The billion-dollar problem of commercial trucks in traffic jams

The true price of delays

ATRI’s study used several data sources (i.e., truck GPS database, Operational Costs benchmarks) to calculate the financial impact of delays on trucking companies. The study found:

• A softening freight market in 2022 resulted in a slight decrease in total congestion hours but was offset by higher operational costs for the year than 2021.
• The overall cost of congestion increased by 15.0 percent from 2021.
• Delays are equivalent to more than 430,000 drivers sitting idle for one work year.
• Delays costs an average cost of $7,588 for every registered combination truck.

Regional congestion costs

ATRI examined costs related to delays in states and metropolitan areas. The top 10 states each experienced costs of more than $8 billion.

The leading states were:

• Texas ($9.17B),
• California ($8.77B), and
• Florida ($8.44B).

The top 10 states accounted for 52 percent of trucking’s congestion costs nationwide. The top metropolitan areas for congestion costs were:

• New York City ($6.68B),
• Miami ($3.20B), and
• Chicago ($3.14B).

Wasted fuel

The cost of traffic congestion includes wasted fuel. In 2022 it was found that congestion cost the trucking industry over 6.4 billion gallons of diesel fuel, adding $32.1 billion in additional fuel expenses.