Experts at Michigan Conference Urge Push for Longer, Heavier Trucks

This story appears in the June 29 print edition of Transport Topics.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The U.S. trucking industry is falling behind its international counterparts in switching to higher-productivity vehicles to deliver freight more efficiently, several experts said in a global forum at the University of Michigan.

A succession of speakers warned that unless the nation raises restrictions on truck sizes and weights, the U.S. economy and environment would suffer as freight volumes rise.

U.S. trucking officials should “work on gaining public acceptance of bigger trucks,” said Ian Johnston, deputy chairman of Australia’s National Transport Commission. “Bigger trucks need to be perceived as part of the solution, not part of the problem.”

Speakers from around the world detailed the regulations in their countries and warned that the United States could face some serious issues when the global recession ends and freight levels rise.

The audience and speakers participated in the International Conference on Efficient, Safe and Sustainable Truck Transportation Systems for the Future, hosted by the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute June 16-17.

“Truck traffic is growing 11 times faster than is highway expansion” in the United States, said Harry Haney, associate director of logistics for Kraft Foods Inc., Madison, Wis. He said Kraft could cut 66,000 truckloads a year, if it were able to load its trailers up to 97,000 pounds, rather than the existing 80,000-pound limit on most of the federal highway system.

“When the recovery in freight comes, [the size of] it will take us by surprise,” warned Stephen Perkins, who runs the Joint Transport Research Center of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

He said the worldwide freight decline has exceeded what is justifiable, based on the recession, meaning that inventories have been severely depleted. At the first sign of recovery, he said, companies will rush to restore inventories, which will lead to a flood of freight.

Jørgen Christensen, chief counsel to the OECD’s transport center and former director of the Danish Road Institute, said that his key recommendation to U.S. executives was “to show political and community leaders the value of bigger trucks,” to dampen criticism by opponents who complain about possible safety issues. In Europe, he said, most growth in freight levels is expected to move by trucks, and many governments there have agreed to raise size and weight limits to facilitate those freight movements.

Charles “Shorty” Whittington, chairman of American Trucking Associations, exhorted his audience not to “lose sight of how freight really moves” in the United States, which is by truck. By 2020, he said, trucks will haul about 71% of all freight moved, compared with 13% for rail and 2% for truck-rail intermodal.

ATA has proposed a multistep program to expand the use of higher-productivity vehicles, said Warren Hoemann, ATA’s senior vice president for industry affairs. The proposal includes allowing 6-axle vehicles to carry 97,000 pounds in states that agree to permit them; allowing states to permit twin 33-foot trailer combinations; harmonizing the use of longer combination vehicles in western states; and permitting a 10% increase in auto-hauler weights to account for today’s heavier vehicles.

John Woodrooffe, director of UMTRI’s Transportation Safety Analysis Division, said the United States suffers from “quite a lag behind the other countries” represented at the conference.

Woodrooffe said the existing weight limits might protect roads and bridges, but they lead to higher emissions from trucks, cost fuel and may lead to more accidents because more trucks are on the road.

Other nations in Europe, Scandinavia and Australia permit combinations that include three 53-foot trailers with limits of about 100,000 pounds for each, and 6-axle rigs with weight limits well above 100,000 pounds.

Rose McMurray, acting chief of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, was noncommittal on the debate over higher weight and size limits, but she promised the issue “will be dealt with” during the effort in Congress to pass the next highway reauthorization package this year.

“There will be a lot of debate over this in the months to come,” she said.

But Tony Furst, director of the Federal Highway Administration’s Office of Freight Management and Operations, said it was his opinion that federal regulators would not support a 97,000-pound limit because of potential damage to the nation’s bridges.

He said there might be more support for a 91,000-pound limit, however.

James Reece, a retired UM business professor who headed an UMTRI study for the National Private Truck Council last year, said raising weight limits on private fleets to 97,000 pounds would save about 2.6 billion gallons of diesel fuel a year and cut greenhouse emissions by 293 million tons.