The American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) recently released a new report that quantifies the significant consequences of truck driver detention at customer facilities on industry productivity and safety.
Although driver detention has decreased slightly in recent years, being detained at customer facilities for more than two hours still carries a substantial cost. In 2023, drivers reported being detained in 39.3% of all stops. The frequency of detention was even higher among women drivers (49.1%), refrigerated trailer drivers (56.2%), and fleets that operate in the spot market where more live loads are prevalent (42.5%).
The ATRI report, conducted at the 2024 Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, KY, noted that truck drivers were detained between 117 and 209 hours per year, depending on the sector. In for-hire trucking alone, the total time lost to truck driver detention exceeded 135 million hours in 2023.
The more alarming finding from the survey was that while 94.5% of fleets charge detention fees, they are paid for fewer than 50% of those invoices. As a result, the trucking industry lost $3.6 billion in direct expenses and $11.5 billion in lost productivity from driver detention in 2023.
Finally, an analysis of ATRI’s large truck GPS data at different customer facility types found that detention contributes to higher truck speeds. Trucks that were detained drove 14.6% faster on average than trucks that were not detained. Interestingly, trucks also drove faster on trips to facilities where they were detained, indicating that truck drivers knew which firms and facilities would likely detain them.
“Detention is so common that many industry professionals have accepted it as inevitable without realizing the true extent of its costs,” said Chad England, C.R. England CEO. “ATRI’s report puts real-world numbers to the true impact that truck driver detention has on trucking and the broader economy.”
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