This week’s article will be an introduction to the American Transportation Research Institute’s (ATRI) Top Industry Issue Rankings for 2017.
Issues on this list include some that we’ve already covered, such as the driver shortage and others that we haven’t covered yet, such as truck parking.
Among the items on the list, some have been top issues for a number of years, and others are relative newcomers. For example, hours of service (HOS) has been a top 5 issue for the past 13 years and has been the 1 or 2 ranked issue for more than half of those years. This makes sense, because trucker’s hours have always been regulated in some way to protect drivers and those on the road. Complications and uncertainties regarding the specificities of these regulations have created an environment where HOS persists as an issue.
On the other side of the coin, items such as Cumulative Impacts of Regulation were just introduced last year. The rise of this issue is an obvious side effect of regulations in the industry becoming confusing, overbearing, or both (depending on who you ask.) Clearly, this is an issue that is concerning drivers more than it has in past years. Other issues concerning regulations, such as ELD mandate and compliance, safety, and accountability also appear on the list.
Emerging issues include concerns about the economy, autonomous vehicles, and diesel technician shortages. The economy has been healthy, but is always unpredictable, so the prevalence of this issue in coming years is largely a roll of the dice. For the time being, economic conditions highly favor truckers, as the demand for transportation is very high. The growth of autonomous vehicles is another issue rising to the forefront. Unlike economy, we envision autonomous vehicles becoming a number 1 issue in years to come. Industry leaders are still uncertain as to if massive numbers of drivers will be displaced. It goes without saying, however, that automation will be a major disruptor in the industry. The diesel technician shortage is another issue that we anticipate to become more severe if trends hold.
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