Congestion costs trucking industry $63.4 billion

Updated May 19, 2017
traffic-congestion

Traffic signHere’s what traffic congestion on U.S. highways cost the trucking industry in 2015:

  • $63.4 billion in operational costs
  • 996 million hours of lost productivity
  • 362,243 commercial truck drivers sitting idle for a working year
  • $22,676 per truck for trucks that travel 100,000 miles annually.

Those are the details from a new study released today by the American Transportation Research Institute.

The institute also identified the states, metropolitan areas, and counties that were most effected by these delays and their costs.  The top 10 states each experienced costs of over $2 billion each, with Florida and Texas leading with over $5 billion each. The top 10 list of states and the associated congestion’s costs are:

  1. Florida, $5.316 billion
  2. Texas, $5.134 billion
  3. California, $4.195 billion
  4. New York, $3.902 billion
  5. New Jersey, $2.991 billion
  6. Illinois, $2.677 billion
  7. Pennsylvania, $2.592 billion
  8. Ohio, $2.496 billion
  9. Tennessee, $2.335 billion
  10.  North Carolina, $2.02 billion

According to a statement from ATRI, “As expected, traffic congestion tended to be most severe in urban areas, with 88 percent of the congestion costs concentrated on only 17 percent of the network mileage, and 91 percent of the total congestion cost occurring in metropolitan areas.”

Rich McArdle, president of UPS Freight, said, “Congestion-related costs continue to rise and impact our supply chains. A five minute delay for each UPS vehicle, every day, costs UPS $105 million annually in additional operating costs. ATRI’s report quantifies this drain on the economy which must be addressed through targeted infrastructure investments.” 

You can download the full report from ATRI’s website at atri-online.org.