The Trucker Newspaper - November 1, 2018

THETRUCKER.COM
b Congestion from page 1 b
That analysis shows the average congestion
cost for trucks driven 100,000 miles was
$25,875; for 125,000 miles it was $32,350; and
for trucks driven 150,000 it was $38,812.
Hooper listed three takeaways/surprises in
the analysis:
• Congestion costs increased between 2015
and 2016 despite the soft freight market that
year, the effects of which can be seen in the
year-over-year decline in congestion costs observed
during the second half of 2016.
• The congestion costs incurred by the
trucking industry are increasingly concentrated
in a relatively small number of densely
populated urban areas. The top 10 states in
terms of congestion costs combine to account
for over half (51.8 percent) of these costs,
while the top 10 metropolitan areas represent
one-quarter of the national total. Moreover,
over 90 percent of congestion costs occur
in urban metropolitan areas. Another way to
look at it is that 85.7 percent of the industry’s
congestion costs occur on just 17.2 percent of
NHS miles.
• The effects of temporary delays (e.g. construction
or weather-related delays) will be
more pronounced in areas with relatively small
roadway networks. For instance, the Elizabethtown/Fort
Knox, Kentucky, metropolitan area
tops the list in terms of both congestion costs
per mile and per-mile increases because of the
I-65 widening project. Similarly, congestion
costs surged in Lafayette, Louisiana, in part
because of the effects of the catastrophic flooding
that impacted much of southern Louisiana
in August 2016.
As expected, the survey showed traffic congestion
tended to be most severe in urban areas,
with more than 91 percent of the total congestion
costs generating from metropolitan areas.
ATRI’s analysis also documented the states,
metropolitan areas and counties that were most
impacted by these delays and subsequent cost
increases.
The top 10 states experienced costs of more
than $2.4 billion each, led by Texas and Florida,
with over $5.5 billion each. Others in the
top 10 included California, New York, New
Jersey, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Ohio
and North Carolina. The top 10 states combined
account for 51.8 percent of the congestion
costs nationwide.
The top 10 states with the largest increase
in cost congestion were Texas, California, Wisconsin,
West Virginia, Louisiana, Mississippi,
Georgia, Hawaii, Florida and Rhode Island.
Nation November 1-14, 2018 • 7
“Perhaps no other issue has as great an
impact on this nation’s supply chain as traffic
congestion. In the face of growing and pervasive
congestion, not only does the trucking
industry lose billions annually but ultimately
the consumer pays the price through
higher prices on the shelf,” said Benjamin J.
McLean, Ruan Transportation Management
Systems CEO and a member of the ATRI
board of directors. “Doing nothing to address
the state of our nation’s infrastructure
will create a significant impediment to the
growth of our economy.”
As part of this analysis, ATRI has updated
its congestion cost database with 2016 data to
provide granular cost information to transportation
planning officials on the hours of delay
and associated cost by major jurisdiction type
and road level.
ATRI listed three major factors that contributed
to increased congestion in 2016:
• A continued increase in traffic incidents,
including a record 7.3 million police-reported
crashes and a 5.6 percent increase in fatalities
from motor vehicle crashes on U.S. roadways
• Growing economic activity as evidenced
by annual U.S. Gross Domestic Product
growth of 1.5 percent and growth in e-commerce
sales of 14.9 percent between 2015 and
2016, and
• Weather impacts such as Winter Storm
Jonas — a record-breaking snowstorm which
impacted the Northeast, Appalachians, and
mid-Atlantic in January 2016. 8
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