TJS1018

TRUCKINGNEWS
transportation occupation, with approximately
2.83 million truck drivers. About 57.5 percent of
these professional truck drivers operate heavy
trucks and 28.2 percent drive light trucks.
The FAST Act also required the FHWA to report
on the condition of the National Highway
Freight Network (NHFN).
In 2012, the NHFN consisted of 51,029 centerline
miles, including 46,947 centerline miles
of interstate and 4,082 centerline miles of noninterstate
roads.
Based on 2014 international roughness index
(IRI) data from the Highway Performance
Monitoring System (HPMS), approximately 77
percent of pavement miles were rated as having
good ride quality, 19 percent had fair ride
quality, and 4 percent had poor ride quality.
Professional truck drivers might take exception
to the agency’s claim that 77 percent of
pavement miles are in good condition.
The National Bridge Inventory (NBI), which
is used to identify current bridge ratings for
bridges shows there are approximately 57,600
bridges on the NHFN. Around 4.3 percent of
those were rated as structurally deficient. Most
of these structurally deficient bridges are 25
years and older and over half are more than 50
years old. These findings have implications for
future maintenance and funding needs as well
as impacts to operations.
The FHWA said travel time, speed and safety
are three measures of performance.
Slower speeds and unreliable travel times
caused by congestion increase fuel costs and
affect operations and productivity, which adds
expense to the freight transportation system,
the report said, noting that in 2014, congestion
created stop-and-go conditions on 5,800 miles
of the NHFN and caused traffic to travel below
posted speed limits on an additional 4,500
miles of the high-volume truck portions of the
NHFN.
38 // TJS 2018