WASHINGTON — The American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) is calling on motor carriers to provide input for the annual update of its Operational Costs of Trucking report. The report, which is used as a resource for benchmarking costs and operations, offers insights about key industry trends to help guide decision-makers.
ATRI collects data confidentially from for-hire motor carriers of all sectors, regions, and sizes, from one-truck owner-operators to 10,000-truck fleets.
Cost metrics requested by ATRI include driver pay, insurance premiums and equipment lease or purchase payments. Carriers and owner-operators can submit these costs for the year 2023 on a per-mile or per-hour basis using an easy-to-use online data entry form or an emailed PDF form. Additional questions cover operational metrics such as the percentage of empty miles, dwell time per stop and driver turnover.
Each participating motor carrier will receive a customized report that compares their fleet’s costs and operations to peer carriers of the same sector and size, as well as an advance copy of the full report.
“We contribute data to ATRI’s Operational Costs every year because its findings are indispensable to our operations,” said Jason Higginbotham, CFO for Ozark Motor Lines. “The customized peer-group analysis provides us an essential update on how our fleet performs, while the full report allows us to identify industry-wide trends and communicate them to our partners.”
For-hire motor carriers are asked to provide operational cost data to ATRI by Friday, April 26, 2024. ATRI’s data collection form is available online here, along with a sample customized report and FAQs. All confidential information is protected, and it is published only in anonymized, aggregate form, according to ATRI.
Linda Garner-Bunch has been in publishing for more than 30 years. You name it, Linda has written about it. She has served as an editor for a group of national do-it-yourself publications and has coordinated the real estate section of Arkansas’ only statewide newspaper, in addition to working on a variety of niche publications ranging from bridal magazines to high-school sports previews and everything in between. She is also an experienced photographer and copy editor who enjoys telling the stories of the “Knights of the Highway,” as she calls our nation’s truck drivers.
