Te Trucking Industry’s Top 10 Hours-of-Service continues to dominate national concerns in trucking, No. 2 for Nebraskans 2014 TOP INDUSTRY ISSUES


BY REBECCA M. BREWSTER Guest Writer


For the past decade, the American


Trucking Associations has turned to the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) to survey trucking industry stakeholders to identify the top issues of concern. Te dynamic shifting of industry priorities over the past ten years demonstrates the complexity of operating in an industry so vital to the economy yet so impacted by forces outside of our immediate control. In the early years of the survey, the rising


cost and limited availability of fuel registered as a top concern, along with the driver shortage. With the onset of the Great Recession, the economy first emerged as an industry concern in 2008 and spent three years as the number one industry issue from 2009 – 2011. Other issues in the survey’s early years but which have since dropped off the top 10 list include truck security, driver training, insurance costs and environmental issues. While still representing significant challenges for the industry, these issues have been eclipsed by emerging concerns including the lack of available truck parking, the upcoming Electronic Logging Device (ELD) mandate and commercial driver health and wellness. In the survey’s first six years, industry


stakeholder concern over the growing scope of federal and state oversight of trucking was captured as one issue, Government Regulations, which peaked in 2009 at the number two spot on the survey. However, that concern disaggregated into several stand- alone issues in more recent years, among them hours-of-service and the deployment of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s


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1. Hours-of-Service 2. Driver Shortage 3. CSA 4. Driver Retention 5. Electronic Logging Device Mandate 6. Truck Parking 7. Infrastructure/Congestion/Transportation Funding 8. Driver Health/Wellness 9. Economy 10. Driver Distraction


NEBRASKA 2014 TOP INDUSTRY ISSUES


1. Driver Shortage 2. Hours-of-Service 3. Electronic Logging Device (ELD) Mandate 4. Driver Retention 5. Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) 6. Truck Parking 7. Transportation Infrastructure/Congestion/Funding 8. Onboard Safety and Efficiency Enhancing Technologies 9. (Tie) Fuel Suppy/Fuel Prices 9. (Tie) Economy


Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) program. CSA first appeared on the top industry issues list in 2010, ranking second overall, and it has continued to rank in the top five issues since. One issue has been on the list, and among


the top five concerns annually, since the survey started in 2005. Te hours-of-service (HOS) rules continue to dominate the collective industry’s concern, and that level of concern


has been closely tied to the impacts of federal rulemaking, regulation changes, rule vacating and the most recent changes to the rules, which went into effect in 2013. In 2014 the HOS rules were once again the


top ranked issue by survey participants as the supply chain continues to experience negative impacts from the changes to the rules which limit the use of the 34-hour restart provision and mandate a 30-minute rest break before


NEBRASKA TRUCKER — ISSUE 1, 2015 — www.nebtrucking.com


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