TT Private 100: Fleets Focusing on Costs, Hiring Drivers
This story appears in the Aug. 15 print edition of Transport Topics.
Increasing freight hauling demand and possible changes in hours-of-service rules and vehicle weight limits are forcing the largest private fleets in the United States and Canada to focus more attention on the availability of drivers and the cost of transporting goods.
Shipper-owned trucks carry about half of the nation’s freight, and the companies on the 2011 Transport Topics Top 100 Private Carriers list provide a wide range of services, including dedicated capacity for manufacturers and wholesale distributors, specialized transport for chemicals, oil and agricultural commodities and store delivery for retailers and other firms.
“We need to increase our fleet by 8% to 10% to handle additional demand,” said Victor Hart, manager of transportation safety for DOT Transportation, a unit of DOT Foods Inc.
Hart also said he expects to see for-hire carriers haul more of DOT Foods’ freight.
A key to providing additional capacity, however, will be the ability of both private and for-hire carriers to find qualified drivers, according to interviews with private fleet managers and industry experts.
“We are ramping up our recruiting efforts and reviewing our pay and benefit structure to be proactive and stay ahead of the issue,” Richard Evans, director of transportation for Valley Proteins Inc., said.
Of concern to nearly all private fleet operators is the possibility that current federal limits on the time drivers can spend behind the wheel could be reduced to 10 hours from 11 hours a day.
Such a change would wreck delivery schedules and drive up operating costs, fleet managers told Transport Topics.
“We would be forced to add additional equipment and drivers to the fleet, which in turn would add more congestion onto roadways,” said Paul Clark, outbound transportation director for Truserv Logistics Co., a unit of True Value Co.
To help ease capacity constraints, many shippers support raising the federal weight limit for tractor-trailers, which would allow more freight to be hauled on existing equipment.
To read more about these developments, turn to the Private TT Top 100 section in this edition, after p. 20.
Click here to download the 2011 Transport Topics 100 listing of U.S. and Canadian private fleets.
