, and the high standards of driver skill and experience required of LCV operators, the productivity benefits for our nation are too compelling to ignore any longer. And these can be achieved without investing one additional dollar in highway infrastructure.
   Though the productivity, safety and environmental benefits should be reason enough for the government to remove these restrictions over states' authority to regulate truck configurations, one cannot ignore the devastating impact these 'past-their-time' regulations have on our nation's economy.
   We compete in a global market. The majority of the developed world has the flexibility to use more productive truck configurations in sensible and proven ways. They benefit from improved supply chain velocity and the ability to leverage greater efficiencies moving product to and from the world's markets. Without the opportunity to do the same, the United States is putting itself at a competitive disadvantage. We already cope with an overloaded, aging transportation infrastructure and increasingly strained trucking capacity.
   Artificial government restraints on trucking efficiency will only exacerbate the problem, especially as freight volumes increase, with projections at as much as 30 percent over the next 10 years.
   It's time to remove the shackles on more productive trucks and let our nation's trucking industry compete on a level playing field with the rest of the world.