Trucking Set for Recovery

This story appears in the Oct. 12 print edition of Transport Topics.

LAS VEGAS — After more than a year of political and economic struggles, trucking leaders said they were doubling down in the hope that the industry would enter a period of strong recovery.

“The thought that’s gone through my mind on a number of occasions is that these are the folks that have planned all along to be standing and operating on the other side of the recovery,” American Trucking Associations President Bill Graves said following the federation’s annual Management Conference & Exhibition here Oct. 7.

“I think the entrepreneurial spirit and the juices start flowing because they sense that when it does come back, given what’s happened to some of the other companies that have exited the industry — and we know there’s some capacity that’s come out of the industry — they plan to have much better times over the next two or three years than they have had over the last year and a half.”

New ATA Chairman Tommy Hodges, chairman of Titan Transfer Inc., said he “couldn’t be more impressed with the attitude and atmosphere that’s here, considering the economic conditions that we find ourselves in.”

“People seem to be relatively upbeat, not satisfied with what business conditions are, but they’ve survived it to this point and they seem to be upbeat and looking forward to a much, much better six months or a year,” Hodges said.

Graves said the meeting was “really good . . . when you consider that I didn’t exactly open with the most upbeat political and policy preview, and we certainly didn’t see the most optimistic economic forecast” from various speakers.

In his opening State of the Industry address, Graves said, “No matter how you look at it, these are very unsettling and challenging times.”

Bob Costello, ATA’s chief economist, said that the economy has “bottomed out,” and while things were heading in the right direction, “it will be slow and choppy ahead.”

“We’re seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s not the headlights of a truck,” said Charles “Shorty” Whittington, president of Grammer Industries and immediate past chairman of ATA.

Graves said that despite the bad economy, “we have had reasonably strong attendance, not record attendance, but not bad . . . [and] a reasonably strong trade show — not what we’ve had in the past but still pretty strong. Both the supplier community’s here, the fleet members are here, they’re all still really focused on the business at hand.”

“The show’s been great, in terms of generating quality leads,” Jon Long, DieselMisers’ president and general manager, said from the exhibit hall floor.

While the economy dominated the discussions here, industry leaders did work on a number of policy fronts, ranging from safety issues to environmental programs.

Hodges, who was installed as chairman at the close of the meeting, said he wanted ATA “to focus on being much more proactive.”

ATA’s sustainability task force, which Hodges chaired, is an example of trucking taking a proactive position on an issue, he said.

“I’m not a greenie and I’m not a tree hugger,” Hodges said during a session on profiting from greening your fleet, “but we do have a responsibility to the next generation . . . and the benefit really is it helps our profitability.”

FedEx Freight President Doug Duncan said increasing sustainability in trucking “can really be a win-win for our businesses,” by reducing costs and reducing emissions.

Another proactive position ATA took was endorsing federal legislation to ban text messaging while driving.

“I think it’s the right thing to do, it’s the right thing for safety, it’s the right position for our industry to take,” Graves said of ATA’s endorsement of a bill by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) that would strip states of a portion of highway funds if they do not enact texting bans.

The federation also refined policies on the use of natural gas to fuel trucks, the use of safety technology and on the need for federal rules guiding what evidence fleets need to keep to verify their drivers’ hours-of-service compliance.

Fleet executives and regulators continued to tout the importance of using technology to improve safety.

Former Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administrator John Hill told ATA members that using technology “is something industry can do without government having to interfere,” and that devices like lane-departure warning and collision warning systems have the potential to induce “record levels of reductions” in highway deaths, injuries and property damage crashes.

The acting administrator of FMCSA, Rose McMurray, announced that later this year, fleets will be able to access driver safety records before hiring them — a first for the industry.

“This is something that the industry has been asking us to undertake for a number of years,” she said.

Barbara Windsor, president of Hahn Transportation and first vice chairwoman of ATA, said the database was something industry has “needed and begged for.”

News Editor Neil Abt and Staff Reporter Dan Leone contributed to this report.